Август 1889 г.

I thank the Lord, who delivered me yesterday from the oppression of the disembodied enemy, who stopped me at the last litany of holy Baptism. In repentance, I looked with the eyes of my heart towards the Lord, and He immediately heard and saved me. It was in Vysokaya Street, opposite the house of Yakov Andreev, in the evening at ten o’clock. And the Lord saved me several more times. Oh, sin, sin! I thank the Lord, who made me worthy to celebrate the late liturgy in the Assumption Church; however, there was a painful indignation at the sexton for his haste in singing, from which I could not calmly read the prayers. I extinguished this sorrow, or this grief, with repentance, humility, patience, prayer, and communion after the Liturgy of the Holy Gifts. This evening at eight and a half o'clock there were two terrible thunderclaps and two dazzling flashes of lightning: I was hiding from the rain at that time in Lishkin's shop in the house of Yakov A. Murashov. The children Rufina and Liza cried a lot out of fear, as I found out when I arrived home. The Gurnoffs were in the cathedral and in the cemetery; They are both pathetic: the evil one eats them up and down, confuses them, worries them every day with Alexandra Konstantinovna’s suspicions about her husband, and it’s terrible for him, poor thing. For consolation, he only smokes his cigar. In their presence I celebrated vespers briefly with great embarrassment; they had not visited me for five years or more. Morning. By the life-giving right hand of Christ my God, I was saved again and again in the morning before and during Matins, first from melancholy and tightness of heart, and then from grief at the reader Vladimir (secret grief) for the quick and sluggish reading, and finally upon arriving home. He served Matins in a clear and sonorous voice, with great boldness. You can’t heal evil with evil, you can’t restore peace with confusion, you can’t correct a mistake with a mistake, but with good you can heal evil, with a gentle word you can establish peace and correct a mistake. So do it. It’s good and healthy to eat cucumbers with black bread, and I don’t need anything else: my voice is excellent, it’s strong and healthy. During the Liturgy, the struggle against the machinations of the enemy is greatest, deliverance from the Lord is speedy, sovereignly strong, communion is life-giving. After the liturgy, there is again a struggle with intrigues due to the sexton’s haste, grief at him, patience with the fire of the enemy; At Vespers, he did not cope with the enemy, but was defeated by him, because he drank vodka and wine at dinner with his guest Father Ilya Kedrov (from St. Petersburg) and was intemperate. Oh, fasting, only fasting with prayer is my strength! Again the Lord revealed His saving power in me before and during Matins, when I, extremely embarrassed, wounded, inflamed and oppressed by the sin of hardness of heart and failure to give alms to the beggars I met, repented from the soul and asked the Lord for mercy: salvation hastened to me, and I enjoyed the peace of God and served Matins with great boldness, without stumbling (biased thought about the gilded watch I bought, I was fiercely fascinated, and only the Lord, my incorruptible Treasure, delivered me from this temptation). After Matins, when I was walking home, the Lord revealed in me a new salvation, a new deliverance from the deadly bonds of sin, a new renewal, a new freedom of spirit and boldness. I praise the Lord. After mass. Again and many times, the most merciful Lord delivered me from my sorrows and oppressions and from the pinches of the serpent: before mass (anger towards the poor, for which I sincerely condemned myself, asking for mercy from the Lord, and for that I received mercy); during the reading of the Gospel after the great entrance, at which he did not pronounce the names of the heiress and the title of the Grand Duke, and finally at the end of the liturgy. He served with tenderness, grace, and received communion in a very life-giving way. All is well by the grace of God. The Lord is marvelous in me with His mercy and His strength. How can I thank the Lord for His countless mercies towards me, which I see pouring out on me every day? Oh, if only I could fulfill all His holy, perfect will! Oh, if only I did not do the will of my flesh and the will of my heart! Oh, that I might live holy on earth and forsake every path of sin! Wake up! Amen. How can I honor the Lord’s mercies to me during Matins today, during the Liturgy, during the all-night vigil in the cathedral (which I stood and prayed secretly in the Intercession Limit) and upon arriving home from church? I, malicious and voluptuous, constantly sin; Having committed a sin, I experience wounds and ulcers, I am wounded, I repent sincerely and, when I repent, I always experience the swift and wonderful mercy of the Lord, who has mercy and revives me, pacifies and expands my heart! Oh, how good it is to be with the Lord, to stand in His truth, in love for Him, in fulfilling His will! O all-blessed life! Oh, angelic life! Man, according to the teachings of the devil, has perverted God’s intention regarding His creatures and regarding himself, that is, man, for man, for example, uses food and drink very often not to strengthen his strength, not for encouragement and joy, but for pleasure, satiety, intoxication; or he uses sexual intercourse not for the multiplication of the race, not for the creation of children, but for the satisfaction of lust and passion, for bestial pleasure, for desecration of himself and the sex, and even perverts the very use of sex, cursing his own nature. And man has distorted many, many things in life. And yet what a great, lofty, holy, wonderful, wise, unblemished work of procreation, of copulation into one body of two sexes, legally performed! Is it tempting for a farmer to sow seed in the ground in his field? Wonderful are Your works, O Lord, You have created all things with wisdom ecu 62. Oh, how one lustful thought devours the soul, oppresses, scorches, torments, darkens, kills! Woe to the fornicators! During the all-night vigil, I enjoyed deep peace from the Lord while reading the canon and akathists and while listening to the irmos of the 2nd tone, sung by the choristers. Glory to God (the thought of fornication burned me after that)! Because of the stale prosphora from which the image of the Lamb of Christ was carved, yesterday the evil adversary brought upon me, the foolish one, a subtle doubt about the Lamb Himself after consecration, especially during communion (oh, crafty, whimsical flesh, pampered by worldly food!), and the subtle poison of unbelief or doubt tormented me for about ten minutes, but when I opposed the doubt to the dried Holy Gifts, which have the same power as the soft ones, then the poison of doubt has disappeared. This poison of doubt was communicated to me by the enemy because of my satiation the night before and drinking beer (two glasses of fish soup, a plate of fish, two glasses of tea). That’s why the lustful thoughts were too sharp and intrusive. We must mortify the body and enslave it, so that, while preaching to others, we ourselves do not remain unworthy [1 Cor. 9:27]. I, the accursed one, am also rich in malice, for I still cannot make peace with the Right Reverend Metropolitan Isidore (but I want, I want!) for his contemptuous treatment