Поучение на пречестную память великого святителя Николая, Архиепископа Мирликийского Чудотворца, месяца декабря, в 6 день («По имени твоему тако и житие твое» (Стихира после 50 псалма))

Now celebrating the all-honorable memory of the great saint of God and wonderworker, like our holy father Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia, I think about his very name, in addition to his great, obvious miracles to all, beloved listeners! His many and great miracles are known to everyone, from the east of the sun to the west his miracles are glorified. The meaning and power of his most honorable name are not known to everyone, but are known only to learned people. Therefore, so that everyone knows, let us interpret this name and recognize its power, and then we will see that “after his name was his life.” The name “Nicholas” is not Slavic, but Greek, for in those ancient times the Slavs did not know God and in their wickedness they were not called by the same names that we now call Orthodox Christians. Their names, according to their wicked custom, were: Kiy, Shchek, Askold, Dir, Gostomysl, Svyatoslav, Yaropolk and others, which were worn by Russian princes. The Vyshgorod boyars were: Blud, Putsha, Elovich, Taurus, Lyashko and others. The ambassadors sent by Prince Oleg from Kyiv to Greece to negotiate peace bore the following names: Karlofarlos, Velmud, Rulav, Stelmid - all some wild names. After holy Baptism, we took the names from the Greeks, by which we are now called. Turning to the most honorable name of St. Nicholas, I repeat: this name is Greek, composed of two sayings: “nobody” or “nika”, which means victory, overcoming, and “laos” - people, people. The word "Nikolaos" means: victory of the people, victory of the people. The interpretation of this name is wonderful, but was the life of Nikolaevo named after it? If we look at his infancy, we will see that even in his childhood he conquered human nature itself, for to stand in the font for three hours on your own, without anyone’s support, while still a newborn baby, is not this above human nature? Any man of age who is not zealous in the praise of God is shamed here: a baby stands for three hours in honor of the Most Holy Trinity, but perfect men do not want to stand in church for even one hour with the fear of God, with reverence and attention, and if they do stand, they stand like insensitive idols. They have ears, but do not listen to what is read and sung (see Ps. 113:14), and while listening they do not pay attention. They have intelligence, but do not think about the Divine, they only think about the vanity of the world. Only with their bodies do they stand in the church of God, and their mind thinks either about their wife and children, or about the dishes prepared by the cooks, or about barrels in the cellar, or about chests in the pantry and about money, or about goods sent to some city and on the way, or about estates sent to a foreign country on ships and boats. They stand in church, and “evil thoughts come from the heart” (Matthew 15:19; Mark 7:21), theft, murder, adultery, blasphemy and other unpleasing deeds. And what do their mouths say in the church of God? Is it prayer? Rarely prayer, more empty talk: they talk to each other about external concerns. Here is bargaining, here is shopping, here is managing a house, here is judging your neighbors. O ungodly people! Look at Saint Nicholas, who, even in his infancy with all his mind, glorified the Holy Trinity with all reverence by standing for three hours. Look and be ashamed, for you were put to shame as a child. Oh, what a great conqueror Nikolai was in his infancy, the conqueror of nature, the conqueror of people who were not pleasing to God! If we look at his infancy again, we will again see that in his infancy he conquered human nature itself. For a baby to abstain from his mother's breasts on fasting days Wednesday and Friday - doesn't this mean being above human nature? As an infant, he learned to fast before he began to eat. What will our current Christians say here, who only “have a form of godliness” (2 Tim. 3:5), but reject the works of godliness? What, I say, will those say for whom Wednesday and Friday are the same days as Saturday, Sunday and all the others, who have no fasting, no abstinence, eat everything without embarrassment according to the custom of non-Orthodox foreign Christians. The Jewish historiographer Joseph tells about Moses that, having been taken from the water by the daughter of Pharaoh, he did not want to suck the breasts of the Egyptian wives, and a Jewish woman, his mother, was brought for him (see Ex. 2 ch.). With us it happens the other way around. Our Mother, the Holy Eastern Orthodox Church, feeds us with her breasts - pious laws and statutes, adopted from the ancient Fathers. We, having left the breasts of our mother, who gave birth to us by water and the Spirit (see John 3:15), are looking for the breasts of Egypt, foreign, heretical, contrary to Orthodoxy, and we are accustomed to feeding from them with sweetness. Leaving manna behind, let us think about Egyptian food. Having despised the sweetness of holy abstinence, we turn aside to “the horns that swine eat” (Luke 15:16). O great shame! Children put their husbands to shame, babies put elders to shame! In the “Old Ages” we read: in a country called Givernia, mothers had the following custom: when they weaned their male babies from their breasts, they began to feed them with other food, then first of all they put that food on a naked sword, then they took pieces of food from the sword and put them in the mouths of the babies. And this was done with the goal that the baby, from his very infancy, from the first piece of food, would get used to the sword, so that a courageous heart would grow in him, and a desire for the sword and battles. We see something similar in the infancy of St. Nicholas. From the sword he took his first food, from the sword not material, but spiritual, that is, from the sword of abstinence and fasting. Truly, Orthodox Christian fasting and abstinence is a spiritual sword, for it cuts off bodily passions, it beheads the adversary the devil. The apostle says about them: “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4). From