Декабрь 1879 г.

I thank and praise the Lord for his great deliverance of me yesterday during the cathedral liturgy from the gravest, hellish wiles of the devil, from his malice with which he crushed my soul, arousing hostility and evil suspicion towards the rector who served me, Father Pavel Trachevsky, whose actions seemed extremely proud to me. By humility and striving for complete goodness and simplicity and with heartfelt prayer for the granting of these to me, I bowed to the Lord’s mercy, and He delivered me from hellish malice, and I received life-giving communion of the Holy Mysteries. The struggle against enemies during mass is difficult, extremely persistent. Such heavenly service, full of infinite love and truth and holiness, is performed with our own eyes and in our co-service, but we have no love for each other: we are proud of each other, we are proud, we envy each other, we suspect each other of God knows what, we have crafty, disrespectful thoughts about each other. My God! My God! What a contradiction of heavenly love, which seeks to unite us all together with love and mercy! What pride, what malice, pride, deceit! Oh, how one must resist the enemy and live in love, humility, kindness, obedience, and simplicity! It is remarkable that the more solemn the service, the more people in the church, the harder, more persistent, and more evil the struggle of invisible enemies with us! All hell is on us, the gates of hell are opening on us! However, not every serving priest feels this. For others, serving in church is the same as playing cards. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the severe headache and nausea that occurred from yesterday’s excess of food and drink. Through the evening prayer to the Lord and the Mother of God, through a night’s sleep, everything passed: I woke up healthy and cheerful. Glory to the Lord! Glory to the Lady! I thank the Lord for the conciliar matins performed on the church feast, at which I was the leader: I read according to the grace asked of the Lord, without stumbling, although the evil demons fought through my passions. After the Sunday all-night vigil. I thank the Lord for delivering me four times during the all-night vigil from the fierce sorrows and oppression brought upon me by the primordial murderer, and for quickly granting me peace, silence, freedom and boldness in serving with tenderness. I thank the Lord for the stumbling-free service of the All-Night Vigil (Departure, Christ, True Light, Gospel readings). I fell in faith and in repentance to the holy throne, and a wondrous, life-giving, omnipotent power emanated from the throne, healing and cleansing me and reinvigorating me. Resurrection. I thank the Lord, who graciously bowed to my intensified prayer during the late liturgy and delivered me from the oppression, mortification and glaciation of sin, with the granting of peace, weakening and freedom. Oh, how dear this deliverance was to me! How heavily the all-evil adversary bears down! Does not spare our weakness! Received life-giving communion! He said his word. The release said everything completely. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from great distress and sorrow during Vespers, when I heartily fell in repentance to the throne of grace for salvation from my sorrow, which befell me for my harsh treatment of the poor (of whom there are very, very many, and sometimes my passage is blocked everywhere) and for evading alms to some of them. The Lord gave me forgiveness, peace and freedom. I also thank the Lord for a new deliverance from the same tightness (for the same sin) that befell me when I repented at five and a half o’clock in the evening. It was at home, that is, repentance and God’s deliverance. I thank the Lord, who through repentance and faith in His name cleansed the leprosy of my soul at the entrance to the house of the merchant Alex. Lebedev at six o'clock in the evening, where I was a guest that evening, but here again I fell into spiritual leprosy through a voluptuous glance at the girl, subjected to inner oppression and shame, and through heartfelt repentance and faith in the Lord I again received permission from the Lord for my debts, peace, freedom and boldness. Take care of your gaze and especially your heart’s eye, lest it be deceitful and unclean. Acquire a heart that is pure, kind (not evil), humble, simple, kind, patient, good-natured, compassionate, loving, generous. The sign of the cross, which Orthodox Christians depict on themselves, contains, in general, the entire Christian dogma, all the necessary, soul-saving teaching: the teaching about the Holy Trinity, about the incarnation of the One Son of God from the Trinity, about His redemptive suffering and death for us and the resurrection from the dead, and the main moral teaching, or two commandments about love for God and neighbor: love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your thoughts (placing the sign of the cross on the forehead (mind), on the chest (heart) and on both shoulders (all strength in the muscles)). I thank the Lord, who gave me His great mercy and help while serving yesterday the all-night vigil with the widow of General Boyle in the presence of her many sons, officers, daughters and grandchildren, and the girl’s granddaughter. There were temptations from Belial, who tried to stain my soul with his abominations through the gaze of his eyes and aroused unclean movements in the heart and in the flesh. Only through intense prayer to the Lord in heartfelt repentance did I get rid of his abominations. I thank the Lord for His great mercy and help during the service of the all-night vigil at the Neustroevs, where, before the all-night vigil itself, I entangled myself in the sin of my tongue, speaking sharply and angrily about the rector, that he introduced a new heresy into worship - careless and quick service and spoiled everyone: the priest, deacons and sextons, and about the young priest, that he goes to early masses without preparing not at all. With these words I wounded my soul and for a long time I could not get rid of the tightness and sorrow, finally, through inner prayer and repentance before the Lord, I drove away the enemy, and my sin was forgiven - I celebrated the all-night vigil and prayer service safely, heartily. The enemy tries to mix vices with virtue: carnal spiritual love, ungodly love, self-love with love of God, his devilish zeal with zeal for God, vanity with zeal for the glory of God, hard-heartedness, severity and obstinacy with alms, so that it is difficult to find pure virtue among people and virtue is often infected with the breath of vice and evil. O all-holy and all-righteous Master! You alone can cleanse us and teach us through Your justification, Your testimonies, Your commandments, You alone can cleanse and make our deeds and our lives pleasing to God! Grant this, we pray to You, grant us to bring You clean wheat without tares. I thank the Lord for the early liturgy and for the revival of the Holy Mysteries in their communion, for the renewal: an extraordinary lightness in the soul, especially after sleep from ten to eleven and a half hours of the day. But at twelve o’clock he seriously harmed himself by snacking on herring and a bun unnecessarily, because at nine o’clock he drank tea with a bun. It was heavy all day. Science is not to be greedy, but to eat in due time. My pride and pride inspire me to want even my elders, not only my equals and juniors, to live, act and even speak according to my thoughts, according to my, so to speak, program, and if they do not act and speak as I would like and believe, then I am dissatisfied, for example, if I see a proud posture, an important appearance, I hear words spoken with importance and dignity by the abbot or someone else, then I feel hostility towards him, disrespect, almost contempt; I repent. God! I thank You, for through prayer and the sign of the cross of my body, my hearts, and my bed, You keep me pure and chaste for many years. Glory to Your honest Cross, its power, terrible for demons. After an early mass, which he served alone without a deacon, with grief at him throughout the mass and extreme embarrassment, despite his efforts to free himself from him. I turned out to be extremely faulty, insufficient before the Lord, not having love that endures everything, covers everything, does not get irritated, does not think evil, and bears each other’s burdens. I did not fulfill the words of the Lord’s prayer: and we leave our debtor [Matthew 6:12], but throughout the mass I was upset with the drunken deacon Vladimir Poletaev and without love and peace I performed the liturgy, having inside my heart the all-world seditious devil, who kicked me repeatedly, so that I could not pronounce the words of the litanies. I should not have been indignant, not upset, but be at peace, knowing the great weaknesses of man and generously bearing the burden of my brother, but due to a lack of love, meekness and patience and out of great pride, I could not tolerate the deacon’s treachery and drunkenness and was deeply, deeply upset at the guilty one. That's how alien I am to love, humility, meekness and kindness, patience! But I myself am weak and do the same as my brother. But the Lord is extremely long-suffering and merciful to me, forgiving me my countless evils and other sins, but I am impatient and hard-hearted, not forgiving of my brother’s weaknesses and shortcomings. From