14-го числа

Rev. Auxentius the Wonderworker The Monk Auxentius, first a courtier under Theodosius the Younger, then a hermit in a mountain near Chalcedon, in Bithynia, was famous for his teaching and miracles. He was present at the Fourth Ecumenical Council and labored against heresies. He founded many monasteries in Bithynia; died around 460. On the same day Rev. Maron the Desert. Syrian ascetic; founder of many monasteries; died 370 † Rev. Isaac the Recluse The Monk Isaac serves as an example that one cannot walk along the path of spiritual life without being subject to temptation; but there cannot be such a temptation that human strength, strengthened by the invisible power of God, cannot endure (1 Cor. 10:13). Isaac was a rich merchant of Toropetsk. We offer a story about him by Rev. Nestor. “Desiring to be a monk, he distributed all his property to the poor and to monasteries and came to Anthony’s cave with a request to tonsure him as a monk. Anthony accepted him, clothed him in the clothes of a monk and named him Isaac, and his former name was Chern. And so Isaac began to lead a strict life: he put on a hair shirt, ordered to buy a goat, took off his skin and covered the hair shirt with raw goat skin, which dried on him, shut himself up in a tight cave, four cubits deep, and here he prayed to God with tears; His food was prosphora, and then every other day, and he drank water in moderation. Anthony brought him both, serving him through a window through which his hand could barely fit. So he spent 7 years, not going out into the light, not lying on his side, but seeing, indulging in sleep for a short time. Usually in the evening he began to bow and sing psalms, and continued this way until midnight; when he got tired, he sat down. Once he was sitting, resting, and the candle had already gone out. Suddenly the cave was illuminated by a light as bright as the sun; Two bright young men enter, their faces shining like the sun. “Isaac,” they said, “we are Angels, and here Christ comes to you, worship Him.” He did not understand the demonic action and, without protecting himself with the sign of the cross, or the consciousness of his unworthiness, he approached and bowed to the ground, like Christ, to the demonic action. The demons exclaimed: “You are ours, Isaac.” They brought him into the cell, sat him down and sat down next to him; Not only the cell, but also the cave street was filled with them. One of the demons, the imaginary Christ, said: “Take the pipes, tambourines and harps and play, let Isaac dance with us.” And they began to play pipes, tambourines and harps. They exhausted him to the point that they left him barely alive; They scolded him and left. In the morning, when it became light and the time had come to eat bread, Anthony, as usual, came to the window and said a prayer, but there was no answer. Anthony thought: apparently he had already died, and sent to the monastery for Theodosius and the brethren. They dug up a cave and carried him out like a dead man. But then they noticed that he was still alive. Hegumen Theodosius said: “this is the work of demons”; he was laid on the bed. Anthony followed him. When, out of Izyaslav’s anger for Vseslav, Anthony retired to Svyatoslav in Chernigov (this was in 1068), “Theodosius brought Isaac to his cell and began to follow him. Isaac was so relaxed that he could not stand up or sit down, and lay on one side; That is why worms appeared more than once under his thighs. Theodosius washed him with his own hands. So two years passed. And a wonderful thing! For two years he lay down, did not take bread or water, and remained dumb and deaf. Theodosius prayed earnestly for him, day and night. In the third year he began to speak and hear and began to walk, but like a baby. He didn’t want to go to church, but they brought him by force; then they taught him to go to meals; Here they placed bread in front of him, but he did not touch it unless one of the brethren put it in his hand. Theodosius said: “Let him learn to eat himself,” and he did not take bread for a week; then, looking around, he began to take it.” So little by little he recovered from the terrible shock. Returning to his former health, Isaac began to lead a strict life again. He no longer went into the cave; He put on a hair shirt, and over it put on a thick retinue and began to play the fool. This already happened under Abbot Stefan. He began helping the cooks in the kitchen to cook food for the brethren. The first to arrive at Matins was to stand motionless. In cold weather he walked in