Житие преподобного Иоанна Кущника 602

In Constantinople, during the reign of Leo the Great 603, there lived one rich and eminent military dignitary, named Eutropius, with his wife Theodora. He had three sons, two of whom were sent to the royal service and had already achieved significant ranks in it, while the third, the youngest, named John, he sent to study various kinds of sciences. While still a twelve-year-old boy, John stood out quite noticeably from his peers, so that even the teachers themselves were surprised at his abilities and outstanding development for his young age. But he succeeded not only in worldly, but also in spiritual wisdom. Under the grace-filled influence of the Holy Spirit on him, he grew up as a meek, gentle and modest boy and, at the end of his lessons, spent his time not in games typical of childhood, but in reading holy, God-inspired books and diligently attending church services. His heart was warmed by love for God, and the fire of this love began to flare up in his soul with a strong flame. While John was so successful in piety, one day a monk happened to enter the house in which the blessed one was studying. Seeing him, the boy asked: -Where are you from, father, and where are you going? “I am from the monastery of the “unsleepless” 604,” answered the monk, “and I am going to Jerusalem to venerate the holy places.” With his heart inflamed, John began to ask him about monastic life, about prayer and fasting, about incessant singing and about other exploits and labors of the monks. The monk, seeing the boy’s piety and prudence, told him in detail about all the customs and regulations of his monastery. John, having listened carefully to what the monk said, said to him: – Will you return, father, to your monastery again, or will you stay in Jerusalem? “I have,” answered the monk, “an order from my abbot to return and, having bowed, if God wills, to the holy places, I will immediately come back.” Then John, taking the monk by the right hand, said: – I have a secret word for you, father. Then he took him aside and began to say: “Listen to me, my father,” I ask you, “and show me mercy.” I have a strong desire to leave the vain world and serve Christ. But my parents think completely differently about me. Loving me more than my older brothers, they want to give me some high position and marry me. But I, often listening to the word of God in the holy church and reading the holy books myself, realized that everything worldly is vanity, and that only one thing is useful - having renounced the world, serving Christ in your monastic form. I conjure you by God, who wants our salvation, so that you take me when returning to your monastery. In these words, the monk felt that God Himself was calling the boy to Himself. He swore to take him with him when he returned, and thus they parted. After the monk departed for Jerusalem, blessed John, wanting to live according to the Gospel, began to ask his parents to purchase the Gospel for him, so that, by learning the words of Christ in it, he would learn to do deeds pleasing to Christ. The parents were very happy at the sight of their son’s zeal for the Divine Scripture. They immediately hired a skilled scribe to prepare a beautiful copy of the Gospel; then they overlaid it with gold and decorated it with precious stones, so that their son would be attracted to diligently reading the book not only by the sweetness of the words of Christ written inside it, but also by the external beauty of the book. Having made such a Gospel, they gave it to their son. Having joyfully accepted the holy book, John began to read it diligently; his heart was delighted by the words of Christ, and he, inflamed from day to day with ever greater love for God, eagerly awaited the return from Jerusalem of the monk to whom he had revealed the secret of his heart. After a long time, the monk returned and was greeted by John with great joy. “Here, my son, I have returned as I promised,” said the monk, “and if you want, I will take you with me to the monastery.” “I thank God, who returned you in good health, and deigned me to see you again.” I'm ready to go. But what should we do if my parents don’t want to let me go? My mother is very sensitive at heart, and when she finds out that I want to leave them, she will wet the ground with tears and hold me back, thus preventing my desire. I beg you, my father, let us leave here secretly, so that none of my relatives and friends know either about my departure or about the path I took. “Let’s do it, my son, as you want,” said the monk, “and may God fulfill the desire of your heart.” So they came to the seashore to the ship's pier and, having found a ship, began to ask its owner to take them to the monastery of the sleepless. But he demanded a lot of gold from them in payment for transportation, because he said that he expected a large cargo for the ship, as well as for hiring it for the return journey. – How much does it cost to deliver a full load on your ship? “A hundred gold coins,” answered the shipman. “Wait, my brother, until three days,” said John, “and I will hire your ship.” After talking with him, John and the monk left. In private, John said to the monk: - The shipowner asks for high prices for transportation; but it’s even more expensive for me to secretly leave my parents; Therefore, I will go to my parents and ask them to give me gold for some needs. “Go, my son,” answered the monk, “and may the Lord fulfill