now on, let the [evil] brother be humiliated before me, but not out of malice, but out of love for piety and for the sinner himself, let him be ashamed of sin and let him do the truth. Yesterday was for me, because of Deacon Poletaev, a drunkard, a day of trouble, misfortune and sorrow; The hour of the liturgy was for me an hour of greatest hostility, spiritual rebellion and fierce anguish; I could not overcome the feeling of hostility towards him for not coming to the service, although I prayed to the Lord about it, and then until Vespers I was in great distress and agony. At the gymnasium, the German pastor was greatly alarmed and embittered by the fact that I allowed myself to notice his injustice in distributing things from the Committee to the poor. My nerves were in extreme distress due to the bad weather and the lean food and spicy drinks. At lunch I drank a plate of meat broth to calm my nerves and a glass of milk. During Vespers, the stichera and litany calmed down from the singing. Church sacred songs soften hearts, touch, enlighten, sanctify, heal, strengthen, console souls, drive away passions and demonic intrigues, pacify souls with the peace of God. The evening and morning services of our Church present the greatest variety and richness of hymns and spiritual readings of all kinds: songs of repentance, touching songs, laudatory songs, thanksgiving songs, petitionary songs; from these chants, hearts of stone can become soft as wax, be filled with whole-hearted praise and thanksgiving and fiery love for God, rise to theology and high contemplations of Christian truths, God's endless love, wisdom and omnipotence in creation and especially the redemption of the human race, to the contemplation of the greatness, holiness and benefits of the Mother of God and the mystery of the incarnation, to which She served with dignity. Yesterday and today he treated the poor harshly because of their extreme multitude and their incessant begging; He quickly pushed some out of the church house yard. I sinned before God and people and before all the holy Angels through rage and hard-heartedness, through selfishness, pride and stinginess, through the loss of faith and trust in God, whose generous providence I have experienced and see constantly over me and the poor. Have mercy on me, O Love of Mankind, for I have insulted Your goodness and Your generosity and blasphemed my deeds; I offended the Holy Spirit, saddened me with my inhumanity and stinginess and trust in earthly goods, and not in God; I have destroyed Your entire law, the law of love, I have not yet learned to despise and value eternal blessings, I please the many-passionate flesh and have it instead of an idol. I must love my neighbors to the point of self-sacrifice, and not to the point of self-indulgence (that is, I will give a share known only to me, but not more, even if I have something to give, and even if my neighbor is in dire need of my help) and see myself in them, even more, Christ Himself, of Whom they are members. Forgive me, Lord, my sins: self-love, malice, pride, carnality, man-pleasing, selfishness, partiality, insincerity and ill will towards others, suspicion, distrust, envy, gluttony, laziness, severity, obstinacy. I thank the Lord for His consolation in my fall, when, while serving the all-night vigil, I was embarrassed by the fear of the enemy and stumbled in the reprimand of absolution and prayer to Christ, the true Light, cruelly wounded by Belial. It was so hard for me yesterday, when I wanted to firmly pronounce Christ, the true Light and absolution, with the mention of the holy apostles Peter and Paul and St. Nicholas, and for fear of the multitude of people, I lost heart, was afraid, embarrassed and did not speak out. The enemy killed me with shame and failure, but I did not despair, as usual I turned to God’s mercy, fell in repentance at the Holy Throne, and all the machinations of the enemy were destroyed: I became calm, free, strong, and at the post office I served a prayer service to St. Nicholas with an akathist with the greatest boldness and spiritual sweetness. After the prayer service, I had a snack from the new postmaster, Yakov Isaevich Sutotsky, and was carried away by the cold fish, ate more than what was proper, and was defeated from the belly... But, always conquered from the belly, I am also conquered from invisible enemies: only by fasting and prayer can I be strong against them according to the immutable law of the Gospel. How fragrant I was yesterday by the service of the all-night vigil and prayer service to St. Nicholas with the akathist and the blessing of water, and through gluttony I lost this grace. This often happens, especially after the liturgy. The Holy Mysteries will perfume me, renew me, and after mass I will eat, drink somewhere, and that grace is no longer there. How evil is intemperance and how great is the benefit of abstinence! Intemperance creates a stench inside a person, which is often revealed by the greatest stench outside: how can the Holy Spirit dwell in the midst of such a stench! In such a womb there is a place for evil-smelling demons, whose place is in uncleanness and stench... That is why, being overcome from the womb through intemperance, I am overcome from demons. Ten o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord for His ineffable, invaluable, greatest mercies towards me: firstly, for healing yesterday’s satiety with today’s frequent prayers (prayer services), which thinned my belly and my heart and interceded for me the divine grace of peace, freedom, boldness, strength, which I did not have in the morning when singing the first and second prayers (at Morozov and Markov). Thanks to prayerful work, I performed mass calmly, with boldness, loudly, and received life-giving communion, although the enemy tried to shake my heart, to disturb and oppress it. I thank the Lord for the victory of grace over wine after snacks in two places and the reign of grace during the singing of prayers after snacks and drinking wine. By the grace of God I served eighteen or twenty prayer services from morning to evening. I thank the Lord, who soon showed me the miracle of His mercy and His power, His life, when I cried out to Him in repentance, bound by sinful bonds because of grief at the rich and at the German pastor. When the enemy scorches you with the pleasures and passions of life, drawing you with violence into sin, then remember more vividly the suffering of the Savior for us on the cross, vividly imagine His torment for your pleasures, and you will not want to sin and resist sin with all your might. Remember also the words of the Apostle Paul: those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts [Gal.5:24]. Remember the martyrs and martyrs, to the point of bloodshed, to terrible and unbearable torment, to the end of their suffering and life who resisted sin, the reverend husbands and wives who mortified their flesh or passions through unceasing abstinence and fasting, vigil, labor, and day-night prayers - and they will strengthen you with their example, their love for holiness and truth. Sin and passion love to forcefully cut into our hearts and flesh - arm yourself with constant abstinence and mental prayer, and passions will flee, not finding food or permission in you. Eight and a half o'clock in the morning. I seriously sinned before God after Matins upon leaving the church, becoming very angry with a young beggar sent from St. Petersburg on a convoy and asking me for clothes and food, while hundreds of beggars come to me every day asking for alms, and I must give to everyone, since the Gospel forces me to do this, saying: give to everyone who asks you [Matthew 5:42]. And so I became very angry with the beggar and drove him away in great annoyance at him and at the St. Petersburg police, or, better, the authorities there, expelling from the capital all the poverty attributed to Kronstadt, but then I caught up with him and gave him twenty-two kopecks, and then got angry at the beggars walking behind me, and also drove them away, calling them parasites on the fence, naked people, repeatedly threatening them police and city officials. For this, I was completely consumed by the corrupting fire of hell, began to repent, walked and repented, then at the church fence I gave the poor fifteen kopecks for seven people, and at home with tears I fell to the Lord in repentance, asking for mercy, and the Lord gave me peace and great mercy. In your thoughts, feelings, intentions, have you not deigned to commit a bad deed, to sin, to a vicious passion, although you did not fulfill it in deed due to interfering circumstances? Repent of this sincerely to God and your spiritual father. Heartily love the prayer, Lord, have mercy! She will teach you humility, repentance, tenderness. It is as necessary for a sinner as clean air to breathe, as sure medicine for a sick person. I thank the Lord, who yesterday on the way to the gymnasium took away the fierce leprosy of my sins, which were terribly depressing and killing my soul (all the cruelty towards the poor, stinginess in giving alms). The Lord accepted my repentance with His usual mercy and released the bonds of death. Then the Lord had mercy on me a second time, having fallen three times and also repented. Oh, how great and countless are Your mercies towards me, Lord! Tonight (at four o'clock) I saw in a dream that a fire started quickly from my apartment, igniting