of me, which happened thirteen years ago, and for his words of falsehood, as it seemed to me at least (that I was walking wrong, baptizing myself wrong, bowing). But really, I didn’t see any shortcomings or mistakes in myself, but he, like an archpastor, irritated by something before my arrival, remarked sternly to me, and I, full of pride, could not stand it, and then cried from the thunderstorm. Lord, Knower of the Heart, reconcile me with the archpastor, take away the anger from me, fill my heart with love, meekness, kindness, and patience. Let me remember how I treat inferiors and beggars also rudely, sternly, impudently. It serves me right, let me learn how to deal with the lesser brethren of Christ. When the sun's rays illuminate our home, then we can see a lot of dust floating in the air, but without the sun's rays it is inconspicuous; so in our soul we see a multitude of sins, this aphid that devours the soul, when the Sun of Truth, Christ God, illuminates our soul with His light, and without Him we are blind and see nothing (although we have an abyss of sins), we do not know what sins we have. Early mass was for me today a time of the most severe temptations from my many-passionate flesh and from the devil, acting in the flesh and in the flesh: I repeatedly defeated him with God’s grace (the Lord changed the movement of carnal love through my prayer to spiritual love, malice to goodness, gluttony to godly pleasure), but finally I was defeated by the womb in a pitiful way because of the callous and extremely small and the ugly prosphoras served for the laity, he was indignant at the prosphora, suspecting her of strong profiteering and dishonesty. Oh, what cramped conditions, torment, death, shame there was - I cannot say! The enemy attacked me terribly; Only in communion of the Holy Mysteries did I find peace, and even then not perfect, for I could not completely free myself from indignation. Alas for me! Alas for me! The evil perverter of all moral order and the works of God in the human race and in me often transforms my heart and mind through my various passions and addictions and sinful habits, and even when? - it’s scary to say: during the Divine Liturgy, during the celebration of the heavenly Sacrament, when standing before the throne of God, when the mind and heart must be directed entirely towards God and must be the light and flame of the Divine. My God! I serve the Sacrament of peace, purification, renewal, deification, the Sacrament of immortality, and my heart crawls on the earth with dislike, hostility towards those who displease my gaze, taste, my greed, or who do not flatter my pride, but who sternly accuse me of my shortcomings and weaknesses, or suffer from partiality, contemplation, voluptuousness, making a person an idol. Oh, my God, righteous God! What idolatry! What an abomination of desolation in the heart in the holy place! What an insult to the All-Holy, All-Righteous, All-Good, All-Blessed, and Who always strives to bless us with ineffable bliss! How high the goodness of God lifts a person, especially a priest, and how a person falls low, deep, disastrously! From what light and into what darkness! From what life to what death! From the Divine world into the diabolical confusion! Eleven o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the distress and sorrow that befell me for the sin of hard-heartedness and severity towards the beggar, when, walking along the road, I brought sincere repentance of my sins, asking for mercy. The Lord soon showed me mercy and peace. God bless! I still have indignation in my heart against Bishop Isidore for his long-standing harsh treatment of me, which I was worthy of for my sins, especially then (fifteen years ago), and yet I myself daily treat the poor harshly, who humbly and kindly endure my reproaches and even curses; Why am I indignant at the ruler after this? He treated me the same way as I treat beggars, and thereby showed me in practice how wrong and insulting it is to treat innocent or even guilty people harshly. So, away with memory malice! Away with pride, conceit, self-praise! I deserve to be treated harshly! May the pride of my heart be laid low! I am trampled upon by everyone for my sins, and yet I am revered as a righteous man! See, Lord, I condemn myself, I say: I am the greatest sinner! Have mercy, have mercy on me! Help, help me to pass the high rank of priesthood with dignity. Wake up! I reject all the feelings of the old man: anger, resentment, envy, greed, contemplation, gluttony, drunkenness, love of money, laziness, negligence and others. While in church during worship, we are in the personal presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who said: where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them [Matthew 18:20]. Those who pray should not forget this. But the more diligently and lively our prayer should be in church, the more reverently we should stand and not leave it prematurely, except in extreme need. From my own experience I know that the Lord can unite and dwell in the heart of a person only purified by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and does not dwell in a person guilty of any sin: What does light have in common with darkness? What agreement is there between Christ and Belial? [ 2 Corinthians 6:14-15 ]. And therefore He dwells eternally in all saints, only in saints and sinners purified by repentance; by the predominant, special, glorious dwelling of the merging of the Divinity with humanity, He dwells forever in the Most Pure Mother of God, who surpassed in purity and deification all the Angels, then in the apostles, prophets, hierarchs, martyrs, saints and all saints! To him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen. I thank the Lord, who quickly listened to me in my repentance during the liturgy and sent me a helping hand against the violence of the crafty and vile demons who fiercely fought my weakness. Although yesterday evening I did not eat anything of bread or fish (except before the all-night vigil at the christening), and ate only watermelon, the temptations were equally strong as when I ate in the evening, and my voice was very weak and unclean due to the weakening of the internal nerves. I received communion, thank God, in a life-giving way. The word of Saint Ephraim the Syrian on the Transfiguration was spoken clearly. I thank the Lord, who showed me His quick and wondrous help during the service of numerous prayer services, which I all served with grace and zeal. I thank the Lord, who delivered me on the pier in the fish row from cold thoughts instilled by a vile demon. Even if you don’t look at anything, everywhere and through everything it tempts me, tempts me, intensifies to defile me with thoughts and through thoughts to live in me, in my heart, to confuse and torment me. Such hellish anger! Carnal love is not love, but an animal, crude voluptuousness, carnality, which turns a person into a thing, into sweetness, on a par with the sweets that are eaten. This extremely humiliates both the one who loves so animalically and bestially, and the person to whom such love is directed! And what comes of such love? Mutual desecration, mutual corruption. Alas for me, alas for me! I have not yet learned how to deal with my masters, that is, with the poor, in whose person the Lord Himself accepts alms from me! Alas for me! I have