Отец Василий Шустин. Отец Иоанн Кронштадтский

Our family met Father John when my father entered into his second marriage, when I was seven years old. The young bride really wanted the marriage to be blessed by Father John; Father John arrived and from then on began to visit us every year at our apartment in St. Petersburg... I saw that huge crowds always gathered around Father John and literally tore his clothes, but I did not understand such a desire of people for him. My heart was closed until I was seventeen. Not only Christians went to Father John, but also people of other faiths: Mohammedans, Buddhists... And indeed, Father John had an all-encompassing soul, filial to God, bold. When the priest came to us - and sometimes unexpectedly - they immediately covered a small table with a tablecloth, put a bowl of water and placed a cross brought from Jerusalem; We had our own gospel, censer and sprinkler. The priest especially loved to pray in the dining room, in front of the image of the Savior, which he considered miraculous. Sometimes he would get up and silently look at this image for five minutes. When he sees that everything around him is prepared for the prayer service, he kneels down and begins to pray. He always prayed extemporaneous prayers, pronouncing some words very sharply, with special emphasis, boldly asking the Lord for mercy for us. After such a rather long prayer, where he, as always, remembered the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, he sang himself: “Lord, save your people,” and blessed the water. Then, without fail, he walked through all the rooms and sprinkled them and all the beds with holy water. Father said that the air is polluted by our actions and our thoughts and it is necessary to clean it - holy water drives away and destroys this intangible stench. After lunch there was always tea. Father loved the strongest tea, almost black, and always asked to rinse the tea and pour out the first water, as he jokingly said: “We need to wash away the Chinese evil spirits.” For tea they served some kind of fish appetizer. Father didn’t eat meat at all. Sometimes he drank half a glass of sweet wine and, looking around at those present, let someone finish his glass. Then they placed in front of him a row of glasses with strong tea, a whole stack of saucers and a deep plate with lump sugar, and he, after blessing, took whole handfuls of sugar and scattered it among the glasses. He quickly stirred it with a spoon, poured it into saucers and distributed it to those present. He loved this kind of communication. By this time, as a rule, many tenants from our house were taken into our apartment; everyone rushed to the priest and, during the meal, asked about their needs. Sometimes he, lost in thought, did not answer anything, but gave advice to others or prayed for prayers. After tea he blessed everyone and hurried to another place. A crowd again gathered at the entrance, and the priest had to be dragged straight to the carriage. They often accused the priest that he rode in a carriage, that women sometimes sat there with him... How evil people are, in their perverted nature - who else but women surrounded Our Lord, who else but them served Him as their property? So here too there were rich people - women, from the spiritual children of Father John, who considered it their happiness to provide their carriage for the use of the priest. And he personally didn’t care what he was riding in - he was above it. When I was still very young, my father had a serious sore throat. Professor B.M. Academy of Throat Diseases Simanovsky determined that he had throat consumption. His entire throat became covered with ulcers, and his father’s voice completely disappeared. I remember at Christmas, due to my father’s illness, they didn’t even make us a Christmas tree. A kind of mourning reigned in the house, everyone spoke in whispers, despondency reigned; We children were not allowed to see our father. Only on the first day of Christmas we were brought to him, and he, mournfully and silently, handed out gifts to us. Simanovsky stated that he had ten days left to live, and if he was taken away, with great precautions, immediately to the Crimea, then he might live another two months. At this time, Father John had just returned to Kronstadt from one of his trips. We sent him a telegram. Five days later he came to us. He went to his father’s bedroom, looked at him and immediately exclaimed: “Why didn’t you tell me that he was so seriously ill?! I would have brought the Holy Gifts and given him communion.” My father looked pleadingly at the priest and wheezed. Then the priest went deep into himself and, turning to his father, asked: “Do you believe that I can help you by the power of God?” The father made a sign with his head. Then Father John ordered his mouth to be opened and blew three times in a cross shape. Then, swinging, he hit the small table on which were various rinses and cauterizations. The table overturned and all the bottles broke. "Throw it all away," Father John said sharply, "nothing else is needed. Come to me tomorrow in Kronstadt - and I will introduce you to the Holy Mysteries. Do you hear, I will be waiting." And the father left. In the evening, Simanovsky arrived, and with him Dr. Okunev, also a specialist in throat diseases. They were told about Father John, and that tomorrow they would take my father to Kronstadt. Simanovsky said that it was crazy that he would die on the road. (It was necessary to travel from Oranienbaum by sleigh across the sea, and the weather was windy and frosty.) But my father believed the priest, and the next day they wrapped him up well and took