from the stove. It reached the beams; I poured water from the samovar onto the fire, in one place it seemed to have poured water, but in another place the flame took on strength and began to write. Fear, fear for property, especially for books. Eight and a half o'clock in the morning. I thank with all my heart my Lord and Savior, who delivered me four times from the fierce torment of my soul that befell me for not giving alms to a beggar (I gave it to another, but not to him) just before Matins - this time; another - for the harsh treatment of bitterness with the sexton Kamenogradsky for lying in the choir due to inattention; the third - for unloving treatment of beggars and the fourth - again for the same thing. And so, instead of death, the Lord gave me life, instead of cramped space, instead of confusion, peace. How good, how kind, how gracious, how gracious the Lord is! And how unloving, irritable, angry, proud, voluptuous, and not condescending I am! Ten and a half o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who, through the prayer of my repentance, delivered me twice from adultery. How crafty, charming, and tempting sin is! Under the guise of sweetness, it creeps up on you and draws you into captivity with it, removes you from God, dishonors and defiles the temple of the Holy Spirit - our souls and bodies, and completely removes you from the true love of your neighbor, putting in its place hypocritical, false, selfish, animal, carnal love. Away with the stifling friendship with the flesh, which separates me from God and can separate me forever. After Matins. I thank the Lord, who delivered me during Matins before Canon from the greatest sorrow, oppression and shame that befell me with the righteous judgment of God for reluctantly giving alms to the poor, condemning them to idleness, being myself idle and a parasite. I repented for a long time, falling to the throne of grace, and finally received complete forgiveness and peace. After a strong cleansing of the stomach, I ate enough, with the greed of cod, black bread and rolls, and burdened myself senselessly and lost half a day, because I could not do anything. Lesson ahead – don’t eat at all in the morning. The German pastor allows himself great untruth and partiality when distributing clothes to Germans and Russians, rude, impudent treatment, stamping his feet, and so on. Go ahead and distribute clothes in the presence of members of the Committee and certainly in my presence. The worldly fusion of the soul is poison, death for it, and I experience this every day. Why do I love the world and merge with it with my soul? Are the world and the soul homogeneous and unambiguous? No, the soul and God are homogeneous, for we are children of God, the soul is [the upper parts], God’s image. Grant me, Lord, to be jealous of those who live purely and to love You, the Most Pure God, with all my soul. Resurrection. 29th week after Pentecost. I thank the Lord, who wrought His wondrous salvation in me from invisible enemies who sought to devour me with their malice; I was indignant at the bad order of the rector’s father, who, having driven out a good sexton, did not give him a decent one in his place, and today for Matins none of the sextons came, so it was necessary to send to the archpriest on this subject. When I was in great struggle and anxiety, I fell in repentance and prayer to the throne of grace and received deliverance from the flaming arrows of the evil one and peace with boldness. The release did not utter from the violence of invisible enemies, the prayer to Christ, the true Light too. I served mass under the violence of invisible enemies, who stung me with their stings. The sexton Kamenogradsky is angry, like a hyena and a leopard, he cannot be my colleague and sings absurdly. During mass he spoke his teaching about spiritual leprosy. Six and a half o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord for a double, wonderful salvation before mass, when I repented from the bottom of my soul for my wicked, proud and hard-hearted view of the poor who asked for more alms, and after Vespers, when I refused to give the required amount of money to the needy out of stinginess and hard-heartedness and then sincerely repented in Mr. Zakharov’s apartment before the baptism of his daughter, giving my word to treat the poor humbly, meekly, lovingly and give willingly, as members of Christ. The Lord soon heard my sincere repentance and soon had mercy on me, giving me peace, boldness, and space. I thank the Lord for the wonderful Divine renewal granted to me after communion of the Divine Mysteries: the heat of sweets disappeared, peace and space reigned in my entire being with boldness. Oh, my damnation! In the evening at seven o'clock, I was furious with one beggar (who had often asked me for alms before and received, and now greatly aggravated his request for money for a blue caftan and trousers) I severely tore his hair on the pavement opposite the English church, reasoned with him a lot and finally gave him eighty kopecks, asking forgiveness for my cruelty and irritability. And he asked the Lord for forgiveness in repentance, mentally falling to Him. And at that hour the Lord did not leave me, a sinner, but heard and had mercy on me, the accursed one. I thank the most merciful, benevolent, quick to obey, merciful and beneficent Lord of my life. Then I was in Golubev’s house with the Olenikovs and read the wonderful life of the Venerable Mother Synklitikia, then treated myself to a generous meal of fruits, good wine and tea with a bun and pretzels. O Orthodox faith of Christ! How many unspeakable blessings are hidden in you! How you renew, cleanse, sanctify, transform our soul and body itself through faith, hope, through repentance, prayer and especially through the life-giving mystery of communion. How many ineffable gifts of God you have! What a Divine life! What wonderful actions of the life-giving Spirit! The weak - we are healed, the dead - we are revived, those walking in the darkness of sins and passions - we are enlightened, those bound by the captivity of sins - we are released, the captives - we are freed, in sorrow we are consoled, in sorrows we are healed and rejoice, in troubles and dangers we are delivered, in illnesses we are healed, those guilty of the darkness of sins - we are reconciled with angry justice and from all of them Let's get rid of it! How many blessings are there in you, Holy Orthodox Faith! What a rich divine treasury you are! What an inexhaustible granary! What a source of living water the Holy Spirit is! What a radiant sun to all who walk in the darkness of everyday life! What a source of fragrance, shrine, and incorruption you are! What a wonderful salt of the earth you are for us, earthly ones, infected to the bones and brains with the rottenness of sin! We thank the Lord for such a heavenly, holy, life-giving treasure. Teach us all, Master, to live worthy of such faith, such hope! Put, O Lord, the leaven of Thy faith, Thy grace into the hearts of Thy people - and three measures of flour will be completely leavened [Matthew 13:33]. I thank the Lord for the life-giving communion of the Holy Mysteries during the early liturgy; after mass I made a big mistake, namely, I got fed up at morning tea, eating fish pie at my wife’s suggestion; this satiety was associated with extreme impotence of spirit throughout the day and with some heaviness and pain (whining) of the insides. When I was baptized by Mr. Koznakov, it was extremely difficult for me to pronounce the words of the prayers, and some I could not say at all, especially when reading the Gospel. Oh, a gross, unforgivable mistake in a fifty-year-old man! Do not eat at all after communion, never before lunch! Was there a record of Koznakov’s christening? Ask Father Deacon Arseny. Evening. I thank the Lord for His greatest mercy towards me - the life-giving communion of the Holy Mysteries during the early liturgy: I was renewed, came to life through them. But I made a mistake at twelve o’clock by eating a tavern pie, and this burdened myself a little. In the gymnasium I had an unpleasant encounter with the German pastor Bosse, who, being irritated by my fair comments regarding the bias in issuing clothes from the Committee to the Germans and Russians (and the Russians were often offended), wanted to expel me from the Committee; I reckoned with him greatly and was embarrassed for a whole hour or more. At the end of the class, walking along the road, I prayed internally to the Lord, repenting of my irritation and my dislike for the pastor, and the Lord performed a miracle of salvation in me, cleansing my sin and giving me peace and space. The Lord also soon had mercy on me when I fell into an unclean mental sin while walking near an English church at nine o’clock in the evening. If you want to see and glorify the greatness of the Divine, the infinite goodness, the wisdom and wise deeds of the Lord Jesus Christ, His wonderful and unimaginable vision of the Angel for the salvation of the human race, His wonderful works of incarnation, teachings, various miracles, the salvific nature of His suffering, death and resurrection and how He is everything, every good for all believers - read more often the akathist with the canon to the Savior. Likewise, if you want to see the greatness of the Mother of God, the innumerable and greatest blessings of God poured out through Her on the human race, Her