well-trodden shoes; his feet froze to the stone, but he did not move until the morning singing ended. After Matins he went to the kitchen, prepared wood, water, and fire. One of the cooks, also called Isaac, once, laughing, said to him: Isaac! there sits a black raven, go catch him. He bowed to him to the ground, went, caught a raven for him and brought it in front of everyone; the cooks were amazed and told the abbot and the brethren about this. From that time on, the brothers began to respect him. But he, avoiding human glory, began in foolishness to insult first the abbot, then the brethren, then the laity, so that others beat him. He entered again into the cave in which he lived; Having gathered the children to him, he clothed them in black clothes; for this he got it both from abbot Nikon and from the parents of those children. He endured everything: beatings, nakedness, and cold. At one time he lit a stove in his cave; the stove was thin, the fire flared up and began to fly out through the cracks of the stove. Having nothing to cover the stove, he stood on the fire with his bare feet and only came down when the stove burned out. They told a lot about him, says the reverend chronicler, and I myself saw other things. He finally gained such power over the demons that he considered their dreams and fears as nothing, and greeted them like flies. “You deceived me before in the cave,” he said, but because I did not know your tricks then; now the Lord Jesus Christ, my God, and the prayer of my father Theodosius are with me; I hope to defeat you." The demons did a lot of dirty tricks on him. “You are ours,” they said, you worshiped our elder and us.” “Your elders are the enemy of Christ, and you are demons—evil demons,” he answered, shielding himself with the sign of the cross, and they disappeared. Sometimes they came to him at night and, trying to instill fear in him, they appeared in a crowded crowd, with spades, and made noise: “We’ll dig up this cave and bury him here”; others shouted: “Run, Isaac, they want to bury you.” And he answered: “If you were kind, you would come during the day; but you are darkness, you walk in darkness, darkness is your lot.” And he made the sign of the cross over them and they disappeared. Another time they frightened him with a bear, a wild animal, an ox, or snakes, frogs and all sorts of reptiles crawled towards him. But they couldn't do anything with him. “You defeated us, Isaac!” they finally said. “You have defeated me in the image of Christ Jesus and the Angels,” he answered, not being worthy of such an image; now you appear in your true form, in the form of beasts, cattle, snakes and reptiles; you are truly disgusting and evil.” The demons disappeared and after that they no longer bothered him. He himself said that his last battle lasted for three years. He spent his last years even more strictly, in abstinence, fasting, and vigil. When he fell ill in the cave, he was transferred to the monastery and on the eighth day he died under Abbot John. This is how the Monk Nestor narrates 285. According to the story of Polycarp, Rev. Isaac was among the fathers who healed the deceived Nikita through prayer, which happened under John’s predecessor (1102), Abbot Nikon (1088). So Rev. Isaac died not before 1090, and after his healing he spent about 20 years in labors. His relics rest openly in the caves of St. Anthony, and part of them was transferred from Kiev to Toropets by the abbot of the Kudin monastery in 1711 286. “Isaac, who through many sufferings overthrew the deception of the devil, prays to You, Christ, to deliver from her temptations; save us, O most merciful one" 287. Transfer of the relics of St. Prince Mikhail of Chernigov and the boyar Theodore On the same day, the transfer of the relics of St. Prince Mikhail of Chernigov and the boyar Theodore. In 1572 from Chernigov to Moscow; see in the life of September 20. Collection years. 1, 82–86. 74. 259–261. It is impossible not to notice that the print. The Patericon, in its own way of presenting Nestor’s narrative, sometimes obscures Nestor’s thought in places, and sometimes adds something that did not happen, or that Nestor does not speak about. Description laurels page 105. RKP. Saints: “Rev. Isaac the Recluse." In the Menaion of Macarius on April 27, “the word about Isaac Monas, whose deceptions are the devil.” In print. prologue - the same. It’s the same in the RKP. Rumyantsev's prologue No. 325. In the menea of ​​St. Demetrius in memory of the Rev. Isaac 14 Feb. Meletius Sirig in the canon. Akathists, K. 1674