him to Kronstadt. Father came to the apartment where his father was staying and introduced him to the Holy Mysteries. My father lived in Kronstadt for two more days, seeing my father every day. When he returned home, Simanovsky was amazed: all the wounds in his throat were healed; only the father's voice was still weak. Simanovsky publicly declared: “This is unprecedented, this is truly a miracle!” “This is how the miraculous healing of my father took place through the prayers of the priest. The father lived after this for twenty-five years. Three years after my father’s healing, my second mother had a daughter. They asked Father John in advance to be the child’s godfather. Father agreed. My sister was born in the summer when we lived at our dacha in Finland. Father John, according to our information, should have been in his homeland at that time. They decided to baptize the sister and register, as is done in some cases, Father John as the godfather, since he gave his consent to this. The baptism was scheduled for Sunday after mass. Suddenly, on the eve of Saturday, a Chukhonian cab drove up to our dacha, and a priest easily jumped out of the carriage. We look - it’s Father John. “Here I am for the christening,” he declares, throwing open the doors. We were amazed, and, of course, chaos began. Father ordered to send for the local dacha priest and bring a font from the church. He himself walked through our garden and admired the forest that surrounded our dacha. An hour later everything was ready for the christening. The sacrament began, which was performed by the local priest, Father Simeon Nyalimov. Father John himself held my sister in his arms, renounced Satan, read, boldly read the Creed - he did everything that was supposed to be a godfather. After the sacrament, he sat down in a chair on the balcony and said: “Well, now rejoice. Congratulations on your newborn baby... Now I am your relative, I have become close to you. And look how smartly I am dressed, as if I had come to the king...” And, indeed, the priest was with stars and crosses. He kissed all of us and rejoiced with us. At this time, a crowd of people had already gathered in the garden, and the priest was blessing this crowd from the upper balcony. Then he had lunch with us. I took it with my photographic camera. And he began to rush to St. Petersburg in order to get to Kronstadt on the same day. A local landowner sent him his carriage, and we escorted him to the station, where summer residents and Finns were already crowding around, asking for his blessing. When the train arrived, the conductors took him in their arms and placed him in a separate compartment. Subsequently, the deacon of my gymnasium church said that that time he was traveling on the same train in which Father John was traveling to us. The deacon, seeing the priest all alone, was very surprised and, sitting down next to him, asked where he was going. "To Sh. for christening. They asked me, and now it's time to go." No one told Father that we had a child, and they couldn’t tell him, because my sister was born earlier than expected. Subsequently, this sister Anya, as a seven-year-old child, fell ill with smallpox. Father John fearlessly ran his hand over her face and stroked her. And at that time her face was all covered with ulcers, the girl suffered greatly. Upon her recovery, no trace of these ulcers remained. Only one small hole near the eye. One time my father invited me to go to Kronstadt with him, since he wanted to confess and receive communion from Father John. I went with him. Father came to Kronstadt to see us, served a prayer service, sent everyone out of the room and confessed to our father. After confession, my father says to me: “You too should confess to Father John,” and asks the priest about this. But I did not prepare for Communion and ate meat that day; That’s why I told the priest that I would like to join, but I can’t. Then the priest tells me: “That means you don’t want to.” And I answer again: “Father, I’m not prepared,” but he, without listening to me, asks categorically: “Do you want it or don’t you want it?” Of course, I wanted to and told him so. Then he again sent everyone out of the room and said: “I have little faith that you doubt,” and confessed me. The next day I received communion in his church and, with a light soul, returned home. Another time I had to receive communion with Father John during Lent. I arrived and stayed in Kronstadt for several days. It was difficult to get Father to come to me, and I had to confess in a general confession. My father and I arrived at St. Andrew’s Cathedral even before the bell rang. It was dark - only four hours thirty minutes. The cathedral was locked, and there were quite a few people standing around it. And we managed to get a ticket to the altar from the headman the day before. The altar in the cathedral was large, and up to a hundred people were admitted there. We had to stand on the street for half an hour, and we went through a special entrance, straight into the altar. Soon the priest arrived and began serving Matins. By the time he arrived, the cathedral was already full. And it accommodated several thousand people. There was a rather high grate near the pulpit to contain the pressure. There was already a crush in the cathedral. During Matins, the priest read the canon himself. After Matins, general confession began. First, the priest read prayers before confession. Then he said a few words about repentance and shouted loudly to the whole cathedral: “Repent!” “Something incredible began to happen here.” Screams, screams, verbal confession of secret sins. Some, especially women, tried to