Февраль 1878 года

February 1st. From today and forever, grant me, Lord, to finish with meat, for if we do not live on bread alone, then how much more will man live on meat alone [Matthew 4:4, etc.]; and I feel extreme pain from meat, even from meat soup, for it is also very nutritious. And how little food I need! And I still forget this and anger the Lord. Five o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who soon delivered me from the jaws of the demons in Bogdanov’s wing after reading prayers to the mother in labor and naming the baby’s name, when I, remembering the ruble given to my grandmother, felt sorry for him, especially because of the sexton Polyglotov, and therefore became speechless and was wounded, killed by the ethereal enemy. The Lord soon heard me and soon saved me, who had been killed. How easy it is for the devil, my implacable enemy, to hurt me! One moment - and he killed me for a while! God! Deliver me from his wiles! February 2. Prosphyra and consecrated bread should not be sent out during services: this reflects extreme man-pleasing and servility of the priest to those persons to whom prosphyra or consecrated bread is sent. And this in the church in the presence of God and in the face of a large gathering of people is extremely bad. And what, and what are these persons to whom I send prosphyra before the eyes of God? Aren't they sinners? While I especially honor them, perhaps they are humiliated before the Lord - for pride, for love of money, wickedness, covetousness, etc. Forgive me, Lord, for my former man-pleasing before Your eyes. Yesterday during the all-night vigil there was a terrible struggle with evil forces that cruelly attacked and wounded me, causing confusion, shame, dumbness, powerlessness, and darkening of heart; I could not overcome due to gluttony and satiety, especially tea drinking. Only the mercy of the Lord, having accepted me for my repentance, defeated the incorporeal enemies in me. I thank the Lord. (At Come, let us worship, I could not say Come, let us worship and fall down to Christ Himself, the King and our God, at the litany of the exclamation Hear us, O God, to our Savior; the prayer of the Most Merciful Master - all, excluding Saint Joseph the Songwriter and Alexander Nevsky; at the blessing of the loaves he did not pronounce the doxology, at the end of the all-night vigil to Christ , True Light, and earlier - the holiday of the holiday; the dismissal of the first hour too - the demons fiercely attacked me and ate at the top of my lungs.) Due to bodily weakness, due to my weak body, I must certainly consume milk and quick soup during fasting: fasting food only upsets me both during worship and at home and makes me more weak (Lukin’s pickled smelt seemed harmful to me); Today, very lean homemade food at lunch - cabbage soup with fish and fried smelt, and Provençal butter with bread resonated very badly for me at the spring vigil in the Assumption Church on February 2nd - the Presentation of the Lord. Evening of February 2. God! Have mercy on me, for I did not walk before You every day in simplicity, gentleness, humility and purity, but often in wickedness, malice and pride and foolishness, in intemperance, gluttony, laziness and negligence. It was hard, inexpressibly hard for me today during late mass because of yesterday’s feast with my fellow merchant Onuphrius Ek until late at night (until half past one in the morning). Lukina (madeira, tea, pickled smelt, cod); my heart was cold, powerless, fearful, dead, bound, there was no pure, free, peaceful, sincere prayer; the devil constantly brought me down - I read the prayer for victory with difficulty, forcibly, fearfully, insincerely, did not finish as it should, missed many words; at the great entrance - quite bad; First of all, remember, the Lord stole, only said the end. But after communion of the Holy Mysteries, the Lord miraculously revived me, dead in sin, pacified, comforted, strengthened. He preached the sermon well. I praise the Lord for His wonderful salvation. In the evening at Gorbunov’s he baptized with a triumphant spirit and became animated; talked eloquently and sweetly about the blessings of God. I thank the Lord for the double miracle of my pardon and salvation in the evening through the prayer of my repentance for my severity and obstinacy towards the poor, for my proud, arrogant, evil, envious, money-loving and stingy habits in dealing with them. With all my heart I condemned myself, asked for mercy and graciously received mercy. Yesterday, during the all-night vigil during the censing of the holy icons, arousing in myself a God-thought mood at the sight of them, I came to a feeling of the greatness of God’s benefits shown to human nature, to the consciousness of its deification through the incarnation of the Son of God and through the Sacraments of our faith, the greatness and nobility of human nature as a result of the sacrament of the incarnation of God (especially the holiness and greatness of the saints of God, especially the Mother of God and all holy apostles, prophets, martyrs, hierarchs and saints and all saints), the exaltation of icons that are one with the saints of God under the one Head of the Church - and I was touched, but soon the wave of Belial destroyed the purity of my feelings, eclipsed and desecrated the eye of the heart. Oh, the envy of Belial! O waves of Belial, hater of all good things! February 3. We often and every day forget that life here is short, the blessings here are a dream and pass quickly, that there is eternal life and eternal blessings. That is why in our life there is a darkness of inconsistencies and everything is placed upside down: the body and bodily goods are at the top, and the soul and its needs are below, and sometimes driven away from below - they are not there! Evening, February 3. I thank the Lord, who gave me the joy of His salvation at the memorial service in Anisimov’s house on Ekaterininskaya Street, when I, weighed down to a large extent by grape wine, was powerless in my heart to fight the disembodied enemy, who fought fear, fear, and doubt, and powerlessness in pronouncing familiar exclamations, of which I missed several with intention. I prayed fervently on my knees to the Lord for mercy and help - and help came from the Lord. I defeated the enemy and said the litany and let go without stumbling, and the intoxication went away, and the intoxication disappeared, and boldness appeared. This is the betrayal of the right hand of the Most High 106 [Ps.76:11]. Love for the world, for the flesh, for so-called earthly goods, cools a person towards God, towards his neighbor, towards the salvation of the soul and souls of men, blinds, weakens the soul, doubles it, and this duality is deadly for it, corrupts it. On the contrary, complete love for God, for neighbors, for spiritual salvation revives the soul, inspires, enlightens, strengthens it, delights it with unspeakable joy. Meanwhile, we all almost suffer from a sinful love for the world and its pleasures, a split in the soul, created simply, not dually (you cannot work for God and mammon [Matthew 6:24]), we gravitate more towards the world than we soar towards God. That is why, during the celebration of the liturgy itself, Divine, heavenly, life-giving, terrible, all-enlightening, all-redemptive, all-loving, we often stand cold, burdened with the chains of various worldly addictions, having a heart that is petrified, unclean, drawn to the earth, to the love of things unworthy of the immortal spirit deified by the Redeemer. I thank the Lord for the narrow, regrettable, punitive, instructive, purifying path, for, walking this path, I become more attentive to the commandments of God, more careful in life, in thoughts, desires, words, intentions, actions, more keenly visual, more prudent, purer in spirit and body, always, every hour closer to God and to eternal life and bliss. A heart subject to strangling passions is extremely stupid, absurd, wild, rude, blind, vague, cramped, but a heart devoted to God, loving God completely, is wise, bright, soft, kind, peaceful, firm, joyful, spacious. 