not yet learned to eat and drink as a Christian should, for I eat and drink with greed and greed, and therefore often immoderately! Alas for me! I have not learned to appreciate the many different gifts of God: money, clothes, many different household utensils, because I often use them with passion, which takes over my heart and does not give room to the love of God and love for my neighbor, whom I sometimes neglect in his need because of my addiction to things and whose salvation I neglect, as well as my own. Alas for me! How the love of this world devastates my soul and alienates me from love for God and neighbor! Oh, what cunning, what beauty of Belial! Oh, what our idolatry! For how many passions we have, there are truly so many idols in our souls! I will sing of Your power and rejoice in the morning about Your mercy: for He was my intercessor and my refuge in the day of my tribulation. My helper ecu, I sing to you: for God is my protector ecu, my God, my mercy [Ps.59:17,18]. So today I glorify Your mercy with all my heart, for You have been my Savior from early morning and today, when I, having despised a beggar with a lump over one eye (natural) for frequently asking me for alms, which I gave to him, received a deadly ulcer in my soul for my dislike, pride and stinginess, and then, sincerely condemning myself and falling before Your throne several times, received forgiveness, healing, peace and great mercy. Then, in the Assumption Church before mass, disheveled by the enemy and confused and oppressed in my soul, I again fell to Thy mercy and Thy blessedness in repentance - and again received peace, space and boldness, with which I began the service. But soon he was again killed by the enemy for greed, when he saw extremely small and ugly, crumpled prosphora and became indignant at the prosphora. Oh, how mortally the enemy tormented me, how he confused and wounded me! But when I despised the belly and that which is for the belly and not for the soul, when I placed all my hope in Christ and in Him alone, saying that man will not live on bread alone, but on the Body of Christ and the Blood of Christ and on every word of God, that everything on earth is corruption and vanity, then the enemy jumped away from me. This happened while reading the Gospel. Then I served good. Received life-giving communion. He served the memorial service without stumbling. After mass, when I was walking in the cathedral garden and reading to Ivan Ivanovich Strenzel a passage from Chrysostom’s conversation, a French teacher, Nestor Ivanovich Masson, met me and offered to lend me one hundred rubles from the gymnasium cash desk; I promised, although reluctantly, and then I felt very sorry, because I was afraid that he would not return it; my heart was oppressed and wounded, and I went to the cathedral, fell down before the Lord sitting on the throne, so that he would not lead me into attack and may he turn away the unfaithful person from me. The Lord calmed me down. Glory to the Lord! God! I will always seek You and Your Kingdom, Your righteousness, so that everything that I need will be added to me, everything I need for life, and not be taken away [Matthew 6:33]. Ten and a half o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who has now delivered me from sorrow, oppression, fire and the wrath of God that befell me for being angry with my wife and for reproaching her for contradicting me. I sincerely repented before the Lord, earnestly asked with faith for mercy and received peace, life and great mercy. Glory to the Lord, gracious and merciful! The more sincerely and zealously you expose yourself, sinner, to your sins, the more you offend the devil, the author of all our sins and their teacher, and the more through this humility and self-abasement you attract the favor of God. Reproach yourself diligently for all the nasty, crafty and blasphemous thoughts, for self-love, pride, malice, envy, ill will, malice, gloating, for greed, gluttony, gluttony, drunkenness, fornication of thoughts and hearts, for rage, irritation, partiality, love of money, stinginess, despondency, timidity, murmuring, impatience, resistance and disobedience, for laziness, idleness, negligence, reproach and curses, for severity, obstinacy, rudeness, for indulging in the sins of others, for temptation, bad skills and habits, for covetousness, lies, deception, servility, hypocrisy. What kind of pagan life is this! Every day I indulge with all my will in gluttony and delicacy, and even on all fasting days and during all fasts! Alas for me! Alas for me, an idolater who rejects the good yoke of Christ! Gluttony drives a Christian man to such an extent that he places nothing on the salvation of his soul and the Christian faith, by which we are saved and which gives us commandments by which we must live, and performs upon us the Sacraments by which we must be sanctified; he becomes a slave of the devil and diligently does his will every day. You cannot serve God and mammon [Matthew 6:24]. Apparently, it is an unimportant thing to please the belly every day (as the devil teaches you to do), and yet I have been in slavery to the belly for thirty-five years or more, and because of it there have been so many omissions, relaxations, laziness, cooling towards God and neighbors, and unclean thoughts. I thank the Lord, who healed the [scorching] ulcer of my soul during the early liturgy, when I was upset with Father Deacon Arseny for prolonging the end of the prayer. Lord, save the pious and hear us; I repented to the Lord of my malice, sincerely condemned myself, fell with my heart and lips to the throne (in the chapel of the Forerunner) and now felt the healing of my ulcer - and sweet peace, boldness, space in my heart. Glory to the Lord! On the Rambov ship, the Lord saved me from seeing the unclean. I sincerely repented and was healed, and cleansed, and at peace. Having slept last night under a warm blanket on a very warm night, I was subjected to a satanic temptation in a dream, a dark sweetness that significantly exhausted me. I was sleeping on my left side at this time. Having completed the cleansing prayers, I lay down again and fell asleep and slept through almost Matins. Through the ineffable mercy of God, he served the Liturgy quite calmly; a great weakness of heart was noticeable. Received life-giving communion. I thank the Lord, who surprised me with His salvation when I, confused by the domestic strife between my sister-in-law, governess and my wife, a strife in which I was also involved, prayed to the Lord in repentance and self-condemnation to transform the confusion into the world and restore the extinguished love, and He, the most merciful, after my intense and long prayer, took away the confusion from my painful soul, giving me peace and my family. I felt and felt the wonderful mercy of God. Oh, Lord, give understanding to my household, so that they may flee from enmity. I thank You, Lord, for the miracles of Your mercy on me, a sinner, during Matins, early Liturgy and after the admissions tests at the gymnasium; When I, in melancholy and crampedness and sorrow of heart over a former quarrel in my family, in repentance, with great faith and with a great cry of heart, cried out to the Lord for the destruction of the enmity of relatives 63 and for the destruction of the melancholy and crampedness of the heart, the Lord destroyed the