your intention as His will pleases.” Arriving at his home, John said to his mother: “I want to ask you, mother, for one favor, but I don’t dare.” “Ask for what you want, my son,” answered the mother. “All my comrades in the teaching,” said John, “not once or twice, but many times, invited me to visit them, but I never invited them to me and did not repay them for their hospitality; I am ashamed in front of them, and I can no longer go to school for shame. I ask you, give me as much money as I would need to treat my comrades. “Wait until the morning,” answered the mother, “I will tell your father, and he will give you what you need.” When she conveyed John’s request to her husband, he, out of love for his son, gave him a hundred gold coins, and this happened according to God’s special providence, so that the good intention of the boy would be fulfilled. Having given his son gold, the father entrusted him to the supervision of a faithful servant, with the order to ensure that the boy did not spend the money unnecessarily. John joyfully went with him to the seashore, saying: - Let's look and buy some good fish. When they approached the ship, he sent a servant to the school with the words: - Go, see if your comrades are gathering, and then come back to me again. After the servant left, John boarded the ship with the monk; Having handed over the payment to the shipbuilder, they sailed from the shore and set off on their journey. John took with him the Gospel, given to him by his parents, and was consoled by reading it on the way. The servant, returning from school, looked for John on the shore for a long time, but not finding him, he thought that the boy had gone home; then he came to his masters and asked about John. They immediately began to hastily look for him everywhere. But a long search both in Constantinople and in its environs did not lead to anything, and in the house of Eutropius they wept and sobbed bitterly for their beloved son John. Meanwhile, when John was on his way, God clearly helped him: he sent the ship a fair wind, and the travelers in a short time sailed to the monastery of the sleepless. Here the monk told Abbot Markell and the brethren everything he knew about the youth John, and also the faith and zeal with which he strives to accept the monastic image and serve the Lord. Seeing the extreme youth of the youth, the abbot said to him: - My son! You will not be able to carry out monastic feats and observe strict fasts, since you are still very young. In addition, we have a custom - not to immediately tonsure every person seeking monastic rank, but only after a long test of the sincerity of his intentions and zeal in the deeds of piety. Therefore, if you want to undergo monastic service with us, you must first live with us like this, without monastic tonsure, take a closer look at our life and test yourself to see whether you are capable of such labors. Then blessed John fell at the feet of the abbot and, weeping bitterly, began to ask: “I beg you, my father, tonsure me now.” Look not at my youth, but at my zeal, for with all my heart I strive to be worthy of receiving your Angelic image. Do not reject my prayer, but for the sake of the Most Holy, Consubstantial and Life-Giving Trinity, accept me as a monk into your monastery. The abbot, touched by the zeal and tears of the youth, vividly feeling the grace of the Holy Spirit dwelling in him, immediately agreed to accept and tonsure him and then ordered him to steadily go through all the degrees of monastic obedience and learn from experienced elders. John, when his desire was finally fulfilled, with zeal and humility fulfilled everything that he was ordered and, gradually succeeding in monastic deeds, soon achieved such perfection in virtue that he surpassed those who had accepted monasticism before him and for everyone became an example of unceasing prayer, meek obedience and patient endurance of the strictest fast. Often for many days he did not eat anything - except for Communion of the Most Pure and Life-Giving Mysteries of Christ - and only by this did he support himself. Even the abbot himself was surprised at John and said to him: - My son! Why do you undertake such feats when you are so young? See to it that you do not weaken with your bodily strength from immoderate fasting and, having upset your health, do not become incapable of subsequent exploits and service for the glory of Christ. John, humbly bowing to the abbot as usual, answered: “Forgive me, holy father, for me, a worthless slave, and pray for me, lazy and cowardly, so that the Lord will grant me deeds and help my weakness.” Among such exploits, Blessed John lived in the monastery for six years. And then an enemy and a hater of all good - the devil - rose up against him. In order to weaken John’s strength for further exploits, to complicate and hinder such valiant success in fulfilling the Lord’s commandments, he awakened in him the thought of his parents and made his heart tormented by pity for them at the memory of the great love of his father and mother for him. He began to inspire John with the following thoughts: “What are your parents doing without you now? How they grieve, grieve and cry for you, since you left home without their knowledge! “Your father is crying, your mother is crying, your brothers are grieving, your relatives and friends are sorry for you, your father’s whole house is in grief because of you.” The evil one also brought to his