indescribable goodness and mercy towards the human race, Her greatest virtues, read the canon with the akathist to the Mother of God. These canons and akathists should be the necessary, daily reading and singing of a pious Christian, for in them, as if in focus, all the great deeds of our God concerning our redemption and salvation are collected, from them it is obvious that Christ and the Mother of God are everything for Christians, everything for everyone! I thank the Lord, who delivered me after reading the Gospel, especially after the Great Entry, from the greatest misfortune of the enemy - from hostility towards Deacon Vladimir, who was careless about the service, and towards sexton Dmitry Kamenogradsky, who was rude to me during Matins and did not want to obey properly the first time. By the grace of Christ, something like a mountain—the violence of the enemy—moved from my heart, and its place was not found. Deliver, God, from moments of hostility, let me love and pity everyone, let me be lenient towards all who sin, let me cover their sins, let me be long-suffering, let me not be irritated, and let me pray for my enemies, no matter who they are! God! I confess my sin before You, that I proudly acted with the reader Dmitry, sitting in a chair, asking him: Kamenogradsky! did you fill in the gap in the baptismal book, did you write down the name, patronymic, and title of the parents of the child who was baptized three days ago? Did you go to the house, as I asked you repeatedly? But he answered me extremely proudly, disrespectfully, impudently, disobediently and extremely upset me, he contradicted me impudently. But I forgive him from my heart, according to Your word. But You, Lord, give him reason and soften his heart and humble him and, as righteously, give sorrow to the one who offended me, so that he is no more presumptuous and prevents me from performing Your service in the world, for I cannot serve You with such an impudent reader, O Most Peaceful Lord! I am the first most guilty of all, Lord! I was the first to fall away from love and fall into malice, destroying Your commandment, which is love; I have violated Your entire law and therefore I worthily endure insults from the reader. But have mercy on me, Lord, who repents, remember the good done by this reader, and turn him away from evil. Amen. For You are good and merciful and repent of the evils of men 90, Master! I thank the Lord, who had mercy and healed my soul, which was embarrassed, oppressed and painful, for my sincere repentance of my sins and prayer. I sincerely admitted my guilt in the quarrel with the sexton and prayed to the Lord for him, may he be admonished and have mercy, may the Lord soften his rough and stony heart, breathing rage and anger towards me, insolence and disobedience, may he enlighten and turn him from evil to goodness and meekness, gentleness, obedience, respect for elders. Let us talk now, brethren, according to the guidance of the holy Apostle Paul, for our spiritual benefit, about avoiding the dominance of vices in us. And now you put everything aside: anger, rage, malice, slander, foul language of your lips; Do not tell lies to one another, having put off the old man with his deeds and put on the new [ Col. 3:8–10 ]. What would my Christianity be like if I did not curb anger, rage and defile my soul with slander and foul language, if I paid for anger with anger, for rage with rage, for slander with slander? Would I be a real pagan, bearing only a Christian name, without meaning or power, even the worst of the pagans who sometimes curb anger through reason and the strong character of the will? But I must respond to the anger and rage of my neighbors with meekness and kindness, not to get angry, not to be irritated, to respond to anger with kindness and prayer: may they be forgiven, may they be corrected. After all, evil, anger, rage are a human disease and are, moreover, the creation of the devil; It is not man, strictly speaking, who does evil, but the devil through him. Let them go, they need to pray, they don’t know what they are doing [Luke 23:34]. We must condemn ourselves strictly for angry movements of the heart or for evil thoughts, for we know that through our passions and weaknesses the devil and his angels act in us. Love your enemies, bless those who swear... and so on [Matthew 5:44] - the Lord taught and He Himself fulfilled His words, for, being reproached, He did not reproach the contrary; He suffered, He did not rebuke 91 [1 Peter 2:23]. The Christian faith must turn wolves into lambs, foxes into doves, in general, it must change a person from bad to better. How will I live according to the Gospel, how will I prove my love for the Savior, my fidelity, devotion to Him, His teaching, and also true, unfeigned love for my neighbor, if I do not endure insults, if I do not put aside anger, rage, foul language, fornication and will be carried away by them? How can I deny myself according to the teachings of Christ [Matthew 16:24], if I do not reject from my heart all evil, all passion, enmity, envy, uncleanness, self-interest, hardness of heart, stinginess and lies, slander, rebellion, disobedience? They offend me, scold me innocently, hate me without any good reason on my part - God be with them, I will pray for them: let them go, they don’t know what they are doing, they don’t know that the evil one sits in them and commands them, they don’t know my sincere, good intentions regarding them. What internal triumph, what joy for the soul if you overcome evil in yourself and in others with the grace of God, extreme struggle with internal evil, prayer? Oh, then I am a moral rich man, for then God is with me, the source of life and all good, the source of peace, joy, etc. Now let’s take the other, opposite side: what if I can’t bear insults, curses, severity, disobedience, rebellion, malice and will answer insult for insult? There will be a quarrel, confusion, enmity, the flames of passion will engulf both sides, and here you have two strong moral fires, the consequence of which is internal, spiritual devastation, the driving away of grace. Is it painful for your pride to endure insults from others?! But on the other hand, it is good for the soul (and bodily illnesses are also difficult to endure, but they often lead to the best), they lead to the health of the soul; and it is painful to endure insults as long as your soul hurts with self-love and pride, and when it is healed of pride and pride, then insults and curses will be like infantile arrows. I dwelled on the sins indicated by the Apostle [ Col. 3:8-9 ], because they strongly dominate among us, that is, anger, rage, malice, slander or cursing, also especially foul language among common people and among the so-called lower ranks. It is a disgrace [to hear] the unprintable words of our common people and these lower ranks, but an educated woman or girl should not even walk on other streets due to the extreme offensiveness to the ear of peasants or soldiers. So it goes, they brazenly curse at their birth, the very thing that should be more honorable for them than anything else in the world, something they should be in reverence for, and which out of reverence they should always honor and sanctify with the secret of silence. Yes, that's it, my brothers. From now on, stop completely swearing, and since this happens most often with drunks, then stop drinking and becoming like senseless cattle, since neither drunkards nor slanderers... will inherit the Kingdom of God [1 Cor. 6:10], and endless, merciless torment, prepared from the justice of God, awaits them. But why else, in the end, should a Christian cast aside anger, rage, malice, slander, foul language, and lies? Therefore, answers the holy Apostle Paul, that you have put off, that is, in baptism, repentance and communion of the Holy Body and Blood of Christ, the old man with his deeds, that is, iniquities, passions, vices, and have put on the new, which is renewed in knowledge in the image of Him who created him [ Col. 3:9-10 ], where there is neither Greek nor Jew, nor circumcision, nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but everything and in everything is Christ [ Col. 3:11 ], that is, it is indifferent - all are Christ’s and Christ is in all, and, therefore, one cannot abusively call anyone a Jew, barbarian, slave or similar abusive names, but one must respect and love everyone as oneself, as even Christ Himself. Coloss., III, 9–11. It is necessary to forgive insults, mistakes, misdeeds, firstly, because we are all subject to infirmities and all need forgiveness, and secondly, rage, anger, malice, swearing, foul language disgrace and torment a person and do not bring any benefit, and cause an abyss of harm, they destroy mutual peace and love and good relationships; thirdly, it is necessary to leave them for the sake of our Christian calling, for the sake of the fact that we are members of Christ and members of each other and must live in love, adorned with goodness, meekness and humility; fourthly, because, by being subjected to the aforementioned passions and bad habits, we become the playground of demons and, fifthly, because with these passions we disgrace our Christian title, bring reproach on our most holy and all-saving faith from the Gentiles, and through us the name of God is blasphemed. I thank the Lord, who delivered me during Matins from sorrow and cramped conditions and embarrassment over the revived hostility towards the sexton of Kamenogradsky, who had been rude to me the day before. I brought repentance to the Lord and was delivered from sin by His ineffable mercy. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to celebrate the Liturgy in the world and to be enlivened by the Holy Mysteries. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the hostility that arose again towards the sexton on the way to the gymnasium; I struggled with this feeling for a long time and by the grace of God, with sincere repentance, I overcame and was pardoned by the Lord, receiving peace. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from confusion and cramped conditions during vespers before the christening in the house of Kasatkin, a peasant in the Smolensk province. I sinned: I shouted at the beggars, a small number of whom came to me to ask for money for various needs: for a caftan, for boots, a shirt, a bath... I could and should have given without talking, but I didn’t, sending them with indignation to the governor, the chief of police, to the generals, to the officers, to the merchants... Crazy me! The Lord does this honor to me because He Himself deigns to accept from me alms from the poor, which He Himself sends to me, and I, foolish, self-loving, selfish, hard-hearted, send my Christ with indignation and vexation to others. What does this mean? What do I deserve for this? But the Lord forgave me even this insolence when, having come home, tormented by my conscience, I repented from my heart! Oh, endless mercy! O longsuffering! But what if the Lord closes the doors of mercy to me and does not open them?!.. I thank the Lord, who renewed and consoled me with the communion of His Holy Mysteries and who repeatedly delivered me during Matins from the intrigues, confusion and torment of invisible enemies. After mass, when I came home, I fell into the most acute despondency and melancholy over the rumor that the sexton Kamenogradsky, who was guilty against me, had filed a report to the dean with a complaint against me. I was struck by the lawlessness and hostility towards me of the rector and dean and the malice of sexton Dmitry, with whom I sing and read together, whom I constantly help in church! God! It is worthy and righteous to repay sorrow to those who insult me ​​grievously! God! Grant me, Your servant, peace, so that in peace I may always glorify You. Remember the unmerciful, the proud and the hard-hearted and reward them in their bosom, so that they may be put to shame and humble themselves. Comfort me soon, Lord! Stop the mouth of the wicked and sinful. After many, many prayers, the Lord gave me peace. I experienced extremely difficult moments today during Matins and early mass, and even took communion restlessly and not in the world of spiritual strength because of the sexton Dmitry Kamenogradsky, who extremely brazenly and impudently insulted me with his disobedience and rudeness and complained about me to the dean and filed a report. It’s also a shame that he does not show the slightest inclination towards reconciliation, but continues his anger even in the choir. Only at the end of mass, with all-powerful and all-weak grace, did I defeat my invisible enemies, who oppressed me with hellish cramped conditions. Arriving home, I went to the dean, explained myself and dissolved the network of hostility within myself. See the First Epistle of the Apostle Paul to Timothy, chapter 5, verse 19 and apostolic canon 56 92. Eleven o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who crushed the fortress of torment of the enemy after the all-night vigil in the cathedral, when I, overpowered by the enemy at the dismissal of Matins and at the prayer of Christ, the true Light in the end and stung by him, cried out to the Lord for mercy, clung to the throne of God and received deliverance. I thank the Lord, who mercifully delivered me from grief and cramped conditions in the Mikhailovsky apartment after [the prayer service] and the betrothal of the bride and groom: out of fear of the demon, vain, absurd, I did not say goodbye, and the evil demon hurt me, embarrassed me, deprived me of freedom and boldness. Rather than suffer from this, and sometimes for a long time, and anger the Lord with your cowardice, it is a hundred times better to take courage and firmness of will and say everything in full, all the prayers, Gospel readings, dismissals, exclamations, litanies. May the Lord help you. The devil defiles our hearts and our thoughts with the breath of unclean, carnal, ungodly love in order to corrupt our soul and body and make our heart incapable of the love of God, pure, holy, incorruptible, fiery, and of unfeigned, holy love for our neighbor. How many souls he desecrated, corrupted with his cunning and violence through their inattention, negligence, ignorance, laziness, greed and voluptuousness! They live only for the flesh, for the world, for its unclean pleasures, and not for God, not for His righteousness, not for eternal, holy, incorruptible life. How many mourn their prodigal corruption, into which they had the misfortune to fall in their youth! To this day they cannot free themselves from the unclean thoughts and lusts that flood their souls and the tormenting languor they cause. I thank the Lord for the reconciliation of the sexton of Kamenograd with me and me with him, for the humility of him and me. What heavy, hellish languor I endured on December 15 during Matins and early mass! Woe was me! But the Lord delivered me from this misfortune of discord and the chicanery of the sexton and the rector. However, I thank him for accepting my explanation impartially and being defeated by my arguments in order to reason with the sexton. Resurrection. During mass, in my insides there was the sting of sweets and the sting of the devil, which worried me extremely; I repented and cried, the Lord gave me abundant tears, which delivered me from the sting of the demons and brought down into my heart the dew of grace, which cooled the heat of the flesh, the heat of the demons. Received life-giving communion. But - oh! corruption of the heart! Oh, partiality! Oh, fleshiness! Oh, malice! Oh, demonic pride! In my heart I despised one very ugly woman, poor, somewhat sloppy, who approached the Holy Chalice with a child to commune him, listened in my heart to the devil’s suggestion and was extremely embarrassed, fell into oppression, powerlessness, torment, from which I could not free myself soon, despite diligently falling to the Lord, and I read the prayer behind the pulpit with the fear of demons, not freely, forcedly, insincerely, with omissions, with difficulty. The enemy attacked me viciously. He spoke his lesson loudly, without haste; he did not say the whole dismissal, but with gaps. He did not remember the Apostles Peter and Paul and Saint Andrew the First-Called. He did not remember Saint John Chrysostom and Haggai the Prophet and the holy noble prince Alexander Nevsky. Oh, the devil! O villain! O rapist! Oh, treacherous one! What do I see, my dear brothers? - A precious cross, offered from your love and from your zeal to my unworthiness! With what thoughts and heartfelt feelings will I accept it? You surprised me with this accident, because I did not do anything particularly useful to deserve your attention and your reward, which is so flattering for me. True, I knew about your disposition towards me as a good child of the Church towards its minister, but I did not think that it would be expressed in such a pleasant way for me. You offer me a precious cross! But how can I place it on my chest to decorate my dignity, when our Shepherd, the Lord Jesus, carried a wooden cross as an instrument of His execution for us on His shoulders, exhausted under its weight? How will I wear it when I have not yet learned to lay down my soul for the sheep of His flock, when I have not yet learned to crucify my flesh with its passions and lusts, when I have not yet learned to live not for myself, but for Him, the Lord of our belly, when ungodly self-love in various forms still lives in me? Will I, to expose myself, wear it on my breasts, in which love for the Crucified One and for those for whom He was crucified does not yet burn with a constant flame? Forgive me my bewilderment and my hesitation! O dear souls, redeemed by the all-precious blood of the Lamb of God! May He appropriate us to Himself by eternal appropriation. It will continue to be my priestly duty to pray for you and wish you success from day to day in faith and in all good deeds. With all my heart I wish that between us there will always be mutual unity and communication of both prayer and spiritual, eternal interests. Monday. I thank the Lord for His all-powerful help to me during Matins, as He strengthened me to confront and defeat invisible enemies. When I arrived home, I broke a large lamp, carelessly placing my hat in the dark. This flaw is a punishment for me because I refused the beggar’s strong request to add the same amount to the thirty kopecks I gave him. Now I made a defect worth three rubles and even more. Serves me right! I thank the Lord for the gift of health and preservation of chastity even until now. And henceforth, O Lord, preserve us from disease and uncleanness of heart and flesh. I glorify the all-saving grace of God, acting through my unworthiness in people who come running with faith in it and honor it in me. Soon, through our prayer, grace healed the weak eye