4. I thank the Lord, who gave me His salvation during Matins twice and three times, then in the gymnasium, then before the prayer service in the apartment of Verkhovsky, captain of the second rank, in the house of Nazarova. I am a damned sinner - I sin every day according to the sinful habit and do not feel my sins, I do not lament, I do not cry about them, considering them as some ordinary thing, thinking that this is how it should be, or realizing that it should not be so, but not making a firm decision to correct myself, for example, from gluttony, satiety, drinking wine without strict measure, while these sins are very serious and attract behind it is a prodigal disposition of the heart. Do not get drunk with wine, for there is fornication in it [Eph.5:18]. The Christian faith gave a huge impetus to human thought, illuminated the entire field of thought with a wondrous light and led him to various comprehensive discoveries in the field of science. The word of God is true, that the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, and to those who sit in the land and the shadow [Russian: shadows] of death, a light has risen to them [Is. 9:2; Matthew 4:16]. Therefore, let the faith of Christ be revered above all else. February 5th. Resurrection. Week of the Publican and the Pharisee. I behaved unworthily for a whole year after last year’s confession, I did not correct my heart and my damned life: I made daily fat sacrifices to the idol - my belly, cared for the multi-passionate flesh, pleased it, cherished it. Only when I sinned, I always tried to repent and sing to the Lord in His church, to glorify and thank the Lord and His saints, especially His Most Pure Mother. Although for this sake and especially for the sake of Your ineffable generosity, have mercy and save me, Lord, correct everything, enlighten, strengthen, renew, sanctify. Not only with our minds, but especially with our hearts, we understand all the greatness and all-saving power of the Christian faith, for the heart, the source of 107 life, for the sake of sin is struck by death, darkness, crowdedness, melancholy and other punitive measures, suffers the greatest misfortune and for the sake of repentance and for its faith experiences daily the greatest salvation of God through revival by grace, forgiveness of sins, peace, freedom and space, joy and bliss. All passions nest in the heart and strike it with death, like the offspring of its parent or its mother; the heart has a need primarily for deliverance and salvation. This is what happens. Glory to the faith of Christ, glory to Christ God, who saves our souls. Therefore, the heart must be preserved by all means, for it is our sense: with it we must feel all the greatness of God’s blessings; it is the sanctuary of God, in it the Lord God rests, and it is also the source of all evil and all abomination: for from the heart come evil thoughts... adultery, fornication... false witness, blasphemy... the evil eye [Matthew 15:19; Mark 7:22], etc. Guard your heart with all care: from these comes life [Proverbs 4:23]. The heart is a contemplative ability (it is the eye of the soul), sensitive - with it we feel both the greatness of our sins and the greatness of God’s saving blessings; from it is tenderness and tears about sins, from it comes joy or sadness, from it courage or cowardice and fear, in it is the center of life in the spirit - in it is the center of carnal life, for the heart can be a den of all passions, it can be both the church of God and the church of mental pigs - demons. From the heart comes every devilish temptation, every delusion, every sin, every passion. How great, inexpressible salvation our Savior Jesus Christ brought to earth, this again only our heart knows experimentally, as the center of life and death, truth and sin. Glory to You, our Savior God forever and ever. Amen. After early mass on Sunday, February 5th. What I logically expected from the beginning and the consequences for my gluttony and satiety, today happened to me, the accursed one, according to my deed: at the end of the all-night vigil and during the entire mass I was in a terrible agony of temptation from evil demons: agitated, bound, darkened, shamed - the first time for dissatisfaction with the prosfir and prosfir (which were not made in shape, small), the second time for grief at sexton for uneven singing, for the steep transition from the upper to the lower tone, when it was necessary to sing the Grace of the world and Worthy and Righteous to Eat... The devil deprived me of every good feeling, all life, all peace, completely paralyzed my heart, destroyed my poor soul, shamed it to the extreme. And this is all my doing, for yesterday several times, unscrupulously, I indulged in excess in food and drink at home and with Father Pyotr Klepachevsky, who kindly invited me to evening tea. What a terrible consequence of satiety! I had fallen away from God, from the life of God and from all love of my neighbor, I was deprived of peace, freedom, life of the spirit, light, strength, boldness. True idolatry of the womb killed me, completely alienating me from God and the love of my neighbor. Meanwhile, what is more common with me than gluttony? O I, accursed idolater! I bitterly repent of the fact that I subjugated to the flesh what is in me in the image of God - the soul, the best to the worst, and, moving away from God, fell into death. Have I not yet learned to be content with the Lord my God, Who is the fullness of all good things? Have I not yet learned to abstain? And I also eat so often the Body and Blood of my Lord! The earth, which has drunk the rain that falls upon it many times and produces grain useful to those for whom it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God, but the one that produces thorns and thistles (I, a sinner) is unprofitable and is close to a curse, the end of which is burning... For complete assurance of hope, I must be zealous for good works to the end (Heb. 6:7-11). I almost died today during the liturgy, that is, morally: throughout the mass I was in confusion and crampedness, and I called on the Holy Spirit in confusion and crampedness at a time filled with reverence for heaven and earth. This is what excesses in food and drink and in bodily strength lead to - to the destruction of the soul! The most necessary [virtue] for a priest is humility and kindness with patience. But I still don’t have any kindness or humility! May God acquire them! Otherwise I will die. And then non-covetousness, almsgiving, abstinence, purity and chastity! I thank the Lord, who saved me through the prayer of my repentance after mass, when I came home, from the most painful wiles of the devil. Glory to Thee, Lord, for Thy mercy exceeded all my sins and all the enemy’s snares, and the devil departed, disgraced. And he ate me wholeheartedly, like a spider ate a fly, entangled me in his webs, grabbed me with his hellish claws and devoured me! Oh, how murderous is the captivity of the enemy, how cruel is his death! How deadly are his claws! How many careless people die from them! God! Save Your people and bless Your heritage! In order not to please the devil during mass, be content with any prosphora, small or large, because all the power lies in the part or particle of the Lamb prosphora, transformed into the Body of Christ - it would be there, but