shout as loudly as possible so that the priest would hear and pray for them. And at that time the priest knelt before the throne and put his head on the throne and prayed. Gradually the screams turned into crying and sobs. This went on for about fifteen minutes. Then the priest got up - sweat was rolling down his face - and went out to the pulpit. Requests to pray arose, but other voices began to quiet these voices - the cathedral fell silent. And the priest raised the stole with one hand, read the prayer of permission and traced the stole first in a semicircle on the pulpit, and then in the altar, and the Liturgy began. Twelve priests served behind the throne and on the throne stood twelve huge bowls and paten. Father served nervously, as if shouting out certain words, as if showing special boldness. After all, how many souls of repentant souls did he take upon himself! I read the pre-Communion prayers for a long time - I had to prepare a lot of particles. A special stand was placed near the grate for the Chalice. Father came out at about nine o'clock in the morning and began to impart communion. First, those who were in the altar approached. I came up among them. Father raised the spoon to introduce me, brought it to his mouth and suddenly took it away and lowered it into the bowl again. I felt numb and I froze: it means that I am not worthy of Holy Communion, I did not repent enough at this general confession (everything really deafened me)... I stand in front of the Chalice, and the priest does not say anything to me, but looks inside the Chalice and seems to be stirring something, then he raised the spoon, already with two particles of the Savior’s Body, and communed. I went to the choir and began to watch how the people joined in. There was a terrible crush near the bars, and the screams of those choking were heard. The priest shouted several times not to push each other, threatening to leave. In front of the priest, so that the Cups would not be knocked out of him, another grate was placed, and people were allowed through between the two grates. There was also a chain of policemen who besieged the people and held the passages for those receiving communion. The people took communion. Quite often the priest drove away from the Chalice and did not give Communion; mainly women. “Come in, come in,” he said, “you are overcome by madness, I have anathematized you for the blasphemy that you adhere to.” This is what he said to the St. John’s, the sect that considered the priest to be Jesus Christ, who came to earth for the second time 2 . The priest had a lot of troubles and grief from these St. John. They bit him, if possible, so that at least a drop of his blood would get into their mouths. The priest in the cathedral denounced them and excommunicated them from the Church. But they crawled towards him like crazy and didn’t listen to anything. And even the police had to drag them away from the Chalice. Despite the fact that two more priests were giving communion at the same time within the church, the priest with the Chalice, which he changed several times, stood idle from nine in the morning until two and a half in the afternoon. One had to marvel at his energy and strength. I made it to the very end of the mass. At the end of it, the Holy Gifts still remained, and the priest called everyone who was there to the altar, communed, but did not drink. Having placed everyone in a semicircle in front of the altar, holding the Chalice in his hands, he began to commune people a second time, directly from the Chalice. It was an amazingly touching picture! Vespers of Love. Father did not have a shadow of fatigue on his face; he congratulated everyone with a cheerful, joyful face. Much to my chagrin, I had already eaten the prosphora and could not enter this holy semicircle. The service and Holy Communion gave us so much strength and vigor that my father and I really didn’t feel any fatigue. Having asked the priest for his blessing to return home, we quickly had lunch and rode on a sleigh to Oranienbaum. When I became a student, I began to understand Father John more and more deeply and become spiritually attached to him. Science suddenly became more difficult for me, my memory weakened, I came to Kronstadt, told the priest about this; Father explains my condition by my excessive studies at the gymnasium and orders me to give my brain a rest. I began to become spiritually attached to the priest, but these were already the last years of his life. He has already begun to welcome us into his apartment as relatives. One day I came to see him, and he was very sick. Matushka, his wife, says that they took him to some slum and severely beat him there. Mother generally told us little about the life of Father John. She called him “brother Ivan”, since in reality he was never her husband. She even wanted to divorce him and sued him. But he was adamant, and she resigned herself. Now she was just as old, her legs hurt, she couldn’t move independently, but she didn’t care about herself, but only about “brother Ivan.” She asked me, if Father John got worse, to bring a doctor to him. "After all, brother Ivan does not like doctors, and it is difficult to force him to accept a doctor. But he liked one doctor Alexandrov; when I notify you by telegram, you will bring him. I don’t know the address where he lives, but you will find out this way..." And, indeed, three weeks later we receive a telegram from mother asking us to bring the doctor. I had already looked up the addresses of all the Alexandrov doctors in the book “All Petersburg”, went to see them and found out which of them visited Father John. After the telegram I went