this sword, that is, fasting and abstinence, the first food was given to Saint Nicholas in infancy, and with this sword he beheads and will behead all those who serve his womb as God, all, I say, who reject fasting, despise abstinence, who regard daily satiety, drunkenness and other follies as sweetness, which are not worth talking about. Nikolai is the conqueror of displeasing people. Being at a manly age, he came to church earlier than everyone else and was called to the priesthood and taken no other way than from the doors of the church, where he arrived at midnight even before the usual singing of the service, and therefore here too he showed himself to be a winner and a shamer of lazy and sleepy people. How many great bells call them to the all-night vigil and to the morning singing, but they cannot wake up the lazy one, overcome by sleep! Even if they wake him up, he doesn’t even think of shaking the sleep from his eyes and going to church, he doesn’t want to stay awake for even one hour. There are those who, with considerable financial contributions, build bells for the churches of God, but they themselves do not listen to their own bells; they put beautifully decorated holy icons in the church, but they themselves are too lazy to pray to their icons; They build the churches of God, but do not care about the creation of their souls. The saint of God Nikolai did not wait for the morning gospel. Before the good news, he was already at the church doors, conquering laziness, sleep and carelessness, and thereby revealed himself as a winner - the winner of the drowsy and careless. As for his generosity and concern for the salvation of human souls, we find wonderful evidence of this in his life. For when a certain beggar husband thought of arranging a bad marriage for his three daughters, he threw three bundles of gold at the window at night. I recently happened to read the following: in Indian countries, when a raging sea begins to overflow far from its shores, floods nearby villages and harms people and livestock, as well as gardens, vineyards and fields, then people living near the sea and suffering from the troubles caused by its waves, take a vessel with gold and throw it into the sea, believing that the sea, appeased by that gold, will stop its disturbance, and how would be bought off from the waves of the sea with gold. Speaking spiritually, truly, this world is a sea. Isn’t it what Saint David also speaks about: “This is a great and spacious sea” (Ps. 103:25). And on this sea there are great waves: every misfortune is like a wave, and every calamity is like a wave. Considerable wave and poverty. How much care people take just to avoid this wave, to get rid of poverty! Everyone tries to have something. For this there are various crafts, for this art. This is why there are fights, and quarrels, and lawsuits, this is why there are insults, robberies, thefts, thefts, robberies, murders and many other unpleasing deeds, so as to have, so as not to be poor, in order to get rich. And how much evil the beggar endures: cold, nakedness, hunger and scarcity of all the essentials! What can we say about carnal unclean sin? Isn't he a great wave on the sea of ​​this world?! Isn’t every earthly being overwhelmed by this wave?! Is it in vain that Scripture says: “All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh” (1 John 2:16)? Was it not in this wave that the people of the first world, these ancient giants, were mired, when only Noah and his children were saved? For the Fathers proclaim that for this carnal uncleanness God punished the ancient people with a worldwide flood. Are the sodomites and the surrounding towns mired in this wave? Wasn’t David, and also Solomon his son, mired in this wave? Is it not in this wave of carnal lust that many, young and old, are perishing even now? In a word, almost everyone in the world is overcome by carnal lust: “All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh.” The above-mentioned husband, who had three daughters, stood in the midst of those two waves: poverty and carnal sin, into whose power he wanted to give his daughters. On both sides it is crowded: on the one hand there is great poverty, on the other - sinful shamelessness and the wrath of God. He was already in despair, not knowing what to do. Saint Nicholas of Christ, wanting to calm the excitement, plunges three bundles of gold into the middle of those waves, as if according to the above-mentioned custom of the Hindus, throwing gold into the stormy sea in order to calm the excitement. And that husband and three daughters were saved from anxiety, that is, from poverty, and escaped sin through the generosity of the saint of God. O pastoral care for the salvation of souls! O beggar-loving generosity! Seeing such a wonderful deed of the saint of God, what can those who not only do not give to the poor and wretched, but also take away their last things, rob them, and kidnap them, say? What will those say who not only do not restrain the young from sin, but entice them to sin, and sometimes forcefully draw them to it? Truly, they are defeated and put to shame by the virtuous way of life of St. Nicholas! The conqueror of the disliked people has won, endured prison, won, putting Arius to shame! O Saint Nicholas of Christ! Through your prayers, grant us strength and strength to conquer our passions and sinful lusts and overcome our adversaries, visible and invisible! Having his most honorable church here, he looks down on us from above from his place, which he occupies between the great hierarchs standing before the Throne of God. And he not only looks, but also invisibly visits us, just as now, we believe, he is present among us, who with love celebrate his holy memory. He sees our faith and zeal, accepts the praises we bring to him, lifts up our prayers to God, intercedes, standing for us before Christ, delivers us with his warm prayers to God from all troubles and evils, from enemies visible and invisible, and asks the Lord for everything good and useful to us, temporary and eternal. And therefore he is our good shepherd, helper, intercessor and patron in Christ our Lord, to whom be glory now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.