of God’s servant, the widow Eulampia, for which we thanked the merciful Lord. Heal, all-generous Master, both a long-term illness and remove from the soul the evil habit in Thy servant, Priest Mikhail (Timofeevich) Ikonnikov (in the Revel Cathedral), who flowed with his wife to Thy grace acting in me, even if I am unworthy, and do not disgrace us, Master, from the desire for mercy Yours. Remember their journey to Thy grace, their humility, sorrow, faith, hope, alms (nine rubles) to Thy poor and glorify Thy name in them, as usually to Thee, so that they will not have the need to resort for help to external people who are not endowed with the rank of the priesthood, so that the grace of the priesthood may be glorified, and so may this priest, with his wife and children, glorify the grace Yours, resting upon Your priests, for blessed and glorified is the grace of Your high priesthood, O Lord, forever and ever. Amen. I thank the Lord for the wonderful revitalization of my soul and my body by the life-giving Mysteries during the Liturgy I celebrated yesterday and for the grace of victory over invisible enemies during the Liturgy and during Vespers. With great effort, I had to overcome the all-evil and all-evil enemies with the grace of God during Vespers when pronouncing the litanies, and at the petitionary litany they broke me, and with great reduction and haste I prayed through her petitions, and the remembrance of the Most Holy Theotokos with all the saints, and devotion to Christ God, the Lord and Head of the Church, all its wondrous and glorious joints in heaven and on earth and in the underworld. Oh, how viciously, tirelessly, insidiously, violently the evil hunter catches me! But You, Lord, completely disgrace him, and glorify Your grace in me to the end and consume all his intrigues and impute nothing, granting me complete victory. Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! I thank the Lord, who, through the prayer of inner repentance, delivered me from the greatest oppression at the beginning of the liturgy and gave me the grace to perform it with a living, and not a dead soul, in peace, and not in confusion, with boldness, and not with cowardice. I received Holy Communion life-giving, into the peace and space of my soul. I thank the Lord. After mass, the deacon and the clergyman and I went to the funeral service at the house of Mikhail [Epifanovich] Konovalov, but we didn’t find it: we were already singing eternal memory. Therefore, I was upset with the rector because he did not wait for us, and through this grief, the adversary the devil entered my heart with rage and for a whole hour he extremely depressed and tormented me, oppressed, confused, tormented me hellishly, and I still repented, walked quietly to the gymnasium and then walked around it and repented, strongly condemning myself for not preserving love, for impatience, for greed, for Because of self-interest, of course, I was most upset: if it weren’t for this, I wouldn’t have been offended at all. Finally, the Lord had mercy on me, the accursed one. This is my teaching: don’t be upset about anything, don’t be embarrassed, don’t be offended by anyone, and don’t lose love, which is most precious and is the fulfillment of the law [Rom.13:10]. During Vespers, I was also extremely poor in soul, embarrassed, upset and depressed by the enemy’s cramped conditions due to the fact that the sexton at the beginning of Vespers did not read the Trisagion according to the Lord’s Prayer, and I did not have time to recover from the embarrassment of refusing alms to the poor, and meanwhile the all-generous Lord sent me through His servant Stefanida twenty rubles for alms in reproof of my lack of faith, hard-heartedness and covetousness. When I strongly repented at the end of Vespers, the Lord forgave me, giving me peace and a calm end to Vespers and Compline. At the funeral service there was again great cramped conditions because of the ruble set aside for the cab driver (from the payment for the unction), and again repentance, and again pardon. At teacher Titkov's I ate dumplings with cottage cheese and sour cream, breaking my fast, and this violation was painful for my soul for the whole evening. Oh, greed! They will place bullocks on Your altar [Ps.50:21]. Taurus signifies our wordless passions, which we must mortify by quenching them with the knife of self-condemnation, self-reproach, repentance, and self-denial. Put to death your evils that are in the land... [Col.3:5]. Yesterday evening I visited my good spiritual son Pavel Alekseevich Alexandrov, sang spiritual songs, ate apples and wonderful salmon at the meal, drank tea to the glory of God, and a little wine. The salmon is very good, tender, tasty, light, healthy. I thank the Lord for these gifts of His goodness. After Matins. I thank the Lord, who marked the beginning of this day with new indescribable mercies towards me in delivering me during Matins from the sorrows and hardships that befell me righteously for the unkind, reluctant, sad giving of alms to the poor, and for the granting of peace, freedom, and spaciousness to my soul, which had previously been mortified by sins. I thank the Lord for deliverance during Matins from the countless snares of the devil and for serving Matins without stumbling with boldness. I thank the Lord, who has again delivered me now (eight o’clock in the morning) from new sorrows and hardships for the same sins against the poor. Oh, the wealth of God's mercy and bounties! Oh, the evil wealth of my evils! Oh, ill will to many, oh, ill will to enemies, oh, gloating over failures and the death of enemies! Isn't it good to pay for evil? Shouldn't we also pray for our enemies? Isn’t this kindness and prayer for enemies the best victory over them? The further I live in the world, the more I see the mercies of the Lord Jesus Christ on myself, the more I see the infinite price of His sacrifice on the cross, His suffering on the cross and death for us, for, every day falling into many, many sins, repeated many times daily, I should, by the truth of God, perish because of them and indulge in eternal torment, but now, for the sake of the infinitely great sacrifice of Christ, made on the cross for my deliverance and general salvation, I am saved a hundredfold every day from my cruel sins, for repentance and faith in Christ my God, I remain healthy and saved. I thank You, Lord, with all my soul, saved by You without number. May I love You, my life, with all my heart, all the days of my life. Six o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord for repeatedly delivering me from the deadening breath of Belial during the cathedral mass, and for the gift of peace and life, and for the life-giving communion of the Holy Mysteries. I thank the Lord for deliverance from the greatest oppression of the enemy and from its deadly stings, which ignite the intoxication of the sexton Adrian and his extremely careless attitude towards vespers. I would have to cover his weakness with condescension, to forgive him, for who is without sin [John 8:7]? Aya became embittered against him due to the action and instigation of the devil (I saw this), became confused, and himself served poorly, with stumbling blocks and omissions, and became even more irritated and greatly inflamed. The demonic poison spread through me like hellish fire, and I was furious towards the beggars who met me. Arriving home, I was irritated, in agony, on fire, but I prayed fervently to the Lord, asking for mercy, and the Lord created power in me with His arm, scattered my enemies and granted me complete salvation, and I rejoiced in spirit about the salvation of the Lord. All human sins that we notice in people are very common due to the corruption of human nature by sin, for we notice them in ourselves to some extent, and therefore, when we see or hear human weaknesses, misdeeds, sins, we should not be indignant and worried, irritated, angry and thus add new sins to sin, but we must calmly treat those who sin, cover and excuse, if possible, the sins of those who sin and calmly continue your own business. Say: all this is [human]. Because of gluttony, I often fall into irritability and impatience. Sincerely, with all my soul, without laziness, diligently, unhypocritically, grant me to serve You, my God, and my neighbors, O Lord; pray for everyone, as I pray for myself in need, grief, offense or joy, with full zeal. Raise me to the simplicity of God-likeness, Lord, cut out from my soul by the roots all the thorns of my sins and passions. The absurd, cowardly fear of demons, when I fear for no reason, through violence, from invisible enemies where I should not be afraid, but need to be courageous and trustworthy, for example during worship, must be removed by me by the grace of God forever as sinful, dreamy, adulterous. We must fear God alone, and not demons and people, and place all our trust in God. Are sins scary?.. But for sins there is repentance, and not the vain, useless, deadening and demonic fear that plunges the soul into worse sins; it, this demonic fear, is a grave sin. I thank the Lord for the stumbling-free service of the liturgy (both at the great entrance and during the commemoration of the primacy spiritual authorities) and for the life-giving communion of the Holy Mysteries. After mass, I made the mistake of drinking tea (two glasses) from Pyotr Konstantinovich’s brother-in-law (who was not at home or his wife) with a