some prosphora, all the same, provide them to others, and others do not need them at all, and if anyone wants more, let him order it himself; and be pleased with every voice of the sexton or singers: high or low, because this is external, but you pay all your attention to your inner, so that there is peace and love, for only the meek and humble heart does the Lord look upon and descend into such a heart. But for you, due to your sins, it’s the other way around: you pay all your attention to the external, but not to the internal, which is why you have no internal good - peace and kindness, and purity. In order not to be tempted and embarrassed by any insignificant accident, judge every case and every thing, every person who tempts, according to the essence, and not according to appearances or because, as it seems to you, and the harmful charm will disappear. Temptations amaze and kill our soul precisely because we mistake ghosts for beings and therefore are greatly confused and tormented by them. (So, judge the prosphora on its merits, what is essential in it, namely the part taken out of it, the Lamb, or other parts from other prosphoras, and everything else is unimportant in comparison with them - and the charm will disappear.) What do I need in the prosphora? I am full and satiated with bread. A sick person is disturbed by everything, irritated by every trifle; Likewise, every trifle disturbs, irritates, kills a sick, passionate heart: someone looked unkindly or treated you - trouble; If someone doesn’t bow, it’s a disaster; small prosphora - trouble; a shirt sticking out from behind a tie means trouble; came up poorly - trouble; giving someone too much against me is a disaster; Those who are doing better than me are in trouble; praising someone other than me is a disaster. But the one who despises everything earthly does not care about this, he is indifferent to everything and therefore is always calm. So, this is where the undying worm among worldly people is - these are their undying, tenacious passions, their passionate, damned heart. Do not offend this people forever against My Spirit: I will destroy them, said the Lord about the people who lived before the flood [Gen.6:3]. You daily and hourly insult, O unworthy priest, the Spirit of God: be careful that the Lord does not say the same about you. Blessed be our God... This title of the service shows that the service will consist primarily of praising God. Same Glory to the Saints... 7. I thank the Lord, who called me, unworthy, to serve the liturgy this day and revived me through the communion of His Divine Mysteries. During mass, the enemy was extremely intensified to plunge me into despondency, despair, cowardice, fear, and all because of my gluttony: there is no strength in my heart to resist the enemy victoriously, from voluptuousness it has become flabby, weak, rotten. Evening. I thank the Lord, who had mercy on me, a sinner, for my repentance and who delivered me from sorrow and distress for my harsh and rude treatment of the beggars who stood at the fence. I reproached and scolded them for what I myself sin every day. It was sweet to feel the joy of deliverance, peace and freedom. You are great, Lord, in everything: great in righteousness, great in mercy—for everything, glory to You. Glory to Thee, all-merciful, cheerful, kindly obedient, quick to obey, gracious and gracious Lord Jesus Christ our God, with the Father and Thy Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen. I visited Kromid and the Khazirinovs, ate cheese with butter and sweet and sour bread; I slept poorly at night because my insides were sucked. Be faithful to the Lord God and you will not fear any enemies, you will break everyone by the power of the Lord. Trust in Him, cast all your sins into the abyss of His mercy - He will deliver you from everyone, cleanse you, and justify you. He is truth 108 and deliverance and sanctification. Do not be discouraged by any past or present sins, for the Lord has mercy and much deliverance, and He will deliver you from all your iniquities [Ps. 129:6]. Twelve o'clock in the evening on February 8th. Today I got very drunk at Alexander Ivanovich Popov’s house due to my carelessness and carelessness and greed. I spent four hours visiting. God! Be merciful to me, a sinner! This manuscript cries out against me that yesterday I was very drunk, carried away with childish frivolity by good wines and dishes while visiting Alexander Ivanovich Popov. And today I had a severe headache and felt the urge to vomit. Apples and cabbage soup with borscht, and even more so the grace of God, corrected my sleep in the evening. February 9. I thank the Lord, who gave me insight through a simple, unlearned man Fyodor Vasilyevich, that for a person who does not work, one prosphora a day is enough and he does not need either wine or full meals. This applies to me. Grant me, Lord, to begin fasting and always fast throughout the rest of my life, pleasing You, the Lord and Master of my life. And my wife rightly scolded me for coming home late at night, although I was offended at her for this out of vanity and pride. So, I became embittered with my wife for her rude treatment of me, for her curses and reproaches. Grant me, Lord, kindness, humility and patience, take away from me every kind of self-love, grant me the never-falling love of loving enemies and those who harm me, disobedient and frisky children who do not let up from my words and from the indulgence of my wife, for they do this out of stupidity, and not out of malice, even if it were out of malice, and then grant me to love them and overcome malice with love. Here, before You, Lord, I repent of my hostility towards my wife, who upset me by indulging in playful and disobedient children and by her swearing and scolding. By Thy grace I leave behind my hostility as absurd, insane, as the work of the devil; I don’t want for a moment to be a servant of the devil, to do what pleases him. I love you unfailingly, unfeignedly, relentlessly. Forgive my wife her voluntary and involuntary sins, all the sins with which she offended me and especially You, Lord! Here we insult You countless times every day, we insult You boldly, severely, and You are patient with us - I am insulted very little, and I do not tolerate it, I am offended, I get angry. I'm damned! I'm crazy! 10. I thank the Lord, who, by His great mercy, restored my health, shaken by my intemperance. (Borscht with meat cabbage soup, apples; not eating meat - moderation.) After the gymnasium classes today I served a prayer service with Semyon Andreevich the tanner, there were pulchrue foemine juniores 109. Before the prayer service and at the beginning of the prayer service, the prodigal demon stung, oppressed, embarrassed me, and as soon as I overcame his violence with a prayer of repentance. Reading the sacred story after prayer finally drove him away. Praise the Lord. At the christening in the apartment of engineer-colonel Sokolov, the demon also played a dirty trick - he finally defeated him. Reason: sweet tea and very nice Moscow rolls. Kozlyaninov has a new embarrassment and prodigal sting - he cleansed himself and calmed himself with prayer. 