machinations of the enemy in me and gave me peace and space of heart. With a peaceful, free, spacious heart, I entered the apartment of my spiritual daughter, benefactor, widow Olga Afanasyevna Karpova, and ate with her with thanksgiving. But, having come home and seeing my opponents, I did not completely calm down, I was embarrassed, my writing hand trembled a little. Forgive us, Lord. Reconcile us! Completely destroy the machinations of the enemy and establish deep peace in us. Amen. Three and a half hours in the afternoon. I want, Lord, to pity and sincerely love my domestic enemies - my sister Anna and my wife Elizabeth, her sister; have mercy on them, Lord, according to your great mercy, as you always have mercy on me, let them go - they don’t know what they are doing, slandering and being angry with me; enlighten their heartfelt eyes to the knowledge of their sins, humble and soften their hardened hearts, like my heart, and guide our feet again on the path of peace. Amen. Let them go, Lord, for they do not know what they are doing [Luke 23:34]. Because of my goodness, given to me by Your goodness, Lord, I suffer; as if because I fed, watered, rested, caressed the children of a young widow, now I am suffering from her, Lord! Have mercy and have mercy on me, Lord! Bring my soul out of prison! Grant me to see the light again. To the chosen 64 Governor and my Lord Jesus Christ I write 65 thanks for the victory over the spirits of malice that settled in us, my sister-in-law and my wife, malice towards me and in me towards them because of the governess, whom, it seemed to me, they had offended and whom I defended ardently. This hostility and mutual bitterness continued for more than a day. However, I soon tamed all hostility in myself with a prayer of repentance, but often it brazenly, forcibly invaded my heart and crushed and killed it; Finally, this evening, August 10, after very large verbal settlements between me and [my wife] [...] and after the position of one letter from the poor widow whom I helped and who thanked me in it, the hostility in my wife miraculously passed, and she began to speak to me words of affection and peace. I've calmed down now. God bless! Remember, my soul, from what misfortune, sorrow and distress the Lord delivered you today, from what serpent murderer, and henceforth beware of anger, enmity and quarrel, learn meekness and gentleness. I thank my Most Holy Lady Theotokos, the cause of countless blessings in my life, the reconciliation of bitterly hostile people; She creates peace between us with her prayers - I believe this and thank you with all my heart. After Matins, I read the canon and prayers for communion to the communicants in the cathedral, I had with me a silver watch with applied gold, I really liked it and like it, that is, I have some predilection for it (unthinkable!). As long as I did not think about them when reading the canon and prayers, the matter of reading the prayers went well, heartily, sincerely, but as soon as I thought about them with pleasure, suddenly the love and jealousy of God, as well as sincerity, disappeared from my heart; my heart became cold as ice, I read the words of prayers insincerely, double-mindedly, coldly (oh, horror! I exchanged the love of the Creator for love for a soulless thing, for cold clay!); I died spiritually, although I finished reading the prayers with difficulty, and even then not all of them. Having finished them, I, seeing myself dead, began to repent to the Lord, falling to the throne of grace, and then, leaving the church and going to the Assumption Church, I repented; in the Assumption Church I fell in repentance at the throne of God, and little by little warmth and sincerity and love for God appeared in me. During mass, the Lord gave me copious tears with a deep feeling of my own [and poverty] and wretchedness and poverty and wretchedness of the entire human race, redeemed from wretchedness by the terrible Blood of the Son of God! The sins of mankind and my own seemed to me (as they really were!) as a huge, endless, stinking scab, scorching and rotting to death, from which, of course, everyone would have died if the Lord Jesus Christ had not healed and healed this scab. After the tears, I felt light, peaceful, sweet, bold! He served graciously, powerfully, without stumbling. Received life-giving communion! God bless! Oh, how terrible is the addiction to earthly goods in a priest, who must live with all his heart and be completely holy, righteous and enveloped in the flame of love. To God and humanity, redeemed by the Blood of the God-Man! Ten o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace of tenderness and tears during the all-night vigil in the Assumption Church. The voice was gracious, clear, loud. I read the canon myself; I said the whole prayer to Christ, Light... let go loud and firm. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the distress and sorrow that befell me for the severity and hardness of heart towards the poor; I sincerely condemned myself, asking the Lord for mercy, meekness, simplicity and gentleness, and soon I felt the destruction of sorrow and oppression, peace of mind and space of heart with boldness. Glory to the Lord! I thank the Lord for a new sign of His mercy to me, when at ten o’clock in the evening, wounded by an evil and unclean thought when leaving the house, I walked around the farmstead and read evening prayers and the rule for communion, the Lord again delivered me from corruption and cramped conditions. (We need to take care of the man for whom Father Ilya Kedrov asked. We need to send four rubles to our uncle; write a letter to: soldier Anna Gerasimova, peasant woman Paraskeva Kovrigina, Paraskeva Oleinikova.) Remember that what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal [2 Cor. 4:18]; despise the flesh - it passes away, but be diligent about souls, things that are more immortal 66. I saw a wonderfully beautiful sight last night at nine and a half o'clock, walking in the courtyard between the gardens: suddenly the surroundings and I were illuminated by a light like lightning, I looked around and saw in the north in the clear sky a beating stream, as if of sunlight, cutting through the firmament of heaven at the greatest height, this stream, gradually decreasing, finally completely disappeared. Oh, beautiful heavenly light! Oh, the wondrous light of the Face of Christ our God! Who will see this light? Pure at heart. Christ, the true Light... may the light of Your face be signified upon us, may we see in it the unapproachable light, and straighten our steps to do Your commandments, through the prayers of Your Most Pure Mother and all Your saints. Oh, how sweet, how peaceful, how joyful it is to serve the Lord with a pure heart, even with tears! Nothing in the world can compare with this bliss: the most urgent needs and aspirations of the soul, with whole-hearted service to God, are completely satisfied. At this time, the soul truly lives the life of the Holy Spirit, it is completely enlivened, enlightened, peaceful, pure, free from all worldly and carnal addictions that suppress and corrupt it. I experienced this state of mind when serving God with my heart. Eight o'clock in the morning. I thank the Lord, who saved me through my prayer and repentant heart from the evil memories that killed me. Glory to the all-saving, all-life-giving name of my Savior! Eight o'clock in the evening. I thank You, Lord my God, for You have saved me from the overflow of demonic abomination in my feelings from the evil view that has defiled me. I cried out to You with all my heart in secret repentance, and You cleansed me while reading the Gospel during mass, and I felt wholeness instead of ulcers, peace instead of confusion, space instead of crampedness, boldness instead of shame. He served the Liturgy with tenderness and tears. He received Holy Communion life-giving, victoriously. Glory to Christ God, the Conqueror of hell, who can cleanse all sin. I thank the Lord, who has repeatedly delivered me from the oppression of sin during the all-night vigil and given me the grace to read with zeal the canons of the Transfiguration (giving) and Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk. I thank the Lord, who soon delivered me again from the great oppression, shame and sorrow, darkness that befell me after the all-night vigil for my angry and contemptuous treatment of the beggar who had again come from St. Petersburg (and there are many of them who appear again, while many who were before and always present [are]) and with some others. I sincerely repented, condemned myself for violating the entire law of God and so often, and the Lord, invincible in mercy, again took away the tightness (I called the beggar an annoying peasant) and gave peace and freedom, breadth of heart. God bless! Hallelujah! I thank the Lord for His wonderful, never-sleeping providence for the poor: how many times have I accidentally received money from various good people for the poor. So today, by chance, the Lord sent me twenty-five rubles shortly after mass through His servant, the trading peasant Feodor Alekseevich Loshkin! Glory to His all-good providence! Remember, Lord, Your servant Theodore with his wife and children and relatives in Your Kingdom! I remembered yesterday at one and a half: I was struck by extreme, devilish cramped conditions when I imagined that my sister-in-law Anna Konstantinovna had arrived. I went to a prayer service and on the way I turned with all my heart to the Lord with repentance and prayer for this mountain of the devil to fall away from my heart. Faith and hope did not put me to shame. I was immediately delivered: my heart felt light, peaceful, and spacious. Glory to the Lord, who benefits me! The Lord showed a light similar to that of Tabor to Saul and his companions on the way to Damascus, when the Lord opened heaven and called to Saul and made him Paul the apostle [Acts 9]. Remember that the apostles prayed for wicked kings and idolatrous leaders, and in the Old Testament the Lord commanded the captive Jews [to pray] for the pagan king Nebuchadnezzar, and you, remembering the stern, cold and disdainful reception of the metropolitan, your heart is cold towards him like stone and you are numb during divine services during a large crowd of people, do not sometimes pronouncing out of dislike the entire title of metropolitan and his very name. This is a grave sin that the devil teaches you; to be angry with the archpastor means to be angry, as it were, with the Lord Himself, Whose image he bears. You must also love your enemies according to the commandment of the Lord, and the Metropolitan is not your enemy, he proved this by rewarding you with a cross and the rank of archpriest for your service. And remember how much good he did and does! If he has weaknesses and passions, then who does not have them? You are the first of sinners, you are most burdened with them. Remember the translation of the Bible into Russian - who was the culprit of this greatest, multi-useful work? Most of all, Metropolitan. This alone will earn him heavenly glory. I thank the Lord, who has deigned me to sing and read the canon pre-celebration of the Dormition of the Mother of God and the early liturgy in the Assumption Church with the communion of the most pure and life-giving Mysteries of Christ into eternal life. Priest of little faith! What or who are you afraid of during worship? Weak, infirm, sinful, mortal people like themselves? But you are surrounded by a whole regiment of God’s Angels when you perform divine services and life-giving Sacraments! There is no one and nothing for you to fear. Fear only your sins. Everything in the world is vanity, except faith, virtue, truth, righteousness. Any attachment to worldly things is the greatest vanity; If I am addicted to pleasant food and drink, I go beyond the limits of what is necessary in their consumption, and the devil makes his fetters for me from every slightest excess; Have I become addicted to some thing, for example, a pocket watch, and the devil makes fetters out of them for me, binds my soul with them at the most critical time, when I need to burn with love for God and have a heart full of grief. The devil tries to turn every thing that I love into fetters for my soul and destroy my soul with it. You must despise everything, trample on it, and not spare your very body in the least. During the all-night vigil in the Assumption Church, saying a prayer to Christ, the true Light, from the fear of the devil and the numerous people, I was frightened by the usual machinations of the enemy and did not finish the final words to the doing of Thy commandments, through the prayers of Thy Most Pure Mother and all the saints. Both of them also stole their releases out of fear. Oh, cowardice! Oh, vanity and people-pleasing! Oh, leaving only one thing for need, for one’s own and others’ assurance of God’s mercy through the prayers of the Mother of God and the saints (their names) is one thing for need! And where am I in a hurry? Where am I hurrying? Why am I in a hurry? Truly, I am in a hurry to vanity, which already takes up almost all the time of my life. And why am I afraid of the fear of the enemy? He is powerless by the grace of Christ God, for he is completely defeated and trampled upon by Him. Oh, my lack of faith! Lord Jesus Christ, my God! Give me the grace in prayer (whether addressing the west or the east, whether there are many people or a small number of them) to say without stumbling all prayers, exclamations, litanies, all the words of the church, so that I will not be completely put to shame by the wiles of Satan. I thank the Lord, who graciously inspired 67 my prayer of repentance when I fell to His throne in the cathedral church for the crushing of the enemy’s snares within me; I soon felt the saving power emanating from the throne of grace, and in this power I began the all-night vigil in the Assumption Church. But the enemy, who never slumbers and constantly intrigues me, did not cease to launch his sting into me, to tempt, confuse and oppress me, and again I repented with tears, again I prayed to the One who was able to save me from his mortal sinful sting, and again the Lord illuminated His face on me and saved me from the murderer. But then, at the end of the service, the enemy again defeated me due to my sins, but finally I defeated him again with grace. Oh, how damned I am, how poor, poor, blind, naked indeed! The Lord is my justification, cleansing, deliverance, salvation, my wealth, my light, my clothes are clean and bright! May I always be with the Lord, may the eyes of my heart be drawn 68 to the Lord! Let nothing earthly captivate me, and let no multitude of people frighten me, for this multitude