to a certain address. But it turned out that the doctor had gone to the Caucasus. What to do here? Now I sent him a telegram asking him to indicate a deputy. He immediately replied to us by telegram and indicated another doctor. I went to a new address, he agreed to go to Kronstadt, but since it was already eleven o’clock in the evening, we decided to leave in the morning, and in the morning we were in Kronstadt. Father felt a little better, as the mother who met us told us. The doctor sat down to warm up. Suddenly the door from the priest’s room opens, the priest comes out and walks straight towards us, approaches the doctor and, unexpectedly, says: “Christ is risen!” - and christens himself three times. I am perplexed - I look at the priest. Then he came up to me, blessed me and called the doctor to his office. The doctor stayed with the priest for about an hour. Then the priest comes out joyfully and says: “But the doctor told me to get some air. Let them lay the horse down. Thank you,” the priest turned to me, “thank you very much for such a good doctor,” and kissed me firmly on the cheek. This was so unexpected and at the same time so joyful for me that tears came to my eyes. I was glad that I had at least served my father in some way. And he says to his wife: “Mistress, give orders to feed V.V. with all the best we have, feed him lunch, the pie that was brought today!” He sat me down at the table, and he went for a ride, along with the doctor. On the way back to St. Petersburg, when the doctor and I boarded the train in Oranienbaum, the doctor says to me: “But Father John is really an ascetic, and everything that is written about him is all a lie. Why did he greet me with the cry “Christ is Risen!”? - He resurrected Christ in me. I now remember: Father John is the priest who healed my wife from hysterical fits, which are called demon possession. She could not stand the proximity of the cross and icons. I I was then a young doctor in Vologda. Father John was passing through Vologda. I was a flighty young man, an unbeliever, and my mother-in-law was very religious, and she asked my father to come to us. He visited us, prayed, laid his hands on my wife’s head, and the seizures stopped. prayers of Father John. I didn’t even ask who he was and where he was from. And now, thanks to your incident, I met him and was convinced that he was truly an ascetic. It turns out that my father remembers my incident in Vologda. There, of course, there was not self-hypnosis, but healing...” I was especially happy to hear this confession of the doctor. This date with Father was our last date. As they told me, from the words of the priest, the Lord did not give him healing because he himself healed many, and while healing, he took the illness upon himself and had to suffer. On my second visit to Optina Pustyn, Elder Barsanuphius told me: “And Father John of Kronstadt appeared to me and handed you and your family over to my spiritual leadership.” And then he added: “I see Father John, he takes me by the hand and leads me to a staircase that rises beyond the clouds, so that you can’t see the end of it. There were several landings on this staircase, and then he brought me to one landing and said: “But I need to go higher, I live there,” and at the same time he began to quickly climb up...” Then Father Barsanuphius spoke about his meeting with Father John in Moscow. "When I was still an officer, I had to go to Moscow as part of my service. And at the station I found out that Father John was serving mass in the church of one of the buildings. I immediately went there. When I entered the church, the mass was already ending. I went to the altar. At this time, Father John was transferring the Holy Gifts from the throne to the altar. Having placed the Chalice, he suddenly comes up to me, kisses my hand and, without saying nothing, he goes back to the throne. All those present looked at each other and said afterwards that this meant some event in my life, and they decided that I would be a priest. I made fun of them, since I had no idea of ​​accepting the priesthood. And now you see how inscrutable the fate of God is: I am not only a priest, but also a monk.” At the same time, Father Barsanuphius said among other things: "You should not leave the church before the end of the mass, otherwise you will not receive the grace of God. It is better to come to the end of the mass and survive, than to leave before the end." Another Optina hieromonk, Varsis, told me that the same incident happened to him as to me, when Father John communed with me with two particles of the Body of the Lord. This, in his opinion, was an indication of his monasticism. Father Barsanuphius could not explain this incident, but said that it undoubtedly meant something important. In general, the elder attached great importance to the actions of the priest after he received communion. "It happened to me several times," the elder said, "you serve mass, receive communion and then go to receive the people. They express their needs to you. Another time you immediately find it difficult to answer definitively, you tell them to wait. You go to your cell, think it over, settle on some decision, and when you come to say this decision, you will say something completely different from what you thought. And this is a real answer and advice, which, if the questioner does not fulfilled, will bring upon oneself a worse misfortune. This is God’s invisible Grace, especially clearly manifested in old age, after the communion of the Holy Mysteries.” How much more can this assessment apply to people who consider various barren Hindus to be the new incarnation of the Son of God?