11. Yesterday’s chocolate at Kozlyaninov’s made my heart suck and is still sucking; did not allow me to sleep in the morning. Don't drink chocolate. I thank the Lord, who has called me this day to serve the early liturgy (from Osetrova, Rumyantseva). Oh, how I found myself weak in soul and body from former gluttony and drunkenness - it is impossible to express: thorns covered my entire soul, wounded, killed, embarrassed, shamed, weakened; I could not speak other words or names. But praise the Lord! Having received the Holy Mysteries, I was revived again. Before the beginning of mass and during the proskomedia and liturgy of the catechumens, I was embarrassed by the slyness of the prosphora maker, who provided small, stale prosphoras. But I despised, by the grace of God, the flesh and what is for the flesh, for I saw that this warfare is from the flesh and from the devil. We must be one heart and one mouth among ourselves and with all the saints, and with the Lady Theotokos Herself. How can this happen without cleansing our hearts? Let us cleanse our hearts, urgently cleanse them with the grace of God, with tears of repentance, prayer and fasting. Do you care about a body that will be devoured by worms? Is it about the immortal, truly beautiful soul, from which all bodily beauty, do you not please and destroy it? Oh, madness! (Because of the meager and stale prosphyras during early mass. The prosphyra maker sensed my displeasure: when I was with her, she apologized. May God forgive her and not hold it against me.) After the all-night vigil on Sunday, February 12. I thank the most merciful Lord, who during the service gave me tears of tenderness, high feelings of contemplation and prayer for His people, redeemed by His Blood. But the enemy also cunned over me, nesting inside me and causing confusion and fear in certain places of service, in which he used to trip me up; So, out of fear of the devil, I did not glorify the mercy, generosity and love of the Lord Jesus Christ after the prayer Save, O God, Thy people; He did not say everything clearly, separately, in the hearing of everyone, but only the last words: He will have mercy and save us, as He is Good and Lover of Mankind; I didn’t say the whole prayer to Christ, the True Light, but the words: correct our steps to do Your commandments, I missed it and didn’t say the whole last release. And before, and during, and after these omissions, out of fear, the enemy pressed me, as if he had captured me; but with great faith and with great trust in the mercy and power of my God, I fell with a prayer of repentance to His terrible throne, and the enemy, like an arrow, bounced off my insides, and I felt light and calm. Glory to the Lord! The Old Testament prophecies about Christ, fulfilled on Him with His coming to earth, serve as irrefutable proof of the truth and salvific nature of our Christian faith and at the same time the surest guarantee that all the prophecies of the prophets, Christ Himself and the apostles about the future fate of the Church of Christ, as well as about the second coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment, the eternal torment of sinners and the eternal bliss of the righteous will certainly be fulfilled. All that remains is to revere the Christian faith, carefully fulfill the duties entrusted to us by it, be sanctified by it and its Sacraments and divine services, and prepare with zeal for the future resurrection of all the dead and the life of the next century, which has no end; to also honor the servants of the faith, honor them primarily with love for their work [1.5:13], for they have been given the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and they are our guides to piety and eternal salvation, they sanctify us, enlighten us, confirm, console, strengthen. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to read with great tenderness and tears the canons and akathists to the Savior, the Mother of God (akathist) and the holy Guardian Angel. At first it was hard, I felt sleepy, but I overcame the attraction, and it became good, light, warm. Glory to the Lord! February 13. After all the grave temptations from invisible evil enemies, after all the difficult struggles during the liturgy, at prayer services at Velikanov and in Krayushkin’s house, and especially in the church of the Technical School at the wedding of Spiridon Pavlov (before this wedding I prayed for a long time, being in sins, sorrows and misfortunes, with tears), finally the Lord gave me sweet peace and sweet, healthy sleep, which rarely happens - and no burden, no anxiety. Glory to the Lord! And during mass I felt very difficult: for my sins and addictions, the enemy terribly attacked me, stopped me, struck me, and killed me; my heart was dull, cold, dead, filled with sinful thorns, which pressed, embarrassed, weakened, tormented, and shamed me. And so throughout the mass. The voice was weak, heavy, unclean, there was no boldness, no warm love for God and for people too, for the enemy leaned on me and crushed every feeling, however, tears of tenderness were given for a while from the Lord. He said his sermon quite well, may the Lord give it strength - the power of God is made perfect in weakness [2.12:9]. There were many grave temptations and struggles due to my greed and carelessness in food and drink: after mass at Velikanov’s, I drank (after the prayer service) three glasses of strong foreign wine and became drunk; At dinner at home I ate a lot of borscht, meat, especially turkey, and semolina; This brought a lot of rubbish and thorns into the stomach and into the heart. I need very little food. The consequence of carelessness and disorder was that at Vespers I had to leave the litanies to speak, and then what I said, I spoke confusedly, timidly, skipping - I was so intoxicated. However, this also happened from food alone, without wine. 14. I thank the Lord for the wonderful revitalization of my soul and body with the most pure and life-giving Mysteries after a difficult struggle with evil, nasty forces and being killed by them (at the great entrance I lost my way due to their cunning). I thank the Lord, who quickly showed me help and deliverance from cramped conditions, sorrow, darkness and shame (on the occasion of the late arrival of Yulia Ivanovna Lapshinnikova to us) in the apartment, that is, I was indignant at her, cowardly and impatient, and fell from love out of pride, but I repented, and the Lord forgave, giving peace, so I talked calmly and with love and humility with her. Nikolai Sidorov. If you bring ... humble yourself with your brother [Matthew 5:23–24]. Philip Stepanov. The Pharisee, without humility, ruined his good deeds, and the publican was justified. Without love, even if you give away all your possessions, there is no benefit to you [1.13:3]. Self-love and pride with vanity are the moth of all virtue. Sidorov to bless to change me, the confessor, to another, for I will have to answer for him before God, but I am useless to him, because he has no heartfelt disposition towards me, but on the contrary, contempt, for he does not accept me into the house with the cross of the Lord. Evening, ten o'clock. I thank the Lord, obedient and quick to obey, who quickly heard me during the liturgy, when I cried out in repentance for help and salvation from the villainy of invisible enemies, who were wounding and killing my soul and body, first before the Gospel, during the reading of the Apostle, and then at the great entrance, when again, wounded, I cried out to God for help and received peace and a glorious, gracious voice; then after communion of the Holy Mysteries. During the celebration of the Eucharist, I was greatly offended and embarrassed by the sailor’s too loud singing and forbade him to sing so loudly, I was offended by this, embarrassed. I sinned that I blocked the source of grace; repented, had mercy. February 15. During Matins there was a strong struggle: at the Midnight Office the enemy did not allow the dismissal and litany to be spoken: Let us pray... At Matins at the beginning, before the Six Psalms too... After the Six Psalms, by the grace of God, he broke the machinations of the enemy. Because of yesterday’s enjoyment of food and drink, I was tempted by this – the pleasure paralyzed my heart. I thank the Lord for help and mercy, for His strength, for His grace-filled life. 15. I have not even touched Christian love of wisdom, living in pleasing the flesh until now and not fasting, not mortifying my flesh with passions and lusts, which is why I do not have sincere and undying love for God and my neighbor. Woe to me, a sinner! I thank the Lord, who revived me through the communion of His Holy Mysteries. During mass there is a great struggle against demonic violence and against one’s weak, cowardly, unclean heart. At the great entrance, I defeated the enemy, pronouncing the names of the highest persons, but was defeated by demons in another way: the deacon seemed spiritually decrepit to me from my success, I became faint-hearted, smiled and relaxed. Then I repented. The Lord had mercy. If we don’t wash the enemy, we pester him by rolling around. My heart is weak from gluttony, I need to strengthen it with fasting, prayer, and frequent reading of the word of God. Send a letter to poor Anna Gerasimova. Hitherto I am sick and mad with love for corruption and neglect the eternal treasure of virtue and eternal life, thinking little about it and preparing little or not at all for it. Alas for me! Until now, I have little to do with contemplating the eternal beauties of paradise, eternal sweetness, eternal fragrance, its eternal light, eternal bliss, and am occupied with temporary, coarse, perishable sweets, beauties, incense, sparkles! Alas for me! Everything for the body is not enough, not enough for the soul. O Divine Liturgy, heavenly service on earth, the fulfillment of the Lord’s endless love for the whole world (especially for the faithful), holiness, truth, the wisdom of God, omnipotence, renewal, eternal life, the splendor of the Divine! How unworthily I have always done you and still do it, unprepared internally, cold, passionate, careless, lazy, carried away by earthly cares and passions, paralyzed by the enemy’s excuses! When will I accomplish it with a heavenly heart, fiery, grateful, peaceful, bold, unshakable, passionately loving God and all people, sincerely benevolent! Bow down to my desire and request, Lord, and grant what I ask. How long will the enemy be my rider? Connection between sins. You commit one sin voluntarily, for example, gluttony, and another, which stems from it, you commit involuntarily (thoughts and movements of the heart are prodigal, angry, evil, envious, or doubts, fears, cowardice), because the soul and body through gluttony relax and prepare for all kinds of sins. That's why the post is needed. We are sailing on a great, God-ordained ship [or] already in a quiet harbor with the assistance of the Mother of God, the holy apostles, martyrs, hierarchs, saints and all saints. The helmsman is the Holy Spirit Himself and the Lord Jesus Christ with the Father Without Beginning. What about Lutherans and the British?! Their boat is fragile, without a helmsman, but the church is theirs. February 16. I thank the Lord, who defeated the machinations of the enemy in me (I haven’t eaten anything since the evening, which is why the battle today was not very persistent and victorious; abstinence is a great thing), and who has given me the grace to complete the entire Matins with all the litanies without stumbling; Only at the end, on my leave, due to my cowardice, I did not pronounce the name of the holy noble Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky, our great intercessor before God, and the enemy who instigated [that] greatly offended me; however, through a prayer of repentance, the Lord healed me from the scorching ulcer, having mercy on me. Mortify your passions, otherwise they will kill you forever. Do you care about a body that will be devoured by worms? Are you neglecting and destroying the immortal, beautiful soul created in the image and likeness of God? Evening. Ten and a half hours. Today the Lord my God surprised me with His mercies during the Liturgy, repeatedly delivering me from the thorns of sin and giving me life, freedom and peace with boldness, especially miraculously reviving me through the communion of His most pure Body and Blood; After communion, the tightness that arose as a result of the machinations of the enemy was driven away by the same life-giving Mysteries, and a wonderful peace settled in my soul, in which I cheerfully said the prayer behind the pulpit and dismissal. At the prayer service for the Mother of God, the enemy stole the words from the Gospel that was read, not allowing me to utter the words of dismissal at the memorial service: in the bosom of Abraham he will rest, with the righteous he will count... (Stubborn demon.) Then the Lord covered my sin for repentance and again granted sweet peace. After mass, I made a big mistake by going to the wake and eating port wine (two glasses), cold fish with sweet and sour bread, bream and pie and cheesecake: although there was little food, it turned out to be a burdensome dead rubbish for me, weighing me down for three hours until a home-made [liquid] dinner: a home-made dinner and tea with cream resolved the whole burden. Food is extremely unprofitable for me in the evening and morning because it burdens me and requires a lot of movement, distracts me from work, does not allow me to read, burdens my soul and body, turns me away from the love of God, and even from the love of my neighbor. Vanity and madness! February 17. I thank the Lord, who showed me help today against the demons who troubled me during Matins and greatly wounded and killed me, especially during the litanies of supplication and prayer and when saying the prayer to Christ, the true Light, and the dismissal, which I did not pronounce out of cowardice and fear - who?.. Father Peter Klepachevsky, for fear of delaying him by pronouncing the entire dismissal. Oh, servility, intolerable in a priest! Oh, the most absurd fear! We fear man, but do not fear the Lord Whom we serve! (Yesterday’s gluttony and satiety from the evening were the reason that I could not resist the ethereal enemies who fought me.) Evening. I thank the Lord for deliverance from great temptations during the liturgy and for the communion of the holy, most pure and life-giving Mysteries in the stomach. The struggle during the entire mass is difficult due to yesterday's satiety and the secret defilement of fornication that happened at night or in the morning in a dream; Satan’s sting overcame me, sank me, killed me, put me to shame, but the Lord delivered me in His great mercy. Before Vespers and during Vespers, because of trifles, he became embittered against the abbot, and for this reason he was in strong agony of temptation, in confusion, cramped conditions, and the shame of stumbling at the litanies. He suffered for a long time, and after Vespers and the wedding (the rector served) he got rid of his enemies through the grace of repentance. How many tenacious machinations of passions are in me! When will I be reborn? When will I overthrow the old man? I need kindness, obedience, indifference to any appearance, patience. The Roman Church, despite its shortcomings, has the important advantage that it, in the person of its hierarchy, remains until now free from the predominance and absorption of worldly power, standing at the height of its Divine dignity. In our Church, the hierarchy is absorbed by worldly power and subservient to it under the pretext of humility and non-interference in worldly affairs, it remains silent despite all the vices of the noble, learned, rich, and powerful of this world; its lower clergy are poor and sheltered and also voiceless. 