half-bun, and thereby getting very excited; When he came home, he drank tea again and upset his nerves even more, so that the tea became disgusting. It strengthened me, but all this together had an unpleasant effect on me. During Vespers he served restlessly, with stumbling, under great duress, fighting against fighting enemies. Some noble maiden standing in the church mentally confused me due to my weakness (vain vision), but grace overcame the confusion. I don’t know a person’s face during worship. The face of the Lady Theotokos and the faces of the saints are not something separate from God, but one with Him, according to Scripture: he who unites with the Lord is one spirit with the Lord [1 Cor. 6:17] (or, as the Lord said: He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and is in Him [John 6:56]), - but one not by the merging of persons or natures, but by communion The Divine nature, due to the fulfillment of humanity by the Divine, like a lip, for example, is saturated with air and water, like fire completely penetrates red-hot iron, so that there is no longer any place for sin in the saints and there cannot be after their departure from the earth. Therefore, how glorious, unshakable, blessed, filled with all blessings, all Divine perfections, all holiness and truth, all light and fragrance, is the state of the saints of God! Their shrine, truth, life is unshakable forever and ever. But how pitiful and subject to constant change is our life on earth! How depressing, worrying, tormenting us sin is! How it darkens, defiles, kills! I thank the Lord, who delivered me both at this Matins and after it from the poisonous and deadening wiles of the demons for the sake of my repentance and prayer and frequent falling to the throne of grace. Oh, how fierce are the demonic intrigues and how joyful is God’s deliverance! During mass in front of the great entrance of my new kamilavka, I regretted that it would not be smoked with incense, and with this the enemy killed the spiritual life of my heart, I was embarrassed, wounded in my soul and could not pronounce from embarrassment the names of the royal family. Just as infatuation with internal adultery or malice, envy, disobedience and other sins is a sin that kills the soul, so infatuation with the fear of demons is the same sin, for it is also a combination with the enemy, albeit involuntary. I thank the Lord, who has made me worthy to perform the liturgy without stumbling and to receive communion without condemnation and to defeat the machinations of the evil enemy after communion. I thank the Lord for repeatedly delivering me through the prayer of repentance from the deadly machinations of the spirit of malice during Matins and during the Liturgy, and for reviving me with the Holy Mysteries. At the proskomedia, the entire Church of God - heavenly, earthly and underworld, wonderful, magnificent, powerful in its heavenly members, secret. If I grieve because of the loss or damage of some things and still harbor hostility towards the person or those who damaged or deprived me of them, then I am proud, proud and have no love. (Regarding the abbot cutting down trees in the garden.) I was in great temptation; the enemy kindled it with anger, but with repentance he extinguished the fire of hell. The evil demon constantly tries to arm us against our neighbors with malice, envy, fornication and partiality, and therefore constantly stand guard over our hearts and eradicate passions: they do not allow us to notice our countless evils and sins. Due to your lack of faith and unreason, you do not notice the greatest blessings of the Mother of God towards you, but they pour out on you incessantly. When you pray to the Lord for mercy and receive it, you receive it through the prayers and intercession of the Most Holy Mother of the Lord: the will of God and Her will are one will, She is one spirit with the Lord. (Now She took away hostility from my heart when I looked to Her in prayer with faith and repentance.) Any, even the slightest, worldly addiction (to clothes, to money, to differences, to faces) instantly kills love for God and neighbor in the heart! This is what devilish poison it is! What a demonic infection! That’s why we sing in church, according to its guidance, during mass: Now let us put aside all worldly cares, so that we may raise up the King of all 93 . You cannot have Christ in your heart and at the same time be partial to creatures! You, an ascetic of piety, tirelessly struggling with the passions of your flesh and spirit, do not forget that every victory over evil, evil and unclean thoughts and passions is a step on the path to eternity, to the conquest of incorruptible life, a step towards achieving the promised land. I thank the Lord, who showed me His salvation many times during Matins and early Sunday liturgy, especially after the Great Entrance, at which and after which the devil wounded me extremely painfully (through the thought of two rubles that accidentally ended up in my pocket between pocket bills: I didn’t know whether they were the brother’s income, or my own, or the poor, I decided to give them to the poor, but hesitated - whether they were both rubles or one). Oh, how I suffered without pronouncing the names of the royal family! And obviously, the enemy needed to confuse me and stop me at the great entrance. From now on, do not believe him and do not be embarrassed by any of his intrigues, repel the excuses without being embarrassed, presenting yourself with all my sins to the Lord alone. After repentance and falling at the throne of grace, the Lord delivered me from torment. Received life-giving communion. The sermon was said well. Nine and a half o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord for the great deliverance that was revealed to me before Vespers and at the very beginning of Vespers, when I humbly and deeply repented of the sin of hard-heartedness and severity regarding a beggar youth of about thirteen years old, whom in anger I severely tore out by the hair for frequently begging for alms from me. I gave him ten kopecks, but as if I envied him for receiving this mite, I punished him with rage. When I did this, I immediately felt that the grace of the Holy Spirit, which I had received through communion of the Holy Mysteries, left me, I lost peace, freedom, boldness, fell into confusion, sorrow and oppression, into a spiritual ulcer, I felt bitter and heavy. I resorted to fervent repentance in the church before the throne of God, realizing that as a child, as a member of the Body of Christ, I had offended Christ God Himself, that I had destroyed the entire law of God, the essence of which is love. I plunged myself into the abyss of God’s mercy, and the Lord showed me the abyss of His love for mankind, forgave my sin and gave me peace, and I sang Vespers sweetly, celebrating the Nativity of Christ. I thank the Lord, who has delivered me this day, in His great mercy, from the great sorrows and distress that befell me for my harsh treatment of the poor before Matins. In repentance and self-accusation, self-condemnation, I fell to the throne of God in the Peter and Paul chapel and soon got rid of spiritual death, from the deadly poison of the serpent and perceived life, peace, freedom, space, rightness of heart, boldness. And now, at this moment (eight o'clock in the evening), the Lord again delivered me for repentance and heartfelt contrition, self-condemnation, self-accusation from spiritual death, which befell me for my rude, harsh, disdainful, proud treatment of the poor who asked me for alms. I sincerely condemned myself for self-love, pride, malice, stinginess, covetousness, lust, carnality, impatience, severity, obstinacy, anger. How desirable, precious, pleasant, life-giving is the peace given to me by the Lord! Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace [Luke 2:14]! With these words, I, like the Angels, celebrate the Nativity in the flesh of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ. Against the worst machinations of ethereal enemies during divine services, I will always call upon the Lord the Lady Theotokos, may She, with Her all-powerful intercession, destroy all their deceits against me. I thank You, Lord, for You have made me worthy to still celebrate the day of Your Nativity according to the flesh in Your Church; grant me, Lord, to always trample upon the fury of corruption and to love Your most worldly, incorruptible and eternal shrine. Yes, today I especially guard against gluttony, greed and intemperance, both for the sake of the greatness of the holiday and for the sake of observing the gift of health of soul and body. Without number, I received from You, my Lord, Lord, salvation through the prayer of repentance and especially through the communion of Your wonderful, life-giving Mysteries; Without this salvation, I would have perished long ago, gone to the grave and would not have seen the light, I would not have glorified Your name on Thy earth. Glory to Your immeasurable compassion, Your countless bounties, Your invincible power, triumphing over our sin and corruption. Evening. I thank and extol the Lord, who accepted my faith and my zealous repentance after the grateful prayer service at St. Andrew’s Cathedral, at which I allowed the spirit of malice to attach itself to my heart and inwardly became embittered at the abbot, slyly looking at some of his movements with suspicion. The spirit of malice took