memory the wealth and glory of his parents, the honors his brothers had, and various other vain earthly blessings. He troubled him with such thoughts continuously, day and night, so that John finally became extremely weakened in bodily strength and was barely alive: from great abstinence and monastic exploits and from internal torment with thoughts - his strength dried up like a potsherd 605, and his flesh became like reeds shaking in the wind 606. The abbot, seeing how John was weakening every day, said to him: “Didn’t I tell you, my son, that God does not require immoderate labor from His servants, but wants everyone to serve Him, for the glory of His holy name, according to their own abilities?” You, my son, did not listen to me in due time, and now you are exhausted from immoderate fasting and backbreaking labor. “It was not fasting that withered me, my father,” answered John, “and it was not labor that exhausted me, but thoughts inspired by the evil one have tormented me day and night for a long time.” At the same time, John confessed to the abbot his thoughts about his parents and home. The abbot told him: “Didn’t I tell you before, my son, that monastic feats are difficult, that monks carry with them a lot of work, enemy attacks, and unspeakable temptations?” At these words, the abbot burst into tears and cried for a long time about John. God, Who turns everything for good, through a special secret influence on the abbot’s heart, inspired him not to hinder John from going to his parents: the Lord wanted to make His desires wondrous in him subsequently 607 . The abbot blessed John to go wherever he wanted, only exhorting him to carefully guard against the snares of the enemy and maintain integrity along the way. “Although I will go to my parents,” answered John, “even there, with the help of God and your prayers, I will crush the head of my enemy and show his powerlessness.” Then John went to his cell to prepare for the journey. This preparation did not consist of anything else, but only in prayers, tears, sighs of the heart, combined with kneeling, so that the Lord would not allow the enemy to triumph, but would Himself, as He knows and wants, direct his path according to His good and all-perfect will. Arriving the next morning to the abbot, John fell at his feet and began to beg him not to be angry for leaving the monastery, but to admonish him with his fatherly blessing and holy prayers. Then the abbot called all the brothers to him and, announcing that John wanted to leave them, ordered them to pray for him. John himself, saying goodbye, said to his brothers: “I know that the devil wants to completely remove me from this holy place under the pretext of a meeting with my parents.” But I hope in God and in your holy prayers that I will see my parents and overcome the devil, defeating his seduction. After that, everyone went to church and there they prayed for John with tears. The abbot, blessing him on his way, said: - Go, my son, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and may our Lord Jesus Christ accompany you and direct your path according to His will. All the other fathers also blessed him by raising their hands. John kissed them all and said: “May the Lord save you, fathers and brothers, may He save you, the squad blessed by Him, good ascetics, who lovingly accepted me into their community, which I am now deprived of, due to my unworthiness, to live together with such people pleasing to God.” With these words, he left the monastery and went on his way. Having moved away from the monastery to a distance of stage 608, he looked back and, seeing the monastery, wept bitterly. He fell to his knees and, sobbing and watering the ground with tears, began to pray to God. Then he got up and set out on the road again, entrusting himself to God and pinning his hopes on His providence and protection. On the way he met a beggar dressed in rags. John turned to him and said: “I see that your clothes, my brother, are very shabby and all torn; I ask you, give it to me, take my best one yourself. The beggar was very happy and immediately took off his rags and gave them to John, who gave him his best clothes in return. When John approached Constantinople, seeing his parents’ house from afar, he fell face down on the ground and began to pray in these words: – Lord Jesus Christ, do not leave me! It was evening, and Blessed John remained here to wait for night to fall. At midnight, approaching the door of his parents’ house, he fell to the ground again and prayed: - Lord Jesus Christ! This is my father's house, which I so desired to see. But do not let me lose Your grace because of him. I pray to You, Master, grant me from above help and strength to defeat the devilish temptation, do not allow his triumph over me and my fall, but let me valiantly end my life in this place. So he prayed until dawn. When the day came, when the doors opened and the steward of the house, who was in charge of the other slaves, came out, he saw a beggar dressed in rags and asked him: – Who are you, where are you from and why do you dare to come here? Get away from here quickly, because my gentlemen will come out now. “As you can see,” John meekly answered him, “I am a beggar, I have no place to lay my head, I ask you, my lord, have mercy on me, do not drive me away from here, but let me stay in this corner.” I will not harm anyone, but you yourself will receive mercy from God if you take pity on me and allow me to