18. When I realize my sins during worship, the devil sometimes plunges me into despair, confusion, shame and dumbness. There's no point in worrying so much. Often the devil shamelessly slanders me, either blaming me for sins that I repented of and have not done since then, or blaming indifferent and even good deeds as sin. In any case, I sin against God and I repent to Him, I ask and ask for His mercy, but to be embarrassed and despair is a new, grave sin. All the works of the Lord in heaven and on earth testify to the endless love of the Lord for His rational creatures, to the endless images of this God’s love (in the variety and sweetness of fruits, for example, in the communion of His most pure Body and Blood especially), to His infinite power, wisdom, beauty, sweetness, simplicity, immutability, His all-satisfaction and all-bliss. How do we not ascend from creatures to the Creator, to His love, and stop at transient creatures, clinging with our hearts and minds to them, and not to the Creator? 19. I thank the Lord for His all-powerful help during the service yesterday of the funeral matins (temptation due to the few kopecks withheld for the benefit of the poor) and the early mass (also a common funeral for the dead) in the face of grave temptation and embarrassment from ethereal enemies: at the last two litanies for the dead, the enemy was broken by the grace of God, and I pronounced the litany in full, then I served the entire matins and the entire mass to the end without stumbling; there was a strong temptation before the celebration of the Sacrament (and during the celebration) from one young female person, very pleasant in appearance, standing in the church, but he also overcame this temptation from the enemy by the grace of God. I became very, very animated by the Holy Mysteries. Now, my Lord, grant me to break the charm of hostility and enmity regarding Philip Stepanov and Nikolai Stepanov, create a victory by grace over our hearts and over the heart of Theodore Ivanovich Burov, who mocked my zeal for Your holy altar. Grant [to win] through love and prayer. God! Defeat the absurd, all-abominable Belial, who taught us lewdness and absurdities and who has flattered us hitherto with all sorts of lewdness, all kinds of sins: malice, pride, envy, fornication, love of money, partiality and contemplation, voluptuousness, indecency, despondency, insolence, hard-heartedness, disobedience, laziness, gluttony and drunkenness and other sins: despondency, fear, cowardice, man-pleasing, servility, unbelief, doubt, blasphemy. February 19. Resurrection. After early mass. Woe to me today during Matins and early mass because of an apparently empty incident: I forgot my wallet with money and the key to my money box; This outraged me, completely cooled me to the service, paralyzed me, and the word of the Gospel came true on me: Where your treasure is, there your heart will be [Luke 12:34]. I thought: my wife would find my wallet and go into the drawer with the key in it and take my money (and I hid most of the money from her for charitable purposes), and for a long time the enemy worried me because of the money, I was not myself, however, I constantly repented and prayed, I learned that this was the enemy’s delusion and, having learned it, I calmed down with the grace of God, although not completely. For the reason for the confusion, cramped conditions and coldness was also the fact that yesterday I was full (especially potato jelly with milk) and drank quite a lot of wine. This gluttony is true idolatry! This is pure anti-Christianity! A glutton is a despiser of the Sacraments of the Orthodox Church, although he thinks that he is a zealous connoisseur and recipient of them, for through gluttony he constantly expels from his heart the grace of the Holy Spirit, which he receives in the Sacraments, after repentance for his sins, often tearfully, and again becomes a den of mental thieves; his heart loves earthly things and pleasures, and not God and his neighbors; he serves not the salvation of his neighbors, which is so dear, but his own flesh and his passions. His heart is the abomination of desolation, standing in the holy place [Matthew 24:15]. After Vespers. I thank the Lord, who quickly and repeatedly delivered me from the fire and cramped conditions brought upon me by the spirit of malice during the royal prayer service because of the old, worn-out vestments in which the abbot dressed us; sinned - I felt hostility and enmity towards him for his stinginess and desire to show off only to himself, leaving the brethren in humiliation. But I repented of this low feeling of enmity and of the fact that I had fallen away from love for God and my neighbor because of decay and dust, that during the prayer service my heart was not with God, but with the idols of my passions, it did not burn with the flame of pure prayer, but was cold as ice and dead as hell. The Lord heeded repentance, forgave and gave peace to my soul, but my heart again crept, and more than once, to indignation at the archpriest and to contempt for him as our despiser. (Grandmother Marya Petrovna donated the shroud, and it was removed; the church carpet.) My temptations are extremely acute, they torment me, torment me, and do not give me peace. This is a narrow path! Why wasn't there a sermon today? 20. Yesterday, at the royal prayer service, the devil sank the teeth of his malice into me and directed them (internally) at the abbot, Father Paul, and terribly burned me and incited me to be angry with him for my worn, dirty vestments, although the golden eyelet 110; and after another prayer service he set me on fire for a long time, inciting me against him with various displeasures, for example, why was there no sermon on the king’s day, etc.? In the evening he had a meeting; I wanted to start a competition with him or something like that, but when I saw him, an old man, in his homely simplicity and became friends with good people, I myself became kind and put aside all questioning. All the anger turned out to be a diabolical chimera, as was the confusion in the Duma church during matins and early mass because of a wallet left at home. The Lord is marvelous in His goodness, in His simplicity, in His quick obedience, kindness and kindness towards those who sincerely acknowledge their sins and repent of them - immediately, in a minute, in an instant, He has mercy and heals their heart wounds, pouring out the oil of grace on them. Marvelous is His goodness, His life-giving power. But the devil does not sleep either: he is extremely fast, sharp, scorching in temptations to sin, in his malice against us, equally in our bitterness against each other: how many ghosts, how he turns an empty pretext into a pretext of enormous importance, all in the evil direction, and how much he kills the soul! And all because of a lack of mutual love, because of predilections for worldly things, for love forgives and covers everything and, because of materiality, never quarrels with one’s neighbor, for love is the only thing needed, and things are decay and ashes. In the church stichera for this morning it is said that the devil does not dare to approach those who are fasting and praying, and that the Angels especially protect those who fast and work with them. Worthy of note. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the painful demonic fear that struck my heart after the teacher from the Ostryakov gymnasium came to me and told me that the director of the gymnasium was calling me to serve a prayer service on the occasion of the conclusion of peace with the Ottoman Porte. This is what the enemy did again with his charm, with his ghosts! Instead of rejoicing at this news of peace and giving thanks to the Lord for it, I was frightened by the action of Satan at the news of prayer because the disembodied enemy strikes my heart with cowardice, fear and fear and steals words from my heart and lips. But when I was in such delusion and fear of demons, I went to the church, fell to the throne of God in prayer of repentance and humility and asked for help in temptation, may the Lord take away the vain demonic fear and grant His grace, peace, boldness, freedom. And the Lord granted it quickly. I praise Him. I also thank the Lord for sending me a co-servant - Father Deacon Vladimir Vasilyevich Poletaev. With him, I quite cheerfully served a prayer service in front of the scientists, that is, the commanders and instructors of the gymnasium (and the students are my children). But still, the devil caught me and tore out the words from the Gospel: were you not ten cleansed [Luke 17:17] and so on, and from the exclamation before the prayer of thanksgiving, and from the prayer itself, some words at the end, and from the dismissal. Forgive me, Lord Lord! And grant grace to pronounce all the words with boldness, without missing a single one. I thank the Lord, who, through the prayer of my repentance, saved me from an internal inclination towards adultery, who took away the unclean inclination and gave me the grace of holiness and chastity. 22. Morning. I thank the Lord, who quenched my anger through the prayer of repentance against my family and guests for the open doors and for the tobacco smoke that entered my office. I thank the Lord, who quickly heeded my heartfelt prayer and pacified my soul. The Lord is near to those who call upon Him in truth. The dream of the navigation officer Vladimir Mikhailovich, in which he saw the holy Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord John, who called me, most unworthy, by the name of a friend. What kind of accursed friend am I, such a great Forerunner and Prophet, when I am still a friend of sin? I pose the question this way against my adversary the devil: is repentance due to sinners with remission of sins? It is clear as day that it is necessary and that many repentant sinners have been pardoned, cleansed, sanctified by the grace of God and entered into heavenly villages. So, if there is pardon, cleansing and salvation for those who repent, and I am a repentant sinner and do not do unrighteous deeds of which I have already repented, then why does the enemy confuse me with the sins of youth and ignorance, why does he frighten me, why does he induce despondency and cowardice with despair, as if there were no repentance and mercy? Oh, yes, I dare and look boldly into everyone’s eyes during worship and outside it, for the Lord has mercy, and He has much deliverance: and He will deliver me from all my iniquities and deliver [Ps. 129:6]. But if I committed a sin and was not judged for it, then should I be embarrassed during worship? No, no, for confusion is the work of the devil, who brings despair and blasphemy to the mercy of God, and is a new sin, and one must repent in the heart and trust in the mercy of God and be repentant. This is required by faith, trust and prudence; they demand never to be faint-hearted or lose heart. Having such a merciful Lord, will we become discouraged and faint-hearted? No - we can atone for all sins through repentance; there is no sin that overcomes God’s love for mankind 111; Let’s not let the devil rejoice over us. He tries in every possible way to plunge the sinner into despair, presenting the greatness and severity and extranaturalness of the sins that he himself taught and teaches sinners. February 23. The devil damaged the integrity of almost every prayer in my mouth and in my heart, intensifying to stop me in well-known places and not allowing me to pronounce all its words. But may the Lord defeat him through me, the weak one. February 24. I thank the Lord, who called me to celebrate the early liturgy and through it poured out to me the wealth of His ineffable gifts, who crushed the mortal bonds in me and gave me His Divine life with the remission of my sins through the communion of His Divine and life-giving Mysteries. Before mass there was a temptation that killed me, but when I fell before the Lord in repentance, He had mercy on me and revived me. During mass, I felt weakness and uncleanness of heart, sinful thorns, the enemy’s slander and intrigues, especially during the great entrance, the enemy poured his abominations into my heart, but in my trust in the Lord I was not embarrassed by his nasty stream and continued to speak the names of the reigning persons. There were many intrigues and sorrows, but the Lord delivered me from all of them. Blessed is the Lord... train my hands to fight, my fingers to fight [Ps. 143:1] against invisible enemies. The disembodied, vile enemy often tempts me with the imagination of sins of ignorance committed in my youth, incomparable sins, and inspires despair, as if they have not been forgiven me and will not be forgiven. But there is no sin that conquers God’s love for mankind, and if [there were] such sins that could not be forgiven, then the devil and his all-pernicious and dreamy sin would be stronger than God (which is absurd), but it is clear that God is omnipotent and He can cleanse every sin, no matter how heavy, absurd and unnatural it may be, for He Who was supernaturally incarnated from the Pure Virgin can also save a person from natural sins and supernatural ones, and by his very deed he showed and shows this power and authority, having saved and is saving so many great sinners. 24. The Lord God is the beginning of life, holiness, goodness, truth, wisdom, strength, beauty, sweetness, wealth, splendor 112, eternity, that is, in Him Himself has the throne of eternity and from Him flows the eternity of rational creatures. Let us cleave to Him with all our hearts, despising earthly, temporary life, wisdom, beauty, sweetness, wealth, beauty. I thank the Lord, who delivered me last night in Alexei Antonovich’s apartment from an incomparable carnal sweetness of the heart through my prayer to the omnipresent Lord and [...] and who granted me freedom from the dirty tricks of the enemy. Yesterday, during a prayer service in a small shop, the enemy strongly stunned me with anger and confusion over the cold censer served by the sexton: I could not utter many words. Science for me is to never be indignant about anything, to be indifferent to everything. God forbid! 25. Saturday. I thank the Lord, who quickly answered my prayer in the Alexandrovs’ apartment (in Estafiev’s stone house) before the interview with their son-in-law Nikolai, who was joining our Church, and who saved me from anger at the poor, from sorrow, overcrowding, who restored in me a good disposition towards the poor and, at the same time, peace, freedom and boldness. I thank the Lord, who gave me peace, truth and righteousness in my heart before the matter of joining the Lutheran to the Church after early mass in the cathedral and help from above during the rite of joining. I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace to overcome the prodigal demon and the lustful desire in my heart when I looked at the young wife of the joiner, Nadezhda Nikolaevna, dressed in cleavage, and who gave me holy freedom from sin and peace with space in my heart while performing a prayer service of thanksgiving and while snacking on pancakes with caviar, salmon, and pancakes. After the all-night vigil on Saturday. I was subjected to acute temptation today during the all-night vigil while reading the canon because of disobedience to the singer who directed the choir; I wanted to read the canon for six verses: two Sundays, two Theotokos and two Triodion, and I told him, the regent, not to start singing earlier, but he did not want to obey and barely allowed me to read two or three verses, despite my repeated suggestion not to start early. This disobedience saddened me to the depths of my soul: he did his job with complete indifference, laughing - he was in a hurry to start singing ahead of time. I reprimanded him very severely, and he also apologized indifferently. Enough, however, that was enough, but I could not say a prayer of release, a prayer to Christ, the True Light, and I left the church extremely restless, internally stung, painful, scorched by hellish fire, irritable, embittered. I needed solitude, and I walked the streets alone and repented and prayed to God, blaming and condemning myself for confusion, impatience and bitterness, when I should have endured disobedience indifferently, excusing the singers and not being upset with the manager. I fell away from love and, as a result, from the world, I grieved the Spirit of grace and fell away from Him. We must endure everything generously and calmly. Aequo animo 113. This temptation is a punishment for me for gluttony and drunkenness. February 26. Resurrection. I thank the Lord, who soon had mercy on me and delivered me from the melancholy and tightness of my heart, which pinched me over the memory of the disobedience of the choir director at the all-night vigil in the Assumption Church. I cried out to the Lord with faith, made the sign of the cross several times, sitting up in bed, then lay down - and the melancholy disappeared, as if it had never existed, my heart became peaceful and free. Acquire firmness in virtue, so that no attacks of temptation can turn you away from it, for example, so that the peaceful state of your soul cannot be disturbed by any machinations of visible and invisible enemies, no unrest, malfunctions and human actions (for example, disobedience), no apparent or real oversights, no malice or human envy, no temptations from sensuality (for example, female beauty, delicious foods and drinks), etc. Be strong in peace of spirit, in abstinence, meekness and gentleness, in patience, in chastity, obedience, in hope, in faith, in love. May the Lord grant that without Him I can do nothing [John 15:3]. After Vespers on the 26th. I thank the Lord for the miracles of mercy and His power that were revealed in me during the liturgy, for the all-merciful Lord gave me, cold and mortified by sins, tears of tenderness and with them he cleansed, revived and renewed me, and especially through the communion of His most pure and life-giving Mysteries. There were many temptations from adversaries, and the Lord finally delivered me from all of them during mass and prayer service. The struggle was difficult, but sweet is God’s deliverance and the joy after it, the strengthening of the spirit, for the spirit grows stronger in the fight against temptations, is pacified, and purified. The strength of the spirit was also reflected during Vespers: I cheerfully, loudly, and boldly served Vespers, for which I thank the Lord of hosts who strengthens me. May God grant you to serve like this all week. God! You saw in me a feeling of fear, hostility and melancholy when I met my spiritual son Philip Stepanov, who was riding a horse; this feeling is painful, striking, deadening, it is from the devil - destroy it, Lord, now and forever, and give me and this my spiritual son from now on like-mindedness in You, Lord, for everything is possible for You, and take away from me, from my fortunes, all fear of the strong and rich, for they are nothing before You, like a cobweb. So I confessed my weakness before You, O Lord, and poured out my prayer before You. Heal me, and my spiritual son, and all my spiritual children: we are all weak, we all humble ourselves before You, and we all, as one heart and one mouth, pray to You: have mercy, heal, strengthen, and save us. Amen. I thank the Lord, who has made me worthy to make a good start to Lent in the service of Vespers. Grant that I will spend all my time without stumbling in pleasing You, in correcting my heart, in correcting people. Wake up! All human and earthly beauty is a flower or grain that fades; only spiritual beauty abides forever, and we must all be jealous and caring about it. Only such beauty is pleasing to the Lord Himself, only such beauty is loved by the Lord. Forget your people and your father's house: and the king will desire your kindness... All glory to the king's daughter within [Ps. 44:11–14]. A priest who intends to perform the liturgy needs the most careful preparation, purity of heart, heartfelt readiness, renunciation of all worldly attachments, sincere love for God and for perishing humanity, fervent prayer for everyone. Grant, Lord, the gift of such service to every priest. The priest, who must lead everyone to Christian perfection, must himself, first of all, strive for perfection through unceasing contemplation of God, prayer, reading the word of God, thoughts, intentions, word and deed. 27. In Kronstadt, captain of the first rank Ivan Petrovich Belavenets and some commander Kun suddenly died. Belavenets at Maslenitsa, from Wednesday to Thursday evening, was in good company with the city governor Kazakevich, Rykachev and many other officers; They ate, drank, played cards, Ivan Petrovich returned home at two o’clock in the morning, and by two o’clock he was no longer there: he went away unprepared for God’s judgment. Rykachev said: I envy such a death. There is something to envy, I said, this is not a Christian death, for he is kidnapped in his sins. How empty-headed these military men (others) are when they judge matters of religion! They don't understand anything about faith. Man, in their opinion, is like dumb cattle: he lived, died and disappeared. After Matins. The devil viciously, hellishly touched and tormented me today during Matins (the first of Lenten) because of the tobacco that the sexton Zrelov reeked of; I was tormented until the canon itself; during the canon, only the grace of God overcame and drove away the anger towards the sexton; however, because of one sexton, I felt grief for everyone: both for the watchmen and for the people ahead, who were innocent of anything before me. Such is the power, sharpness and infectiousness of demonic malice! However, I did not sympathize with her, but was forcibly carried away by her from the spirit of malice. My God! Grant me and the sinner to have mercy, patience and love. For, being angry and hating, I at once transgress Your entire law and become an accomplice of the devil, from whom, O God, deliver me and all people forever. For the abuse of rational-free creatures by the greatest, priceless gift of reason and freedom, the Lord, our Creator and Righteous Judge, will most strictly punish all rational creatures who despised these priceless gifts and the Lord Himself who gave them, and will punish them forever and ever, because they trampled on the infinitely great gift of God, which they should have increased and returned to the Lord with interest. Thus will the Lord exact it from the devil and his angels and from all wicked people. 28. Yesterday I went to Vespers, having had quite a meal, and the trouble was that I could not properly read the Great Penitential Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, and in the evening, after drinking almond sweet milk and eating buckwheat porridge and oranges, at night I had no peace from the lustful kindling. Translated by P. Yungerov: This is a change in the right hand of the Most High (Ps. 77:11). Exodus (Church Glav.) – source. The truth of God (church glory) - righteousness; justification; court, justice, law. Beautiful young women (lat.). Glazet is a type of brocade with a colored silk base and gold or silver patterns woven on it. Magnificent (church glory) – beautiful, magnificent, majestic.