a strong hold of me and burned me. But the Lord extinguished the fire of hell. After early mass. I thank the Lord, who has repeatedly delivered me from the thorns of sin and from the gore of the stings of spiritual serpents during Matins and the Liturgy, during the Matins at the litia and the blessing of the loaves, and especially after the dismissal at the All-Night Vigil, which I said haltingly and abruptly, without uttering the name of the Most Pure Mother of God, the holy apostles and Godfathers due to the delusion of the devil. After this defeat, I recovered by the grace of God and prayed to Christ, the Light and the first hour of release in full. At the liturgy, precisely at the great entrance, the names of the royal family were said quite clearly and completely, although not entirely. There is hope with God's help to completely improve; Through the prayer of the Mother of God, he received life-giving communion. The sermon was said well, clearly, powerfully. Today, at the end of the early mass that I served, an all-evil spirit wounded and killed my heart with blasphemy against the Most Pure Mother of God at the moment when I began to kiss Her all-honorable image on the holy chalice, and I was tormented by this absurdity for ten or fifteen minutes. Oh, slander, oh, the shamelessness of the enemy! Oh, the audacity of the enemy! But then, through repentance and zeal for the Mother of God, the Lord took away oppression and death from my soul. After that, believe in anything about this all-world scoundrel, who is trying by all means to blaspheme God’s truth and all of us through us. Don’t trust him in anything: he only seeks our death. I thank the Lord, who healed my headache in the morning at four o’clock by cleansing my stomach, after which I secretly thanked the Lord. After early mass. I thank the Lord, who visited me with His mercy today during Matins, granting me deliverance from cramped conditions and confusion, and especially during the liturgy, which I served with Deacon Vladimir and sexton Dmitry Kamenogradsky, delivering me through inner prayer from evil despondency and from grief at the deacon and sexton, who served irreverently and, as it seemed, became embittered at me. The Lord saved me and pacified me, revived me, and I served the entire Liturgy regularly, with much strength, sincerely, without stumbling, and received life-giving communion of the Holy Mysteries. I thank the all-good and benevolent Master of the Lord Jesus Christ, who heard me in the hours of cramped sinful repentant cry of my heart and delivered me from my sins and from the violence of the principalities and authorities and rulers of the darkness of this age in the apartment of Fyodor Alek. Loshkina before the Sacrament of Baptism (baby Anisia). My sin was that I was angry with the beggars who surrounded me in large numbers, and with Father Deacon Arseny for his slowness in moving and going to services. The Lord also saved me in the officer’s apartment, where I gave a prayer to the mother in labor and named the baby. The Lord also delivered me at ten o’clock in the evening from the uncleanness of prodigal life that touched my heart when I left the house, walked along the street and prayed. Yes, I henceforth despise all sin. I thank the Lord, who showed me His mercy before and during Matins in delivering me from the sorrow and distress that befell me for my dislike for the poor and for my obstinacy towards them. I brought sincere repentance to the Lord for violating the law of love, for insulting the goodness and majesty of God, for my anger, for my impatience, and the Lord had mercy on me and gave me peace, and I read and sang the canons with a joyful, triumphant spirit. At the very end of Matins, the enemy greatly embarrassed, wounded, and consumed me through an apparently unimportant circumstance: the sexton of Kamenograd walked around me on the choir and, slightly nodding his head at me, did not come up for the blessing due to hostility towards me (as I think). This outraged me, hurt me, killed me. For a long time I fell to the throne of grace, firstly, for the admonition of a sexton who was disrespectful to the priesthood and, secondly, for the healing of my soul and the forgiveness of my sins: self-love, ambition, pride, malice, enmity, anger, hatred of the sinner, for, instead of covering the sin with love or not noticing it or feeling sorry for the sinner, forgive him ignorance, I looked at this unimportant offense with slyness and suspicion, hostility, blaming it for an insult to my dignity and my personality, mistaking it for a person. If he is the offender, and I am the offended one, then I must take pity on the one who offended me innocently at the instigation of the devil and pray for him sincerely, so that the Lord will enlighten him and deliver him from the snare of the enemy, so that his soul will not perish in the charms of malice. But I perverted the moral order, I became embittered at it, and now instead of one there were two embittered ones, and instead of one there were two doing the will of the devil, and not the will of God. I felt how the enemy was acting viciously and destructively, hellishly within me, confusing, oppressing, scorching and tormenting me. God! I say to you with Stephen the first martyr: do not make this sin a reader and deliver me from the snares of the enemy. Grant us peace and unanimity for the glory of Your holy name. Humble our souls, arrogant with pride and self-love, and grant us to endure each other with love. Show me this reader to be obedient, and I will be obedient to him when necessary, honoring him as my brother and co-servant. I thank the Lord, who gave me the word on the week after the Nativity of Christ to celebrate safely, although with extreme spiritual impotence, the late liturgy in the Assumption Church. At the great entrance, he was embarrassed and afraid from fear of the enemy and did not clearly pronounce the names of the royal family, which was extremely painful and shameful; I begged the Lord for this, may he forgive me and give me boldness to say what is appropriate; after the consecration of the Holy Gifts, out of fear of the enemy of the Holy Synod, he also did not remember the name of Metropolitan Isidore, saying the title of Novgorod, St. Petersburg and Finland and theirs... He said the dismissal of the liturgy with great tension. I didn’t serve the liturgy for one day, and what powerlessness of the spirit, what spiritual death! I need to serve every day. Grant me the wealth of simplicity, love, humility, kindness, Lord! I thank the Lord, who heard my prayer for the blessing of Reader Dmitry and Deacon Vladimir. Gluttony, delicacy, wine drinking, nourishing the flesh to a strong extent, intensify all the passions in it: self-love, pride, malice, envy, covetousness, hard-heartedness, anger, irritability, severity and obstinacy towards the poor, towards households, towards subordinates, towards everyone who is lower than us or equal to us. So, I have experienced this myself many times now. Yesterday I was visiting, feasting on wine, grapes, apples, tea, food (although very little of these last). Today I became very irritable towards the poor, cursed at them in anger at them, and extremely hurt myself internally before and after Matins. Because of my deep repentance, the Lord forgave me both times, but there were a lot of prayers of repentance, a lot of tears, a lot of sighing, a lot of self-reproach. I thank the Lord, who granted me salvation after the death of my soul. ABOUT! It was like hell was inside me - it was so cramped and hard for me! A lesson for me not to be irritated, never to be angry! I thank the Lord, who graciously accepted my tears of repentance. I have offended His holy joint, His poor people. I thank the Lord for the sorrows He sent me for punishment, cleansing and renewal - after them I become more zealous for God, more caring for my soul and the souls of men, more bold in prayer. I thank the Lord for the great boldness and sincerity of my heart with which I served today a prayer service with Ivan F. Palyanov at ten o’clock in the morning. Four o'clock in the afternoon. I thank the Lord for the salvation of restoration and renewal, accomplished in me now by my Lord through the prayer of repentance, when I sinned with bitterness and rage against the poor who asked me for alms. With rage and abuse and reproaches without reason, I have unjustly insulted Your members, O Lord, and my own, for we are members of one another [Eph. 4:25]. I thank You, Lord, for You still accept my repentance, and You still heal my ulcers, and You also destroy the mortal bonds in me and give me life instead of death. I thank you, for you have reconciled me, O Lord, to the abyss of mercy and peace. When will I be crucified to the world and the world will be crucified to me? When will I despise the many-passionate flesh, mortify its passions and love the one God? Justification (Church Glav.) – law, institution. Testimony (Church Glav.) – revelation, testimony, commandment. Ouds (Church Slavic) – parts of the body. You regret the misfortunes of men ( Jonah 4:2 ). Pretiti (Church Glav.) – to be angry, to threaten, to be indignant. Accept no accusation against an elder except in the presence of two or three witnesses (1 Tim. 5:19); The 56th Apostolic Canon says: “If anyone from the clergy annoys a presbyter or deacon, let him be excommunicated from church communion.” Cherubic hymn at the liturgy.