stay here. Taking pity on the beggar, the manager of the house left him. After a little time, John's parents left the house, heading to the royal palace. When he saw them, the blessed one began to cry and began to say in his mind: “My wish has finally come true—I see my parents.” But you will not rejoice, devil, because, by the grace of my Lord, I consider your scorching arrows directed against me as nothing. And again he cried out to God with all his heart: – Lord Jesus Christ, do not leave me until the end! Blessed John remained motionless in the corner at the gate and lay there like Lazarus (Luke 16:20), or like Job on a heap of ashes (Job 2:8). His father, seeing the poor beggar lying at the gate, began to send him food from his table, saying: “This beggar has great patience; remaining homeless, he endures winter and heat, frost and rain; truly, it is such who will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. For his sake, God, perhaps, will save us, which is why he sent him to us, so that by showing mercy to him, through this we ourselves will later be worthy of being pardoned by Him. Who knows, perhaps our beloved son John, of whom we don’t even know where he is, is now enduring the same poverty; We do to this beggar the very thing that we would wish for our son from others in this case. One day, John’s mother, leaving the house, saw this beggar lying on a pile of manure in his rags. She found this so disgusting that she said to the servants: “Get this nasty man away from here, because I can’t walk here while I see him lying here.” The servants immediately dragged him to another place. The blessed one could now only look from a distance at the gates of his father’s house. One day, seeing the steward of the house coming out of the gate, he called him to him and said: “I beg you, my lord, just as you were merciful to me from the very beginning, now have pity on me and make me a small tent so that your mistress does not see me and so that I have at least some kind of cover from the cold.” The steward fulfilled John’s request and soon built a small tent, in which the saint remained, spending all his time in prayer to God. Every day his father sent him food from his table; John gratefully accepted it, but gave it to other beggars who visited him, while he himself always suffered from hunger and thirst, and from such extreme abstinence and fasting he became so thin that all the joints of his bones could be counted. For three whole years, John patiently endured such a life, hiding from his parents that he was their son. After three years, our most kind and philanthropic Lord Jesus Christ, seeing the patience and humility of His servant, determined to put an end to his misfortunes and labors. He appeared to him in a vision and said: - Rejoice, John, who became like My beloved disciple John the Virgin 609, because you, having left everything, followed Me in pure virginity. The limit of your life is already approaching, and the end of your great suffering is coming: in three days you will come to Me and inherit the peace of the righteous. Having come to his senses after the vision, John began to pray to the Lord with tears and said: “I thank You, Lord, my God, that You want to give me, the unworthy, the peace of the righteous.” But I beg You, my Lord, remember my parents, have mercy on them according to Your great mercy and cleanse their sins, because You alone are good and abundantly merciful. After such a prayer, he called to him the aforementioned servant of his parents, the steward of the house, and said to him: “From the very beginning until now, you have been merciful to me.” I beg you, my lord, be merciful to the end. I ask you one thing - go and tell your mistress the following: that beggar whom you ordered to drive away from the gate begs you through me with these words: for the sake of the Lord Christ, do not disdain me, wretched one, but deign to come to me, for I need to talk to you. The servant conveyed the beggar's words to his mistress. The same one said: “What else would a beggar talk to me about?” I can’t even look at him, but he still wants to talk to me. She told her husband about this, but he began to persuade her: - Go, my wife, do not disdain the poor, for God Himself chose the poor. However, she did not listen to her husband and did not want to go. The Monk John again sent to her with these words: “In three days I will die, but if you don’t want to see and talk to me, you will be very sorry later.” She began to hesitate, wondering whether she should go or not, not so much wanting to listen to the beggar as curious about what exactly he wanted to tell her; She barely overcame her indecision and decided to go, only having heard about the approach of his death and hoping to learn something new from him. She left the house and ordered her slaves to bring and lay a beggar in front of her, since the Monk John, due to a serious illness, could no longer approach. In order not to be recognized, he covered his face and began to speak to her like this: “Soon, lady, I will no longer need the shelter and help provided to me, and a reward for alms has already been prepared for you, according to the word of the Lord in the Gospel: “just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did it to Me” (Matthew 25:40). I, not possessing any property due to my poverty, want to leave you some blessing, but first I beg you: swear to me to do what I tell you, and then you will receive