is mostly a multitude of vanity, and with me the heavenly angels invisibly serve and surround me. May the Lord be my invulnerable armor. I will love You, O Lord, my strength: the Lord is my strength and my refuge [Ps. 17:2-3]. When performing prayer and worship, do not rush as if to do something more important than serving God, and do not neglect the work of God, for cursed is man, do the work of the Lord with negligence [Jer.48:10]. We, the accursed, possessed by vanity, usually rush through private prayer and public worship - each to the object of his passion and to his own vanity, and do not serve God heartily, not with all our souls, but as mercenaries and slaves. We are cursed for this, for the fact that in our hearts there is vanity, and not God, the devil, and not our Creator and Savior. I must fight sin and the incorporeal enemy all my life. Teaching the necessity of this struggle, God Himself once appeared to Jacob the patriarch in human form and entered into a struggle with him and fought with him all night (night means earthly life) and, unable (as it were) to overcome him, injured his leg, with which Jacob limped all his life [Gen.32:24-32]. The Lord strengthened Jacob’s faint-hearted spirit by His struggle with him and said: if you have fought with God, you will overcome every man. So, do not run away from the struggle and desire it as gymnastics for your soul, as a means of strengthening it. Thursday. I thank the Lord for yesterday, for his all-powerful help against the enemies of my soul - the demons who tormented me in the morning and especially when I went to late mass in the Assumption Church (cathedral service). Having venerated the throne of grace in the cathedral in inner repentance, I felt revived after the former mortification and cramped conditions and went in good hope to the Assumption Church, there I also venerated the throne of grace and again felt even better. But when I made the entrance and put on priestly clothes, the enemies again extremely embarrassed and pressed me, and when I went out to the blessing of water, the enemies began to frighten me, depriving me of hope for stumbling-free service, but with tears, in a feeling of my weakness, damnation, poverty, blindness and poverty, I turned to God with a prayer for deliverance from enemies and for help, and the Lord helped me to complete all the prayers of the blessing of water without stumbling. After the great entrance, the Lord again healed my ulcer, and I became [here] peaceful. Received life-giving communion. Three o'clock in the evening. Today the Lord has vouchsafed me to perform the Liturgy without stumbling, in a clear, pure voice, and to receive Holy Communion in a life-giving way. And when, after mass, my sins extremely confused me and oppressed me, killing me, I sincerely repented of my severity towards the poor, and the Lord clearly revived me. The tangled rope is the human soul: mind, heart and will; mind, word and spirit: their joint upbringing, education, development, exercise, direction, affirmation. Man is the image of God. This should always be kept in mind, especially when educating young people. You were not redeemed with corruptible things, silver or gold, from the vain life handed down to you from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot [1 Peter 1:18–19]. What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? or what ransom will a man give for his soul? [Matthew 16:26]. How insignificant is gold and all the blessings of the world in comparison with the immortal soul and its salvation! And we, sinners and blind, continually cling to the blessings of this world, corruptible and perishing, in no way able to save the sinful soul from sins and give it peace, boldness and freedom! The destinies of the Lord are true, justified in their entirety, more desirable than gold and more precious than stone, and sweeter than honey and honeycomb. For I am your servant who preserves: never fails, the reward is plentiful [Ps. 19:10–12] 68. Why do I need the breasts of strangers, when the breast of my Lord Himself, His arms and ribs and His feet exude honey and milk and life-giving Blood to me, when I taste His most pure Life-giving Flesh and His cleansing and sanctifying Blood? What do I need carnal, corruptible, sinful, temporary, momentary sweetness when I enjoy incorruptible, holy, eternal Sweetness? The property of the Church, in addition to holiness, conciliarity and apostolicity, is universal humanity and sociability. The catholicity of the Church in its worship is expressed in the litanies, in which prayer is offered for the whole world, in prayer for all people throughout the world. Resurrection. I thank my Lord with all my heart, who showed me the greatest mercy at the beginning of the liturgy (I fell at the throne of grace and mercy before the proskomedia in vestments) in removing from my heart the tightness and great sorrow that befell me for reluctantly admonishing a sick, poor and old man, before mass (in Vysokaya Street in the Fedorov house, near the theater); I admonished him without love, with secret contempt, grumpiness, grief, although with secret repentance for these sins; then for the harsh treatment of the poor who asked for alms from me when I was going to mass. I was dead in soul, mortal chains were on my soul, but repentance, faith and trust in the Lord revived me, killed by my sins, I again received being, life, peace, freedom, boldness, joy, like Lazarus, I came out of the tomb and sincerely thanked the Lord my Savior. Bless the Lord, my soul, blessed be ecu, Lord, and other things from the psalm [Ps. 103:1]. During mass, the Lord saved me more than once. Received life-giving communion. First of all, remember, the Lord said something bad - the enemy shook me, confused me, he is arming my heart against the authorities, the accursed one. Lord, grant me to recognize his wiles and resist him with all my strength and defeat him. During mass he does not allow me to remember the secular and spiritual authorities! What a villain! And how many [years]! Away from the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the apostate, the worldwide seditious! It’s amazing how earthly, unclean, and sick with corruption my heart is! It places its pleasure and life in corruption and death, it seeks with greed the aphids of sin, it delights in beautiful flesh, great and beautiful houses, beautiful things of every kind and kind, wooden, metal, mineral, vegetable; beautiful clothes, books, images, generally visible and tangible things, and because of all this he turns away from the only thing needed - from truth, from virtue, from sincere love for God and neighbor, he lives an earthly, corruptible life, like a worm, groveling in the earth, in the dung of the earth. O multi-passionate heart! Oh, heart aching with corruption and voluptuousness! But throw away corruption and strive for imperishable life! Strive for grief, cast aside low, carnal passions! May your life be in God! The priest is the spiritual judge of his parishioners; he must boldly turn his observant and judgmental gaze to everyone present during the service in the church, and not be cowardly afraid of anyone. The priest is judged by God alone and his archpastor and spiritual father. Why does the clergyman teach the world before reading the Gospel? In order to read the Gospel in deep spiritual silence and the world of feelings, without haste or worry, and for all other people to listen to it. Yesterday I gave a speech and served a prayer service of gratitude before the start of classes at our men's gymnasium. He spoke well, but he read the Gospel about the laying on of hands by the Lord on children restlessly and confusedly; In general, at the prayer service I behaved timidly due to the large number of audiences and the lack of habit of holding myself freely in front of them. It was my fault that the day before, on Sunday, I allowed myself to become satiated at Kalmykov’s wake. I have sinned against the Lord! I need abstinence to serve the Lord with a pure heart. This day, from early morning, the Lord greeted me with His mercies and His salvation, just as I greeted the day with my sins and malice, being angry with the guards for not bringing me an umbrella and galoshes. After being angry with them, my heart died, it grieved and yearned - I ran to the Lord with sincere repentance, and He had mercy on me, giving me peace. After Matins, they administered unction to the old man in Fedorova’s house near the theater: due to my corrupted heart, I really didn’t like the old man’s face (a simple retired soldier), and I felt great hostility and contempt for him due to the actions of the enemy (I sinned against the Lord!), especially when I anointed him with holy oil and looked at him, and during the entire time of unction I struggled with malice. At the end of the Sacrament, he walked all the way and repented of his unrighteous hatred, that he hated his brother and Christ, his member and Christ, created in the image of God, born 69 by water and the Holy Spirit, redeemed by the Blood of Christ, merged with Christ in the Holy Mysteries of the Most Pure Body and Blood of Christ, called to the heavenly inheritance. And all this hostility comes from my satiety, from my great contentment, that is, every satisfaction of my needs and whims. I thank the Lord, who soon had mercy on me, but also taught me enough through the torment to be attentive to myself, humble and not arrogant. Yes, I myself am dust and ashes and sinful uncleanness! Oh, if only the Lord would root out all the devil’s wickedness from my heart and plant in it pure and unfeigned faith, hope and love! - otherwise wickedness strikes and slows me down even in prayer and especially when reading prayers to the Most Pure Bride of God, Mother of the King Christ, our God. My heart is extremely unclean from my youth. The most holy, wise, most beneficent, wonderful organ of human birth in men and women, the devil, with his foul and all-evil breath and deceit, through envy and malice, desecrated and blasphemed us, cursed and curses to this day, the all-abominable one. But it still remains, as the work of God’s hands, holy, incorruptible, wise, omnipotent, a holy organ in itself, immaculate, wondrous, worthy of reverence, like the entire wonderful human body, for this organ is the working force and the source of the human race, through which (the organ) I received existence. Glory to Your wise and all-good work and advice, O Lord God, our Creator and Master! May our all-evil and disgusting adversary the devil, who, out of envy, malice and abomination, curse at God’s creations, be put to shame and completely humiliated by his property! I blow and spit on you, the enemy of God and our adversary! After early mass. I thank the Lord for the speedy deliverance during the Liturgy from the closeness and sorrow of my heart, for the pronunciation of the names of the royal family at the great entrance, for the harmonious service of the Liturgy in a clear and loud voice, and for the wondrous revival of me upon communion of the Divine Mysteries. I thank the Lord for the stumbling-free completion of the liturgy, for the requiem service and for removing the tightness of the enemy before consuming the Holy Gifts. I thank the Lord, who saved me from the sorrow and distress that befell me for my anger at the beggar, who persistently pestered me with a request for alms in the exact amount he wanted (on the way from the gymnasium); I sincerely condemned myself, justified the beggar in my thoughts, asked the Lord for forgiveness and was pardoned. Then at home he was saved from the sorrow that befell him for his partial glance at the girl, again for repentance. The Lord also saved me from the cramped conditions and sorrow that followed in me from insincerely, with double thoughts, reading prayers to the mother in labor from Alexei Ivanovich Pavlov, the bailiff, and for being upset at the archpriest, who called me a hypocrite behind my back. God sees me and good people - why should I worry? God is my Judge, not people who erroneously and biasedly judge their own kind. I thank the Lord, who saved me for His name’s sake, for my repentance of hard-heartedness towards the poor while climbing the stairs to the pious Stefanida Avvakumovna in the house of Sinebryukhova at seven o’clock in the evening. There was great confusion and great distress in my heart; My salvation was wonderful, sweet, obvious. Thursday. After Matins and after the fervor with the Father Superior. I thank the Lord, who quenched the storm and excitement of my soul after I repented of my zeal and asked forgiveness from the All-Merciful Lord and the Righteous Judge of all our thoughts and thoughts; suddenly the painful storm disappeared, and silence and calm reigned in me, and my spirit rejoiced in God, my Savior [Luke 1:47]. The stone that those who carelessly build, this one, is at the forefront [Luke 20:17], - fathers and mothers do not ignore this stone when raising children, educators and bosses do not neglect, authorities and government do not neglect, children, subordinates, subjects do not neglect, And each of us must build the house of our soul, destroyed by sin. And we do not skimp on the stone when we are negligent about fulfilling the commandments of Christ, about repentance and communion of the Holy Mysteries, about correcting our lives, about visiting the church of God, about reading and listening to the word of God, about prayer. Gold is lifeless, dead, perishable, and, like earth, it will turn into earth and melt away along with the other elements. You need to go to church not just to come and stand, but to sincerely pray, to be imbued with it, to be renewed by grace, to be revived, and to be strengthened for your future life and deeds. The connection between the Old Testament and the New. Stichera with verses, prokemenons, antiphons, irmos (connection - irmos), commemoration at the proskomedia of the prophets with the evangelists and apostles, martyrs... Why does the priest make the entrance? As a sign of humility before the righteousness of God, as a sinner unworthy of entering the house of God and standing at the throne of God; That’s why he reads the psalm: I will go into Your house... Lord, guide me in Your righteousness... [Ps.5:8-9]. Thank God: my headache and nausea went away by the grace of God and, I think, also from eating fruits, and especially grapes, which cleansed my stomach. I had a headache for three days (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, August 20, 21, 22). I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the great torment of the all-evil fisher of men - the devil, who mortally wounded me when I was going to the gymnasium and greeted two officers (one Alexei Fedorovich Grigoriev, and the other a commissar acquaintance, whose two babies I baptized), and one answered me with a bow, and the other did not, and with whom, that is, the last, I was angry for his ignorance. I repented of my ambition and anger, and the Lord had mercy on me, giving me peace. Another time, the Lord saved me on the way to the harbor (along the Merchant Wall), when I was walking with my wife Gavrila Al. Britneva Evgenia Vasilyevna, saved me from the unclean tendencies of my heart, giving me peace and space after cramped conditions and confusion. For the third time he saved me in the apartment of Paraskeva Ivanovna and Prokop Evdokimov, when I was publicly reading prayers of repentance in the room, he saved me from the sorrow and cramped conditions that followed my hard-heartedness towards the beggar who overtook me at the gate of the house. The Lord graciously saved me by giving me peace. Friday. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace, through my prayer and thanksgiving, to serve with tenderness the early Divine Liturgy and to partake of the life-giving Holy, immortal and life-giving Mysteries. Oh, what bliss I felt after receiving the Holy Mysteries and then! I was renewed, revived, rejoiced! I thank the Lord, who accepted my repentance after I quarreled with my spiritual son Alexei Petrovich (a waiter at the Commercial Club), became troubled in spirit, and received an ulcer in my soul; The Lord had mercy on me when I arrived at the gymnasium and gave me peace and space. After the all-night vigil. I thank the Lord, who has given me tenderness, peace and the all-night vigil service, which is without stumbling, in addition to the Gospel and the prayer to Christ, the True Light. The voice was clear, loud, strong (after the upset and cleansing of the stomach from fruits), inside it was easy from the comparative emptiness of the stomach. Oh, how merciful and gracious the Lord is. Before the all-night vigil, I was in confusion and crampedness, but through faith, repentance, and inner prayer, I defeated the disembodied enemy who occupied me and asked my Lord for peace, space, freedom, and boldness. Glory to the Conqueror of hell and my evils! I love the Lady Theotokos as a Shrine, as Truth, Benevolence, unspeakable Kindness, as Incorruptibility, as Simplicity, as the Stronghold of God in all righteousness, truth, mercy, Immutability, Steadfastness, as a firm Protection and my Intercessor. Monday. Three times the Lord graciously delivered me through the prayer of repentance from the fierce ulcers of sin, with which the truth of God appropriately punished me, firstly, for anger at the altar guard Procopius for disobedience, secondly and thirdly, for anger at the father deacon for stretching out the final words of the last exclamation of the litany. I sincerely condemned myself in insane hostility, and justified them. He served without stumbling, with a gracious voice, received Holy Communion with life-giving, exclamations and prayers, he himself spoke heartily, without stumbling. The slightest cooling or neglect of any person without reason is the fruit of devilish pride in a person who neglects and despises. We must love each other dearly, even our enemies. Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who use you and persecute you [Matthew 5:44]. Why don’t the rector and priest Peter Klepachevsky go to church to glorify God during the early liturgies? Why are they destroying church order and fraternal unanimity? What does this pride, this contempt for church statutes lead to? I seethe with indignation and mourn about this. I thank the Lord for the unfaltering, kind, tender service of the liturgy, especially for the life-giving communion of the Holy Mysteries through the mercy of the Lord Christ God. I thank the Lord for delivering me through the prayer of repentance from the greatest distress and shame that befell me after mass on the way to the gymnasium for avoiding the poor, for my stinginess and hardness of heart (in the first grade it was very difficult for me, then the Lord delivered me in class). I thank the Lord for his sovereign, repeated deliverance of me from the snares of the enemy during the all-night vigil and for his service without stumbling in the tongue and heart (reading the Gospel, saying absolution). Only the end of the prayer to Christ, the True Light was left unsaid - the enemy confused it; I thank you for the funeral service at the Pomeranians, which you all performed kindly. Oh, how many tricks of the enemy are used against me, how many traps, how many wiles of the devil! In the morning, I was wounded to death in my soul by one instant glance at the naked part of the body of a girl who was joining the Church, and for a long time in repentance I begged the Lord to deliver me from the destructive charm: finally the Lord had mercy, granting peace. How much lustful receptivity there is in me because of my gluttony and intemperance! Yesterday I served mass by the grace of God without stumbling, with tenderness, and received life-giving communion. The Synod and the archpastor remembered without stumbling. At the end of the all-night vigil, the enemy terribly embarrassed and hurt after recording the income by taking fifty kopecks for the cab driver. I languished and prayed for a long time! Oh, love of money! Oh, greed! I thank the Lord, who has made me worthy to spend the whole day in worship - liturgy and prayer services with christenings. During mass, I felt very sad about my ranting before mass about the unevenness of the clergy’s work and the deduction of two rubles (out of five) for prayer in the mine workshop for the benefit of the sexton and me. It was hard all day. I thank the Lord, who granted me victory over invisible enemies during Matins and my bold, unstumbling service; I especially thank you for the liturgy, during which the Lord saved me many times, especially just before the end of the liturgy, when He saved me from being angry with Father Deacon Arseny for inaccuracy in the service; soon the enemy again attacked me with his malice during the funeral service, and I said from the soul within myself: damn you, the malice of my heart, from now on and forever, - and suddenly the enemy was reflected, it became easy. God bless! Yesterday I drank a lot of wine and had a late snack at Khodasevich’s in the evening. Because of satiety, the enemy is especially strengthened against me. Fasting and abstinence are very, very necessary. If the Lord had not fought for me, what would have happened to me? The enemy would twirl me like a feather. Oh, wonderful name of the Lord, oh, omnipotent name! Oh, all-redemptive, all-conciliatory, all-purifying, all-sanctifying name! I thank the Lord of glory, the Lord of mercy and bounty, who saved me from the greatest violence of the enemy and extreme crowding before the wedding, and during the wedding of the bride and groom at five o’clock in the evening. My faith in the Lord of hosts saved me. Glory to Thee, Lord! Chorus from the opening psalm at Vespers. Prisny (Church Slavic) – always, constantly close, dear person. Climbed (Church Slavic) – military, brave in battle. I will inscribe (church glory) - I send forth, I express. General Troparion to the Saints, tone 8. Inspire (Church Glav.) – to heed, to hear. Vynu (Church Glav.) - always. To give birth (Church Glav.) – to revive, to give a new birth in Holy Baptism.