the blessing. She vowed to do whatever he said. Then the Monk John began to ask: “I beg you, madam, that you order, after my death, to bury me in the place where my tent stands.” Do not allow me to be covered with any other clothes than these rags that I am now wearing, since I am not worthy of a more honorable place and better clothing. After that, he took the Gospel out of his bosom and, handing it to her, said: “Let this be a consolation for you in this life and a good path to eternity for you and your husband, my master.” Taking the Gospel, she began to examine it, turning it to herself first on one side or the other and thinking to herself: “How similar this Gospel is to the one my master bound for our son!” And then she went and showed it to her husband. He recognized him and said: “This is, indeed, the same Gospel that we gave to our beloved son, and not another, let’s go and ask where he got it from, and if he knows anything about our son John.” His parents came to him together and began to tell him: “We conjure you with the Holy and Life-Giving Trinity, tell us where you got this Gospel from and where is our son John?” No longer able to hide the torment of his heart and restrain himself from tears, he answered: “I am your son John, and this is the very Gospel that you gave me; True, I am to blame for the grief you caused, but the Gospel you gave me taught me to love Christ and patiently bear His good yoke. Hearing this, they fell to his head, hugged him and watered him with copious tears for a long time. At the same time, their hearts were filled with both joy and sorrow: they rejoiced that their beloved son had finally been found, but they were saddened in their hearts because they found him in such poverty and squalor and that they did not recognize him when he lay at the gate. All neighbors, friends and acquaintances gathered to see them; The rumor about John's return spread throughout the city, and everyone, glorifying God, marveled at this. Meanwhile, the Monk John gave up his soul into the hands of God 610. God wished that John’s life, even at his very death, would remain undefiled by worldly honors and renounced by parental love; That is why the Lord hastened to take him to Himself, so that he would enter the heavenly dwelling as a stranger to peace and worldly friendship. Forgetting the oath, his mother took off his old rags and dressed him in precious, gold-woven clothes; but suddenly she immediately fell into a state of relaxation and became dangerously ill. Eutropius, John's father, said: “We must fulfill the will of our son, since he does not want to be buried in such expensive clothes.” They took off worldly clothes from the saint’s body, dressed him again in beggar’s rags, and Theodora, John’s mother, was immediately healed and became as healthy as before. The honest and holy relics of St. John were buried by his parents in the same tent in which he lived. They then built a church and a large hospice over his tomb, but donated their property to support the wanderers and feed the poor. Soon after, they themselves died peacefully and were buried in the same church that they built over the coffin of their son. Such is the life of the holy and venerable John Kushchnik, such are the exploits and labors that he endured for the sake of Christ, such is his struggle with the devil, having defeated whom, he is now crowned with a heavenly crown in the Church of the Triumphant, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever, amen. The Monk John was called a Tabernacle because at the end of his ascetic life he lived in a “tabernacle,” that is, a tent, in extreme squalor and poverty, near the house of his rich and noble parents, unrecognized by them - and in the same tent he was buried, and his parents later built a church in his name on the site of the “tabernacle.” Leo I the Great - Byzantine Emperor; reigned from 457–476. The monastery of the “unsleepless”, which is mentioned here, was located in Bithynia (northwestern region of Asia Minor) and was built on the model of the same monastery that existed in Constantinople, transferred there from Mesopotamia and founded by St. Alexander at the end of the 4th century. The rites and monastic life of the inhabitants of this monastery were particularly strict. The monastery received its name because its brethren, dividing into 24 rows according to the number of 24 hours of day and night, continuously glorified the Lord in two faces, chanting the psalms of David in a drawn-out manner, so that the services in this monastery were performed continuously and never stopped. The same monastery was founded in Bithynia, near the city of Sostheniula, by the disciples of St. Alexandra, John and Marcellus. The expression is borrowed from (Ps. 21:16). The expression is borrowed from (Matthew 11:7). The expression is borrowed from (Ps. 15:3) (in the Slavic translation). The stage is equal to 87 1/2 fathoms. Those. St. John the Theologian. Rev. John Kushchnik died at the beginning of the second half of the 5th century. Under Pope Formosa (896), a church was built in Rome in honor of the monk, where part of his relics was located. The pilgrim Anthony in 1200 saw his relics at the gates of his court in Constantinople. The Crusaders (1204–1261) transferred his head from Constantinople to Besançon, and his relics are in Rome in the church named after him, but when they were transferred here from Constantinople is unknown. You might be interested in: