Глава двадцать третья. Религиозная будущность человечества 1847–1852

On January 1, 1847, Moscow Day was celebrated for the first time - its 700th anniversary. The idea of ​​this celebration was presented in his article by Konstantin Sergeevich Aksakov. The glorious anniversary was supposed to be celebrated either in the spring or in the fall. But suddenly an urgent order came from St. Petersburg to celebrate everything on January 1st. The jealousy of the Northern capital for the glory of the Mother See had an effect, and if the city on the Neva was usually called the mind of Russia, and Moscow the heart, then, therefore, the mind denied the heart a holiday. Instead of magnificent celebrations, they turned out to be very skimpy, and the main character of the anniversary became the Metropolitan, who was urgently informed that he needed to say about Moscow in his speech on January 1, but there was not enough time to create a good overview speech. It turned out pretty crumpled. Filaret spoke about the peculiarity of the number “7” - on the seventh day the end of the week, seven weeks make up Great Lent, etc. And so, they say, now the city of Moscow has stood for seven centuries. In a letter to Anthony, he lamented that he did not have “some free time to look around seven hundred years and discover what is not always revealed at first glance, and say much in small ways.” One can only regret imagining what kind of article he could have written dedicated to the anniversary of Moscow, if not for the hasty order from St. Petersburg to cut down the celebrations, limiting them to January 1 only. In January, Russian society was rocked by controversy over Gogol's just-published Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends. This book did not leave anyone indifferent. The overwhelming majority of judgments turned out to be sharply negative, accusations rained down on Gogol from all sides - both from where he expected and from where he had not foreseen. Of course, like a pack of dogs, the entire atheistic liberal public, led by the bilious Belinsky, dying of consumption, and Herzen, who had already packed his bags for abroad, attacked Nikolai Vasilyevich. Here one should not expect delight, but only one angry, rabid abuse. “An article about Gogol’s vile book could come out remarkably well if I could, with my eyes closed, surrender to my indignation and rage,” Belinsky seethed. “In your opinion, the Russian people are the most religious in the world: a lie!..,” he wrote in his famous letter to Gogol. – Take a closer look and you will see that this is a deeply atheistic people by nature. There is still a lot of superstition in him, but there is not a trace of religiosity... Mystical exaltation is not at all in his nature; he has too much common sense, clarity and positivity in his mind for this: and this, perhaps, lies in the enormity of his historical destinies in the future.” T. N. Granovsky, I. S. Turgenev, V. P. Botkin, P. V. Annenkov, Leopold Brant, Baron Rosen, Thaddeus Bulgarin, Osip Senkovsky and many, many others attacked Gogol, whose names are unnecessary to mention. Gogol was prepared in advance for a blow from the left, but the blow from the right turned out to be completely unexpected, surprising and unbearably painful for him. Slavophiles were divided in their opinions. Khomyakov defended Gogol, and Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov too: “Gogol is right and appears in this book as the ideal of a Christian artist.” His brother Konstantin Sergeevich, on the contrary, accused Gogol of lying: “A lie not in the sense of an error, no, but in the sense of insincerity, first of all. This is the inner untruth of a person with himself.” What about the elder Aksakov? And Sergei Timofeevich began to edifyingly reprimand Nikolai Vasilyevich: “You made a gross and pathetic mistake. You are completely confused, confused, constantly contradicting yourself and, thinking of serving Heaven and humanity, you insult both God and man.” It’s not hard to imagine how dark it was in Gogol’s eyes when he read this! Sergei Timofeevich will come to his senses and dramatically change his view of “Selected Places,” but, alas! - only after Nikolai Vasilyevich is no longer alive. Apollo Grigoriev, in his article “Gogol and His Last Book,” called “Selected Places” a strange book, written at a painful moment in the author’s spiritual development, crediting only the fact that the great writer thereby expressed the painful moments of the spiritual development of the entire Russian society. Three Peters spoke in defense of Gogol - Chaadaev, Vyazemsky and Pletnev. Peter Yakovlevich: “While some pages are weak, and others are even sinful, in his book there are pages of amazing beauty, full of boundless truth, pages such that, reading them, you rejoice and are proud that you speak the language in which such things are said.” Pyotr Andreevich: “No matter how you evaluate this book, from whatever point of view you look at it, you will still come to the conclusion that the book is extremely wonderful. She is a literary and psychological event.” Pyotr Aleksandrovich called the book “the beginning of Russian literature proper,” but stipulated that it “will exercise its influence only over a select few.” Perhaps this judgment regarding the chosen ones was the most accurate. “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” is a book in which the writer, who had already thoroughly tamed his reader with previous works, suddenly gave him a different direction, leading him to faith in God. Having enchanted reading Russia with the splendor of his writing gift, Nikolai Vasilyevich wove nets from “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”, “Mirgorod”, “Arabesques”, “Petersburg Tales”, “Dead Souls”, “The Inspector General”, lured huge prey into these networks and now tried to give his catch to Christ the Savior. Feeling the “fisher of men” in himself, he suddenly led society to the conclusion: all the funny and terrible types in Russia, described by him with such skill, are possible only because they forgot God, forgot about their Christianity, forgot about the Church of God: “We own a treasure that has no price, and not only do we not care about feeling it, but we don’t even know where we put it.” “There is a reconciler of everything within our land itself, which is not yet visible to everyone - our Church,” he wrote. “She is already preparing to suddenly assume her full rights and shine with light on the whole earth. It contains everything that is needed for a truly Russian life, in all its relations, from the state to the simple family, the mood for everything, the direction for everything, the legal and right path for everything.” Gogol stated that it is possible to love Russia and benefit it only by becoming a Christian: “Whoever wants to truly honestly serve Russia needs to have a lot of love for her, which would absorb all other feelings - he needs to have a lot of love for man in general and become a true Christian, in the entire sense of the word.” “Society is formed by itself, society is made up of units. It is necessary for each unit to fulfill its duty... Man must remember that he is not a material beast at all, but a high citizen of high heavenly citizenship. Until he lives at least to some extent the life of a heavenly citizen, until then earthly citizenship will not come into order.” “For me, the idea of ​​introducing some kind of innovation into Russia, bypassing our Church, without asking her blessing for it, is crazy. It is absurd even to instill any European ideas into our thoughts until she christens them with the light of Christ.” Therefore, of course, with the greatest excitement Gogol awaited the assessment of his work from the Church. And the clergy generally showed restraint, cautiously treating works on religious topics created by the author of satires on Russian society. Even if they were satyrs, in which only one class – the spiritual class – did not receive slaps. Gogol sent his book to various clergy. Most of them responded with approval without enthusiasm and mild criticism, such as Archbishop Innokenty of Kherson and Tauride, who wrote in a letter to Pogodin: “...say that I am grateful for the friendly memory, I remember and respect him, but I still love him, I rejoice at the change with him, I just ask him not to parade piety: she loves the inner cage. However, it’s not that he was silent. His voice is needed, especially for young people, but if it is excessive, they will laugh at it, and there will be no benefit.” But there were also harsh judgments. The rector of the St. Petersburg Trinity-Sergius Hermitage, Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov), considered one of the most authoritative spiritual writers of that time, wrote that the book “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” “emits both light and darkness,” and about Gogol himself that “his religious concepts are not defined, moving in the direction of heartfelt inspiration, unclear, indistinct, spiritual, and not spiritual... Gogol's book cannot be accepted entirely as pure verbs of truth. It's mixed here. It is desirable that this person, in whom self-sacrifice is noticeable, should moor to the haven of truth, where the beginning of all spiritual blessings is.” Most of all, the Fathers of the Church were outraged by the suddenness of Gogol’s transformation. Until recently he was a star in a vain world, and suddenly he wants to stand on a par with spiritual writers. From satirists to theologians! The same Ignatius (Brianchaninov) advised Gogol to pay attention to the experience of the Holy Fathers, who spent many years and decades performing spiritual cleansing and only after that began to write books. It was here that the main reason for the rejection of Gogol’s book by the majority of representatives of the Church lay. The most radical in his judgments was the Rzhev archpriest Father Matthew (Konstantinovsky), who in the near future became the spiritual mentor of Nikolai Vasilyevich. He was famous as a prominent representative of the militant Church. Gogol's closest friend and patron, Count Alexander Petrovich Tolstoy, advised the writer to send the book to Father Matthew, whatever he would say. Father Matthew wrote that this book is harmful, that Gogol will give an answer to God for it, that you cannot go to the theater with the name of Christ on your lips, that it is impossible to be a secular and spiritual writer at the same time, that you need to renounce your entire past life, all your books. Father Matthew was subsequently presented as a fanatic, a Jesuit, who carried out the trial of Gogol and brought him to exhaustion and death. Gogol considered him his main benefactor. “Father Matthew was a sincere Christian,” wrote the remarkable publicist, writer, and historian Evgeniy Nikolaevich Poselyanin many years later. “Throughout his whole life there runs like a red thread the conviction that “you cannot serve God and mammon,” that “he who wants to be a friend of the world turns out to be an enemy of God.” By the way, Saint Philaret often repeated this, sometimes incurring discontent on the part of the powers that be, who just want to serve both God and the world at the same time. Serving the world meant, of course, not love for one’s neighbor, but sharing its sins with the world. Love for one's neighbor is precisely considered in Christianity to be one of the main components of serving God. “Leave both Gogol and Dostoevsky their insatiable longing for God, their impulses there, into the bright distance of heaven; grant them, poisoned by the breath of your world, exhausted among your vaunted joys, grant them, at least in the last period of their lives, who gave all their blood, drop by drop, to serve society - the right to seek and strive for that in your eyes that is despicable, unnecessary and can no longer serve as a source of your artistic pleasures, your entertainment, your amusement - righteousness and holiness, in which, through the experience and reflection of a whole life, they finally found the only path to happiness. You won’t understand their souls!” – wrote the same Villager fifty years after Gogol’s death. And, finally, it is important for us how Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow and Kolomna reacted to “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends.” Without ceasing to closely monitor all the noticeable phenomena of Russian literature, he, of course, was one of the first to read Gogol’s new book. A single opinion of Filaret has reached us, retold in a letter from Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov to his son Ivan, dated January 1847. The elder Aksakov, having met with the Metropolitan, apparently began to sharply criticize Gogol in the same spirit in which he spoke to Nikolai Vasilyevich himself. And Saint Philaret, in his characteristic soft, kind-hearted manner and at the same time decisively answered: – Although Gogol is mistaken in many ways, we must rejoice at his Christian direction. And over the years, it was precisely this judgment of Philaret that began to be accepted by the Church as the main thing in relation to the last years of Gogol’s life and in relation to his spiritual prose. Filaret could not help but see that much of what Gogol wrote about was in tune with his sermons; much, perhaps, was written under the influence of Filaret’s sermons. Both of them, the great preacher and the great writer, appealed to their listeners and readers: “Come to your senses!” – Thousands of Christian people are fleeing in the footsteps of pagan frivolity; and there are people who talk about matters of frivolity, as if they were monuments, with triumph and praise,” said Filaret on the same days when society was indignantly reading “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,” in which all this pagan frivolity was condemned. – The flesh wants to have fun, burst into laughter, even, perhaps, jump and utter or listen with pleasure to disorderly cries, and the like; strike her with the blows not of a knife or a whip, but of a spiritual word,” Filaret cried at a time when Gogol was horrified that he was making people “break out in laughter.” – The flesh is irritated by the offender and is eager for mutual insult: bind it not with bonds of rope or iron, but with the bonds of spiritual reasoning and the fear of God... The flesh, not content with what is necessary, thirsts for what is pleasant, seeks pleasure and is ready to set it as the goal of life: show it another object and goal - the cross erected on Calvary in order to cleanse the earth of impure pleasures through deprivation and suffering... - This is how Filaret established the law that it is impossible to serve both God and mammon at the same time. Gogol and Filaret had in common the fact that both were sick a lot. Filaret often complained that, due to his illnesses, he could not manage to do everything he had planned. But he could not help but appreciate Gogol’s reasoning about the grace of illness: “Oh! How we need ailments!.. Not to mention the fact that health itself, which constantly pushes a Russian person to make some kind of leaps and the desire to show off his qualities in front of others, would have forced me to do a thousand stupid things... If it weren’t for such painful suffering, where would I not be now! What a significant person you imagine yourself to be!.. So you too meekly accept any illness, believing in advance that it is needed. Pray to God only that its wonderful meaning and the full depth of its lofty meaning may be revealed to you.” Having generally received no gratitude from Russia for writing and publishing Selected Places, Gogol strove for holy places. Ahead of him was a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In the coming years, he could become the same Orthodox writer and pilgrim as Metropolitan Philaret’s friend Andrei Nikolaevich Muravyov was. Another thing is that in this field they could become irreconcilable rivals. The imperious Muravyov, full of strength and health, could hardly tolerate such an opponent, who, moreover, possessed significantly greater literary talent. Often Andrei Nikolaevich made comments to Filaret himself, and he had to listen to them obediently. Let’s imagine that now Nikolai Vasilyevich would also appear! But history does not tolerate this “would”... Gogol left Russia again, and we still have to experience his death. But in that year 1847, Filaret mourned the loss of his beloved student. On May 18, Archimandrite Macarius (Glukharev) died. Three years ago he was removed from missionary work and sent to the Trinity Monastery of the Oryol diocese. He did not accept the ban on translating the Bible; somewhere he got hold of a translation by Archpriest Gerasim Pavsky and compared his new translations with it. He again sent the corrected text to the Synod. One after another, Archimandrite Macarius translated the books of the Old Testament, completed his work and intended to publish it abroad. By the way, they could have ended up with Gogol together in Jerusalem - two misunderstood and booed! In 1846, with great difficulty, Macarius secured a trip to the Holy Land; in 1847 he intended to go there, but suddenly fell ill, fell ill and died, saying in the last moments before his death: – The Light of Christ enlightens everyone. After him there was no other property left except books, papers and ink. Regretting the death of the fifty-five-year-old enlightener of the Altai peoples, the Moscow Metropolitan ordered that the portrait of Macarius be placed in the Gethsemane monastery in his personal Philaret’s cell. “The destructive disease that has befallen some places in our Fatherland and, perhaps, threatens us as well, rightly gives a special incentive to offer prayers to the Lord God for mercy. It is good to begin these prayers freely, out of pure love for humanity, for the distressed brethren, before the imminent danger of one’s own, and not involuntarily, with the imminent danger constricting the heart,” Filaret wrote at the end of August 1847 to Governor Anthony about the new cholera epidemic that struck Russia. Starting in April, by autumn cholera reached the Volga region and central regions of Russia. - So, if we are threatened by a sorrowful visit from God, let us recognize in it the justice of God, which often punishes sins and often encourages correction; and let us motivate ourselves to improve our lives, in relation to piety, good morals, abstinence, love of mankind,” the Metropolitan of Moscow cried out already in mid-September. – Let us not hesitate to resort to God with prayer, partly for the deliverance of our brethren, the children of the one Church and one Fatherland, who have already suffered a sorrowful visit, partly for ourselves, lest the angel of death approach us, or let his hand become heavy; May our guardian angels not fail us with their protection, reinforcement and admonition, may we always obey the Father of Spirits, and may we do His will, and may we find mercy and grace from Him. In the same sermon, he called not only to pray, but also to “help God” by taking medicine: – Let us not be lazy in using natural remedies and precautions to preserve health and to prevent harmful influences. How can we demand that God protect us if we ourselves do not take care of ourselves, and expose ourselves to destructive forces, cowardice and lack of hope in God, immoderation and intemperance and other negligence? Carefully guard yourself with the smallest possible care, and God will keep you with great, all-good and all-powerful care. Meanwhile, the arrangement of the Gethsemane monastery continued, and Philaret really liked how Governor Anthony was doing everything: “The Gethsemane monastery would not exist if there were another in your place, even one of those using my power of attorney; because, without trusting myself, I would not have enough confidence that the matter would be done decently, there would be no difficulty in the methods and one could hope for some spiritual fruit.” In the same year, Filaret wrote an article “On the ancient image of the sign of the cross.” Disputes about how to apply the sign of the cross remained pressing in connection with the existence of disagreements on this score with the Old Believers, who were baptized with two fingers, and with Catholics, who were baptized from left to right, and not like the Orthodox - from right to left. Meanwhile, despite the strict requirements of the Old Believers to be baptized with two fingers, it is known that ancient Christians were baptized with one finger. As for Catholics who keep the sign of the cross from left to right, they were baptized this way and that until the middle of the 16th century, and in the order of Pope Innocent III, issued at the end of the 12th century, it was supposed to be baptized from right to left, but nothing terrible was seen if someone was baptized from left to right. Who remembers this now? The epidemic was approaching. “I kind of look at the approach of cholera as simply the approach of autumn,” Filaret admitted in a letter to Anthony in September. – Isn’t this indifference worse? Let us pray to the Lord for everyone and everything.” Very little was known at the time about how cholera spread. Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, a guest at the Trinity courtyard, entertained Filaret with stories about how, for example, during the previous epidemic, “a healthy detachment of troops walked along the road; but where he stayed, cholera broke out after he left.” And Prince Vadbolsky, who came from Voronezh, said that he spent several days with his family in Voronezh, where cholera was especially rampant, lived there in a monastery in which monks were dying and the air was filled with a deathly smell, but he took communion and remained unharmed. In Moscow, people started getting sick in September, and by October the number of cases was close to one hundred. And at the end of October, already a hundred people a day were becoming infected. Only in the winter did cholera sharply decline, and on February 8, 1848, at the Chudov Monastery, Metropolitan Philaret performed a prayer of thanks for the end of the destructive disease and said a word, again and again warning the flock not to incur such grave trials upon themselves in the future through their sins: – If we heard a skilled doctor say to a patient he had cured, for example: “Don’t eat this or that kind of food in the future,” what would we think? Of course, we would think: apparently, the healed one had previously consumed this food; she, apparently, was also the cause of the disease; Apparently, the doctor foresees that it will again cause illness if the cured person does not stop using it. At this time, Russia already knew that the king of France, Louis Philippe I, had been overthrown again. And soon, in the same February 1848, Marx’s “Manifesto” would be published in London. A new revolution was beginning, which within a year would cover other European countries: after France, Germany, Austria, and Hungary. France was once again becoming a republic. From now on there will be no king. There will still be Emperor Louis Napoleon, but there will never be kings. No matter how much the last Bourbon served the bourgeoisie, no matter how hard he tried to be a “citizen king” with the charter of 1830 in the heart of his coat of arms, no matter how much he proclaimed the godless motto “Get rich!”, but he too was thrown off. “Having first arisen in France, rebellion and anarchy soon spread to neighboring Germany, and, spreading everywhere with impudence that increased with the compliance of governments, this destructive stream finally touched our allied Empire of Austria and the Kingdom of Prussia,” proclaimed the manifesto of Emperor Nicholas I, who resolutely declared that the Russian Empire would resist the new stream. In Russia, immediately after receiving news of the uprisings, the mobilization of the army began, parts of the troops moved to the border - bitter experience showed: today the revolution is burning in Europe, and tomorrow it will come to burn Russia. Filaret understood this very well, and therefore in his sermons he tried to convey the idea that the Lord would punish us for our sins not only in another world, but also in this one. "Enrichissez-vous!" - “Get rich!” - rushed to us from Europe, and many liked this, contrary to church calls to save themselves, to save their souls, and not to bury wealth, not to drown in luxury, which was again spreading in society like an infection. The luxury of some while the misery of many others. But Christ comes not to the rich, but to the poor. This is what the flock needed to be told about again and again. After all, the angel of the Lord did not appear with good news in rich houses. -Where is the Archangel? To inglorious Nazareth, to a small church, to the poor Virgin, known to few only for her extraordinary love of God and virginity. She alone hears what the Archangel says; only this knows after his conversation: and Her faithful guardian, righteous Joseph, does not know what has happened, preached Moscow Chrysostom on the feast of the Annunciation in the Miracle Monastery. - What happened? The eternal decree of God about the salvation of the fallen human race has been put into effect. The sixty-five-year-old shepherd did not tire of writing and reading his fiery sermons, and meanwhile he was sick more and more often and longer and dreamed of peace, of a peaceful life in his Gethsemane monastery. “Today, having already gotten up, I dozed off again and saw myself riding along the last winter road in a sleigh. Someone sat in front and warned the driver of the horses. Finally we arrived, and I go to the doors of the church in the monastery, and you leave the church. I wish it were like this in reality; but now, it seems, there is no time,” he wrote on March 26, 1848 to the Monk Anthony. On these same days, Muravyov brought to Filaret the Serbian prince Mikhail Obrenovich, who had been overthrown from the throne in his homeland and lived in Vienna. Now the wave of revolution threw him out of the capital of Austria - into Russia, where only salvation could be found. Having visited the Moscow Metropolitan, the persecuted Serb received from him a comforting word and a blessing to live in the silence of the Trinity Lavra. By summer, a cholera epidemic broke out again, and again Filaret appealed to the prudence of the sheep of his flock, calling for cleansing from sins: “Sin is a disease that takes root in a person’s being. The sinful impression and vicious pleasure leaves, partly in the soul, partly in the body, a trace that becomes deeper with the repetition of sinful actions and which, renewed by memory, forms an inclination towards sinful action and a certain thirst for sin. Therefore, just as sometimes a physical physician painfully burns out an ulcer that has penetrated into the body and infects it, or separates it with iron, and inflicts artificial pain in order to cure the disease: similarly, the Physician of souls and bodies uses the instrument of sorrows to uproot the roots and erase the traces of sin, and with the fire of suffering burns out the infection of inclinations to sinful pleasures.” He called not only for abstinence, prayer and repentance, but also at the same time for measures of medical and hygienic prevention: “Be that as it may, it is true that it is useful not to be embarrassed, to rely on God and to take precautions. What is needed is sufficient warmth in clothing and in the home, eating food that is not heavy, not raw, and not something that upsets even in good times.” The plague was decimating the people, and new priests had to be installed to replace those “kidnapped by the disease.” An even worse plague shook Europe. In Vienna, Emperor Ferdinand was expelled, forced to flee to Innsbruck. And the Russian Tsar was preparing for new wars, and the Moscow Metropolitan reminded the Tsar’s subjects “that the kingdom of earth is connected with the heavenly, that the Tsar reigns and reigns not without the action and assistance of the Tsar of those who reign.” – When it gets dark outside: increase the light in the house. Take care, Russia, and kindle your home light more strongly: because outside your borders, according to the word of the prophet, darkness covers the earth, and darkness falls on the tongues (Is. 60:2), the nations reel, and people have learned in vain (Ps. 2:1). Having ceased to affirm state decrees on the word and authority of Him by Whom kings reign, they no longer knew how to either honor or preserve kings. The thrones there became unstable; the peoples went crazy. It’s not that there are no more understanding people at all: but daring madness has taken over and tramples on cowardly wisdom, which has not strengthened itself with the wisdom of God. From the thought of the people they have developed an idol: and they do not even want to understand the obviousness that for such a huge idol there will not be enough victims. They dream of reaping peace when they sow rebellion. Not wanting to freely obey the lawful and beneficent authority of the king, they are forced to servile before the wild power of self-willed crowds. So the solid land there turns into a turbulent sea of ​​peoples, which is already absorbing some, and threatening to swallow others, institutions, laws, order, public trust, contentment, security, - said Filaret in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin on the birthday of Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich. – Let those called to arms for the safety of the fatherland come with love and selflessness, according to the voice of the Tsar and according to the voice of Christ: no one has greater love than anyone, but whoever lays down his life for his friends (John 15:13). It never ceases to amaze how much he managed to do every day, how much was preoccupied with his head, how much he traveled, preached, took exams, served as a guardian, performed divine services and at the same time was constantly sick, constantly caught colds, which he complained about to his friend Anthony in letters, but in front of everyone else he tried not to show it. All you have to do is sweat somewhere, and then ride in a stroller blown by a light breeze, and - please, you have a cold! And this meant a cough, runny nose, unbearable aches in the legs, arms, back, and headaches. And, despite this, every day it was necessary to get up and go somewhere, travel, be in public, among people, above people. Through the prayers of the righteous and the deeds of Russian doctors, the epidemic was pacified in Russia, and in the fall the Moscow Metropolitan could perform a prayer service of thanks for the end of the destructive disease. And in his words, tell the world what he thinks about diseases in general: - Let us glorify God both for the disaster itself and for the type of disaster that has visited us. We admit that without this disaster we would have prayed less, repented less, and humbled ourselves less. So, glory to God, although through an unpleasant means, who has increased prayer, repentance, and humility in us. And if we compare the calamity of the physical illness that has terrified us with the calamity of the mental and moral illness, with which some people are infected in our time, and through them some peoples and states are involuntarily affected to such a degree of confusion and vicissitude that among them the sick want to treat the healthy, those who have become self-willed make laws for royal wisdom, those who have forgotten God dream of creating a new world, the untamed spirit of restlessness and anxiety leads some to inflame rage, others to stupor of bewilderment; and the hundreds of cities are covered with the dead from the ulcer of civil strife: - from these grave sights, turning to ourselves, of course, with deep conviction we can join the way of thinking of David, and say: thank God that we have fallen into the hand of the Lord, for many are His bounties; But men did not fall into their hands (2 Samuel 24:14). Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol wrote about the same thing in his article “On Diseases,” about human leaps and about humility before the Creator, to which bodily ailments lead us. At the end of 1848, Gogol returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and again settled in Moscow with Count Tolstoy in Talyzin’s house on Nikitsky Boulevard, the same one in whose courtyard he now sits as a monument. The last period of the great writer’s life was beginning. In December, Nikolai Vasilyevich finally succumbed to the persuasion of Alexandra Osipovna Smirnova, who had enormous influence on him, and dared to personally meet Moscow Chrysostom. Gogol had been going to Filaret for a long time. On February 27, 1844, Nikolai Mikhailovich Yazykov, in a letter to Gogol, recommended a number of works by the saint: “The works of the holy fathers, translated by the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, - now the third edition is being published for last year - and I will send “The Moskvitian” for 1843; there is an excellent, beautiful sermon by Philaret on the consecration of the church in this Lavra - just like in the appendices to the translations of St. fathers, his conversation at the Annunciation and the word on the 1st day of Easter!! You will read them with great pleasure." In 1845, Gogol asked F.N. Belyaev to send him to Frankfurt Filaret’s poetic response to Pushkin’s poem “A vain gift, an accidental gift...” and soon received it. It must be assumed that by December 1848, Nikolai Vasilyevich knew the saint’s work well. The great writer came to the great preacher, accompanied by the Bolshoi Theater composer Alexei Nikolaevich Verstovsky, with whom he became close friends at that time. Alas, we do not know the content of that conversation, BUT we can assume that they talked a lot about the most important things. This guess could be confirmed by Gogol’s words from a letter to S.P. Shevyrev, written later, in 1851, when Nikolai Vasilyevich was again planning to visit Filaret, but for some reason did not carry out his intentions: “I did not want to go to the Metropolitan to talk about any smart subjects, about which, really, I have become stupid at the present time. I just wanted to come to him for two minutes and ask for the prayers that my exhausted soul so needed.” Therefore, it is most likely that on his first visit he was talking with Filaret “about some smart subjects.” One thing is for sure: the meeting made a strong impression on Gogol, which will be reflected in the very last days of his life. But more on that a little later. The terrible year 1848 for Europe was ending, and in his sermons Filaret over and over again called on the Russian people not to succumb to the European infection, thanking the Lord for the fact that He punished our sins only with cholera, and not with revolution. But just because this year was peaceful did not mean that the next one would be the same. And in the battle with sinful obsession, Moscow Chrysostom could not be tired. And he continued to fight people’s excessive love of excess: – The Syrians had an idol called mammon and was superstitiously revered as the patron of wealth. From this the same name was transferred to wealth itself: mammon. The Lord, of course, not without reason, instead of the simple name of wealth, used the word “mammon”, in which the concept of idolatry is combined with the concept of wealth: and the reason for this can be assumed to be no other than the one that he wanted to mean not just wealth, but wealth, collected with passion, possessed with passion, becoming an idol of the heart. Let us remember how many balls and all sorts of holidays took place in those days, how young people, and not only young people, competed with each other to see who would take part in the big balls. And this despite the fact that the level of poverty in Russia, although it was much more comforting than in England, Germany, France and other European countries, still remained quite low. In a conversation about mercy for the poor, Filaret also expressed his opinion about charitable entertainment, part of the proceeds from which went to help the poor: – Do they act very well when they say: give money for a spectacle or for other vain entertainment; half of them will be spent for your pleasure, and the other will be turned into alms. What will happen here? Will alms cleanse vanity? Or will vanity deprive alms of purity? Is there an answer to this that would be more pleasant than the question? But, of course, there is no doubt that if the money allocated for charitable entertainment, with the elimination of entertainment and its costs, were given in full to alms; then the alms would be twice as large and incomparably purer. The Apostle teaches us to weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:15), and not to rejoice with thoughts of the unfortunate and not to overflow the cup of joy, so that the trembling may go to those who weep. Yeast is a leaven that remains in the form of sediment at the bottom of barrels of beer or kvass. What a saying! Like, they drank the drink itself, and distributed the grounds from the bottom to the poor! Only he could speak like that, causing the displeasure of those having fun: “The creaky old man has started his barrel organ again!” For only he and people like him understood the meaning of life - to be in harmony with the whole world, and this means not to laugh carelessly when they are crying nearby, but to go to those who are crying in order to console them, to share with them what you have. And then there will be neither cholera nor revolutions. But who wanted to understand this, live this? Units. As then, so now, a century and a half later. The year 1848 was also marked by the fact that the magazine “Zvezdochka” published a poetic response “It is not in vain, it is not by chance that life was given to me by God...”, once written by Filaret to Pushkin’s poem “A gift in vain, a gift by chance...”. This magazine was published in St. Petersburg from 1842 to 1863 and was intended for reading by students of the institutes for noble maidens. Filaret’s poem appeared in it under the title “Pushkin, who moved from dreams to reflection.” This was not the first publication, but the first one can be called curious - it was published in 1840 in the Mayak magazine under the guise of Goethe’s poems. The full name of “Mayak” was “Beacon of Enlightenment and Education. Works of scientists and writers, Russian and foreign,” and was published by critic P. A. Korsakov and publicist, critic and prose writer S. A. Burachok. There was a caustic epigram composed by S. A. Sobolevsky: Now in “Zvezdochka” Philaret’s poems no longer belonged to any Goethe, but the publication was also clearly undertaken without the knowledge and consent of the metropolitan. And it is unknown whether he knew about her at all. And if he knew, how did he respond? Most likely - no way. The new year, 1849, was beginning. Filaret was sick again and only on January 30 could he admit: “My cold has subsided, and I don’t consider myself sick.” But he could not admit that his sermons had a strong effect on the new Israel, as he often called the Russian people. There were many believers, but there were also many madmen. “The Lord has vouchsafed me to receive about a hundred people in his church at the Lord’s Table,” he wrote to St. Anthony at the beginning of Lent. “I was also consoled by the fact that people flocked to Saint Alexis at Vespers and on the day of his feast day, and during the first week of Lent at Compline. But what I heard about the frenzy of spectacles during cheese week is very sad. Europe is mad and suffering; we see and are not afraid to follow the path of madness, not being enlightened by either what has already befallen us or what may threaten us.” The entertainment did not stop during Lent. Filaret appealed to the new Governor-General of Moscow with a request to ban mountain skiing, dancing, music and illumination. After the resignation of Alexei Grigorievich Shcherbatov, Arseniy Andreevich Zakrevsky was the governor-general from last year; he was a year younger than Filaret, he fought at Austerlitz. Preussisch-Eylau, Ruschuk, went through the entire war of 1812, fought at Leipzig, Kulm, Dresden, took Paris... But he never managed to take the Moscow ice slides. He banned music and illumination, but about the slides he replied: - Even the sovereign in St. Petersburg does not cancel them during Lent. However, Arseny Andreevich quickly became one of the Metropolitan’s friends and dutifully obeyed the advice of his wise peer. He began to impose strictness, prohibiting unnecessary lavish holidays, held with or without reason. Many did not like this, but it was impossible not to admit that in the Mother See there was much more order than before, the streets became clean, fewer drunken fools wandered around them, and less unbridled swearing was heard. To fans of earthly joys this seemed the height of despotism; secular society despised Zakrevsky, giving him the nickname Arseny Pasha. One of Arseny Andreevich’s fierce enemies was the famous wit and joker Alexander Sergeevich Menshikov, His Serene Highness, Adjutant General, Admiral, great-grandson of Alexander Danilovich Menshikov. He just loved to have fun all year round without a break. One day, returning from Moscow to St. Petersburg, he met with the emperor. Nicholas I asked: - Well, what about Moscow? Holy Moscow... “Not only a saint,” answered Menshikov, “but for some time now also a great martyr.” What order there is in everything! Even all dogs appear on the streets wearing muzzles. And I only saw Zakrevsky’s dog without a muzzle. Several years will pass, and all the blame for Russia’s failures in the Crimean War will fall on this wit, and it will no longer be he, but he, who will be given unpleasant nicknames, the main one of which will be “Treasoners.” But let's wait for the Crimean War, and for now let's return to 1849. On the eve of Holy Week, the Emperor arrived in Moscow. On Palm Sunday, March 27, the Moscow Metropolitan greeted him with a solemn speech in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin: - In days short of peace, your people are at peace, because your autocratic spirit is awake over them. And exactly a week later, on the day of Christ’s Bright Resurrection, the autocrat presented the shepherd of Moscow with a large award - Saint Philaret “for his vigilant care for the entrusted Diocese, with many years of experience and edifying preaching of the words of truth, which reveal the enlightened and zealous Shepherd of the flock of Christ, and respecting these excellent virtues and tirelessly performed in favor of the Orthodox Church and Deeds of the Fatherland, Most mercifully awarded with diamond insignia of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called.” Diamond signs were, as it were, the highest degree of the order. In the Russian Empire, it was impossible to receive the same order twice - only several of its degrees, in strict sequence. The Order of St. Andrew the First-Called did not have degrees; the cavalier received it for a set of actions for the benefit of Russia. The first holder of this order, established by Peter the Great, was the creator of the Russian fleet, Fyodor Alekseevich Golovin. Second after him is Hetman Ivan Stepanovich Mazepa, for the fact that Ukraine became a full ally of Russia. But, violating the motto of the order “For Faith and Loyalty!”, Mazepa became the first who was disgracefully deprived of the highest state award of the Russian Empire. Peter I himself was only her sixth gentleman, and the main “chick of Petrov’s nest,” Alexander Danilovich Menshikov, was the seventh. All holders of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called from 1699 to 1917 were about a thousand, and among them was Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow. Having received the diamond signs, Filaret wrote to the governor of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra: “The news that has reached you is fair that the pious Sovereign Emperor was pleased to show me a new favor. I share it with all my co-workers, because if the all-merciful Sovereign deigned to respond mercifully to my management, then this could only be achieved with the assistance of good co-servants through my feasible care.” The main Moscow event dedicated to the bright holiday of Easter that year was the solemn consecration of the Imperial Kremlin Palace. After the capital was transferred from Moscow to St. Petersburg, the royal significance of the Moscow palaces was lost, the premises were used by Moscow branches of the colleges, some buildings fell into disrepair and were destroyed by fires. Empress Elizaveta Petrovna decided to build a new imperial residence in the Kremlin. On the site of the demolished chambers of the ancient palace, Rastrelli erected the Moscow Winter Palace in the Baroque style, similar to the Great Peterhof Palace. As you know, under Catherine II, the architect Bazhenov designed a grandiose plan to demolish the entire Kremlin to the ground and build in its place an open square with the Grand Kremlin Palace. In 1770, they even began to implement this project and dismantled the entire Kremlin wall overlooking the Moscow River, along with three towers and the Tainitsky Gate. On June 1, 1773, the ceremonial laying of the new palace took place. But the architect fell out of favor, the project was revised and they came to the conclusion that such a grandiose construction would be too expensive and there would be nowhere to get the money. The Kremlin was saved from Bazhenov by the grace of God. According to Kazakov's design, the wall and towers were rebuilt. According to the design of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Lvov, the Rastrelli Palace was renovated, and after the fire of 1812, the building was restored in the forms of classicism. With the start of construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the idea arose that not far from the cathedral there should be an equally majestic royal palace in the Kremlin. As the emperor put it, “so that its space would combine everything that in people’s memory is closely connected with the idea of ​​the abode of the Sovereign.” In 1837, the drafting of the palace was entrusted to the same person who designed the Cathedral of Christ the Savior - court architect Konstantin Andreevich Ton. Coming from the family of a Russified German jeweler, he graduated from the Imperial Academy of Arts with a gold medal, and his first work was the project of the “German Tavern” on Krestovsky Island. He studied in Italy, where he was accepted as a member of the Florence Academy of Arts, restored ancient monuments and became especially famous as a restorer of the Caesars' Palace in Rome on the Palatine Hill. It was after this that Nicholas I drew attention to him and included him in his Cabinet. Returning to St. Petersburg, he worked here for some time, built an embankment with sphinxes brought to Northern Palmyra with the assistance of Andrei Nikolaevich Muravyov, built the Cathedral of St. Catherine in Tsarskoe Selo and the Church of the Apostles Peter and Paul in Peterhof, erected a monument to Derzhavin in Kazan, a monument to Dmitry Donskoy on the Kulikovo Field and many other very significant, but still major creations Konstantin Andreevich was waiting for him in Moscow and, with the blessing of Metropolitan Philaret, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the Grand Imperial Kremlin Palace. The palace he proposed corresponded in its outline to the lines and proportions of the Kremlin, and in 1839 Filaret consecrated the foundation, and construction began, which lasted ten years. Another remarkable Russian genius, Fyodor Grigorievich Solntsev, was appointed the main artist of the palace. Born into a serf family in 1801, by that time he was already an academician of painting. Solntsev and Ton had one thing in common with Filaret - they did not want to see the fashionable, so-called “classical” gods of Greek and Roman paganism in their creations, trying to give Russian architecture and painting Russian outlines. And in the end, the Grand Kremlin Palace turned out to be such that the Moscow saint could consecrate the new majestic building with a light heart and joy. The stories with the Arc de Triomphe and the Bolshoi Theater did not repeat themselves. At first, the Armory Chamber was supposed to be built as a single whole with the Grand Palace, but in 1842 it was separated. The single complex included the Faceted Chamber, the Terem Palace, the Golden Tsarina Chamber and the palace churches. One of the oldest churches in the capital, the Cathedral of the Savior on Bor, was enclosed in the interior of the Grand Kremlin Palace. Thon used motifs from the Terem Palace in the exterior decoration of the new building, with its main façade facing the Kremlin embankment. The windows are made in the tradition of Russian architecture and are decorated with carved frames with double arches and a weight in the middle. Just like the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, according to the emperor, the palace was to become a monument to the glory of the Russian army. Its five ceremonial halls - St. George's, Andreevsky, Alexandrovsky, Vladimirsky and Catherine's - are named after the orders of the Russian Empire, their interior decoration is made in accordance with the motifs of the regalia of these orders. And here, in the new sparkling St. George’s Hall, on Saturday of Easter Week, April 9, 1849, having performed the rite of consecration of the new palace, Saint Philaret delivered a solemn speech: - Among other royal palaces, this palace of St. George the Victorious, by its very name, doesn’t already make it clear who the sovereign was thinking about when he gave it this name? “He thought about his faithful ascetics of war, and not only thought, but also wanted to solemnly manifest and perpetuate his thought about them here. Just as his royal spirit lives in his army with constant care for its improvement and perfection: so he wants the memory and honor of his army to live in his royal house. The palace of St. George the Victorious should be a church of the glory of the victorious Russian army, or, what is equally true, a church of royal love for the faithful army. The names of the regiments, bright with proven loyalty, courage, victories - the names of members of the honorable host of St. George's warriors will forever shine here and be illuminated with royal glory. And the most pious sovereign is now laying the foundation for this royal monument; and for this undertaking we invoke blessing from above, through the intercession of Saint George the Victorious. Here the soldiers stood and listened, who would soon go into battle - it was already known about the beginning of the uprising in Hungary, and he told them: - May God help the Sovereign wisdom to keep the Russian army in the same position as it is now, so that its formidable appearance alone is sufficient to repel the war and so that there is no need to defeat enemies. But if when the insolence of enemies and royal justice call you to battle, then you will especially remember this palace, and each regiment and each warrior will say with one heart: let us strive so that the king in his St. George’s palace will look with a cheerful eye on the names of our regiments! But the opening and consecration of the Grand Kremlin Palace is associated not only with a bright memory in the life of Filaret. He could not forget about the demolition of the oldest Kremlin church, which was sacrificed to the palace. The Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist was built back in the 12th century, that is, it was the same age as the Mother See. It was dear to the heart of the Orthodox Muscovite because it was a monument to the overthrow of paganism. On its site there was once a pagan temple, where rituals were performed in honor of the deity Kupala and obscene zeal, accompanied by bathing in the river and sin. Muscovites who accepted the true faith erected a church on the site of the destroyed church in honor of the Nativity of John the Baptist, coinciding with the day of Kupala. Thus, pagan bathing was replaced by the veneration of the Baptist, who “bathed” Christ during his baptism in the Jordan. The wooden Baptist Church stood until the time of Vasily the Dark, who erected a stone one in its place. Then the architect Aleviz Fryazin built another one, and it stood until 1847, when it turned out that after the construction of the new palace it was in danger of destruction - horse riding, inevitable near the palace, would create vibration, and the building would not stand. They decided to move the church inside the Borovitskaya Tower. But Filaret, having learned about this, became angry and indignant. It took a long time to persuade him. In the end, he resigned himself, but personally drew up tablets explaining the reason for the transfer, and these tablets, with the permission of the emperor, were placed on the walls of the tower. From now on, services were held in the tower church once a year - on the feast of John the Baptist. The demolition of the oldest church created a kind of unfinished space, and subsequently the same Thon installed a massive cast-iron lattice with a gate here. Sixty years will pass, and the Bolsheviks will indifferently destroy the church inside the Borovitskaya Tower - Russia’s past will be an empty phrase for them. In the summer of 1849, Russian troops entered Hungary to take part in suppressing the rebellion. It is customary for us to interpret those events one-sidedly, “in the Hungarian way.” They say that the proud Hungarian people fought for their independence from Austria and had already achieved it, but then the bad Russian Tsar Nikolai Palkin came and ruined everything for the noblest Lajos Kossuth and Sandor Petofi. At the same time, for some reason they forget about other peoples who also fought for their independence at that time. These are Slovaks, Croats, Transylvanian Romanians and Vojvodina Serbs. And they fought to secede from Hungary. The right of the Hungarians to independence from Austria is recognized by those who are against the policies of Nicholas I, and the right of the peoples that were part of Hungary is for some reason despised. But the main thing is that the meaning of the revolution was not so much the struggle for independence from the Austrian crown, but for independence from the so-called feudal foundations, which included Christian and church decrees. Without going into the political meaning of the events, Metropolitan Philaret called on his flock to pray for the Russian army. On June 21, the Russian army under the command of Paskevich entered the eastern regions of Hungary and suppressed the uprising within a month and a half. The Croatian, Serbian, Slovak and Romanian regions, which did not want to submit to Hungary, now began to submit to a single center in Vienna. The order of monarchical government was restored. Alas, the national Hungarian poet, twenty-six-year-old Sandor Petofi, died in this battle. It is curious that he did not have Hungarian roots, his father was Serb, his mother was Slovak, and his real name was Alexander Petrovich. Having started writing poetry in Hungarian, he translated his name into Hungarian, and so he got the pseudonym Sándor Petőfi, or, more precisely, as is customary among the Hungarians, Petőfi Sándor. It is no less remarkable that almost all the leaders of the uprising remained alive. Lajos Kossuth lived out his life in exile in Turkey, and Serbo-Slovak Alexander Petrovich died. Moreover, Count Lajos Battyany, to whom Franz Liszt dedicated his famous Funeral March, was executed... On August 1, the Russian cavalry general Fyodor Vasilyevich Ridiger accepted the surrender of the Hungarians near Vilagos. There have been two famous Riedigers in our history. The second is our unforgettable Patriarch Alexy II. The liberal public furiously branded Russia and its sovereign, “the strangler of Hungarian freedoms,” with shame. Just as, more than a hundred years later, they will curse the Soviet troops who suppressed the uprising in Hungary in 1956, turning a blind eye to the fact that this uprising, among other things, had a pronounced anti-Semitic character and a terrible massacre began. Disputes raged in Russia, some defended freedom, others defended reaction. The Orthodox clergy, led by people like Filaret, of course, took reactionary positions. A reaction is a response by action to some influence. Let's say the human body, which has immunity, reacts to a disease and fights it. Those who do not have it do not react, succumb to illness and die. On August 17, 1849, the tsar’s manifesto “On the successful end of the war with Hungary” was issued. Note: not about suppressing the uprising, but about ending the war. The Emperor emphasized not punitive or suppressive, but rather the military nature of the actions. Five days later, in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin, the Metropolitan of Moscow said the word: “Our army has endured the labor of long and difficult journeys. He fought not only with enemies, but also with nature. It penetrated through the gorges of the mountains, which, no matter how easy it was for the enemies to block, as already almost blocked by nature, were so difficult for us to make passable. There were several battles against enemies who lacked neither warriors, nor leaders, nor weapons, nor enterprise, in a word, nothing - except justice and legality. Cities, villages, roads - everything had to be contested by our army at the arms of enemies; and where they did not rely on their weapons, there they turned their murderous hand on their land and their property, so as to turn devastation and deprivation into weapons against us. So, according to their calculations, the very victory that would lead us inside their land should have led to an inextricable abyss... God gave His protection to legality and justice, and the Russian army overcame all difficulties; his loyalty, courage, steadfastness triumphed over everything... The dream of a self-made people's power, which excited many peoples, led many kings to bewilderment, shook some, even cast down some, is denounced by the sovereign power that comes from God, and returns from unsuccessful reality to the realm of dreams... The path of God is the will of God and the law of God. It lies in the heart that fears and loves God, and from here it flows into deeds and life. It leads first to the kingdom of God, which is within us, then to the kingdom of God, which is in heaven. In 1849, under the leadership of St. Philaret, the restoration, or, in Russian, renovation of the Church of the Archangel Michael in the Chudov Monastery, was completed. This church had the most important historical and symbolic significance in Russian history. As we know, Filaret deeply revered the memory of St. Alexei, Metropolitan of Moscow, and annually composed a speech for the day of his church commemoration. The Metropolitan Saint was the inspirer of the liberation of Rus' from Horde rule. At the behest of Khan Janibek, he went to Sarai, where he performed a miracle of healing Khansha Taidula from blindness. As a reward, he asked the khan for permission to remove the Horde embassy and stables, located in the very heart of the Russian capital, from the Moscow Kremlin. The embassy and the stable moved to Zamoskvorechye, and Ordynka streets appeared there. And at the place in the Kremlin where they were located, Saint Alexei erected a church in honor of the miracle of the Archangel Michael, since the healing of Taidula occurred precisely on the day of remembrance of this miracle. The Chudov Monastery then arose around the church. Thus, Saint Alexei became the first to oust the Horde from the borders of our Fatherland. That is why it was so important to preserve the memory of Russian freedom expressed in this church. The first renovation took place in the last years of the life of Ivan III the Great on the orders of his son Vasily, or more precisely, an identical new one was erected on the site of the dilapidated church. And now, three and a half centuries later, the architect and restorer Mikhail Dorimedontovich Bykovsky, under the patronage of Philaret, completed the second renovation of this shrine. On September 6, in his speech, Filaret reminded Muscovites of the significance of this church. Let us also listen to how wonderfully he said: – Now, by the grace of God, we see this temple restored in its interior with every possible preservation of its ancient image, and renewed not so much out of the need for its use, but out of respect for its antiquity. By now there is a renewal, a renewal in our thoughts of the ancient fate of this place, stretching from ancient to modern times. For four hundred and eighty years, and somewhat more, before this, this place belonged to the Tatar Khan: because Tatar power then weighed heavily on Russia. There is no doubt that, as a Grand Duke, it was unpleasant to see in his Kremlin itself, not far from his palace, the possession of the Horde king; Likewise, it was unpleasant for Saint Alexy to see a nest of worshipers of the false prophet not far from the cathedral church. And if the Grand Duke has not yet found a way to change this, then, of course, even less so has the bishop. But Alexy found grace before God, and it gave him the means to turn the court of the enemies of Christianity into the house and village of the Christian God. The owner of this place, Khan Janibek, Taidul's wife suffered severe seizures and lost her sight. Just as once upon a time the severity of the illness of the pagan Naaman forced faith in the spiritual power of the prophet Elisha, so it happened with the Mohammedan Taidula, according to rumors about the spiritual power of St. Alexis. Khan demanded that he come and heal her. The saint did not waver in his faith: he came to the horde and healed the queen. Grateful Taidula gave him this place, and twelve years before his repose, he created a monastery and church here in the name of the Holy Archangel Michael, according to the revelation of God, as the ancient narrative says; but what kind of revelation there was, we do not know. The saint reposed and, according to his will, was buried here, in the church created by him. And then he moves on to his favorite sermon that the human body is also a church of God, which must be protected from abuse and kept in perfect purity: – Not every person is given the lot to create or restore a church to God, stone or wooden; but each of us has an animated church of God, more or less dilapidated, which can and must be renewed. By creating man, God created an animated church for Himself and placed His image in it. Man, seduced by a flattering spirit, not content with the honor of being the church of God, wanted to be God himself: and he overshadowed the image of God in himself, and the church of God led to desolation and disrepair. The All-Good God the Father, without yielding His work to evil, sent His Only Begotten Son, by Whom all things were created (Col. 1:16), to re-create His church in man; and in order to renew His image in him, He introduced, through incarnation into humanity, the consubstantial image of His Hypostasis (Heb. 1:3)... Build yourself into a spiritual church: isn’t this a difficult requirement? - Truly, brothers, it is difficult, - I will say more: even the impossible can be accomplished, if we decide to build ourselves only with our mind, only with our strength... And each of us, in order to build ourselves into a spiritual church, let us not rely on our own wisdom, let us not rely on our own strength, but seek the grace of God; let him ask for God's mercy; Let him place Christ, and faith in Him, and love for Him as the foundation of his thoughts, deeds and life... Russia had two capitals - Moscow and St. Petersburg. Likewise, in the heart of Philaret there were two thrones - in the Miracle Monastery with St. Alexei and in the Trinity Lavra with St. Sergius of Radonezh. Alexey and Sergius were friends, and both called Rus' to liberation from the Horde yoke, and blessed Dmitry Donskoy for his feats of arms. That is why in the creative heritage of the Moscow Chrysostom there are so many speeches delivered on the days of memory of Alexei and Sergius. However, he himself, in the same year 1849, in a word on the day of memory of St. Sergius, did not bless the special veneration of any one saint: – All saints are the eternal children of the Heavenly Father, they all constitute one great family of Christ. If you, in a good and unanimous family, love one, but do not love the other, then, of course, the one you love will be offended: similarly, if, having a special love for one of the saints, you think about others without reverence, then the one you honor in your own person is offended by your coldness in the face of others; because all the saints are not only unanimous among themselves, but also completely one in the Lord. Here he once again reminded that a church holiday is, first of all, spiritual joy, unthinkable without visiting church and general prayer, but quite acceptable without feasts and libations. And they, of course, are not forbidden in moderation, but they are not the main thing in the Christian holiday. This had to be said constantly, because people did not listen, and it was regrettable to see how they get drunk and overeat during Orthodox holidays, and having overeaten and become drunk, they lose not only the likeness of God, but also their human appearance, they use foul language, quarrel with their neighbors, inflict insults, beat their family, and fight among themselves. “You priests have a holiday every day” - this saying appeared in Russia not under the Bolsheviks, but much earlier. But there is truth in it. Not only among priests, but among all Christians, every day is a holiday, since a Christian blesses every day as a gift sent from above. I woke up, prayed, greeted my neighbors, shared a meal with them - already joy, a holiday. You work, you earn your bread by the sweat of your brow, and not out of thin air, without taking it from others—this is also a joy and a holiday. Sickness and sorrow, torment and deprivation overcome you, you suffer, you are persecuted, you are tortured - and this is a holiday, because the Lord thereby sends you cleansing from sins, which means that while you suffer, rejoice! Christianity, which has as its main symbol the cross of suffering, is at the same time the most joyful religion, because by observing church decrees, a Christian realizes the nearness of his salvation, sees the future after death and realizes the meaning of life in action for the benefit of this future salvation and eternal life. Therefore, he sees both suffering and death itself in a joyful light. Despite all the complexity in Christianity, the main thing is very simple: if you believe that you are not a bodily shell, but an immortal soul living in this shell, then you will strive to save this soul after the bodily mechanism fails and collapses. And then the bodily mechanism will serve the soul in its beautiful aspirations, and not the soul to serve the body in carnal pleasures. And most importantly, you will understand that there is no death, but there is a transition from temporary existence to eternal existence. And it will become clear why they say that there is nothing better than laying down your life for your friends. The end of 1849 was marked by the suppression of the “little Hungarian uprising” within Russia. The Petrashevsky circle, if it had been exposed at another time, would probably have received much less severe punishments. But as in Stalin’s times, when in the capitals they exposed and tried on a grand scale, and in the localities it was necessary to find and neutralize their small pests, approximately the same thing happened with the Petrashevites. Their whole fault was that they gathered and made forbidden speeches, and also read forbidden authors, especially Belinsky, with delight and ecstasy. Petrashevites knew his letter to Gogol, engulfed in the flames of satanic hatred of Christianity, almost by heart. The arrested and exposed members of the circle were accused of preparing in the future something similar to what the Decembrists were preparing, and in the very near past, the revolutionaries of Europe. That’s why they were punished with such disproportionate cruelty - they were sentenced to death, forced to relive the minutes before execution on the Semyonovsky parade ground, and then instead of execution they were sent to hard labor. So that everyone in Russia can see it, be horrified and not follow the example of the bad boys. Who knows, Dostoevsky would have become exactly the writer we know if he had not then fallen into these terrible millstones and survived the minutes before his death, and then hard labor. The storm passed, died down, and a quiet, frightened year began. In January, having once again arrived to visit Sergei Mikhailovich Golitsyn, the Metropolitan learned of the death of his ex-wife. Forty years had already passed since they divorced, and Sergei Mikhailovich still could not forget either her captivating beauty or the burning insults she inflicted on him. Filaret instructed him to pray for the soul of the deceased servant of God Evdokia, especially since, according to rumors, in recent years the “princess of the night” had changed greatly for the better, became very pious, sincerely and diligently atone for the sins of her youth. Needless to say, her life was bright and passed like a swift comet through the destinies of many outstanding people of Russia. A Gallomaniac until 1812, after Napoleon's invasion she stopped speaking French and wore Russian sundresses and kokoshniks to balls. Then she opened a night salon, at thirty-seven years old she could turn the head of the young Pushkin, and not only him. After fifty she settled down, became interested in science, under the guidance of the famous professor Mikhail Vasilyevich Ostrogradsky, she began to study mathematics and even published her own mathematical work “Analysis of Force”, and most importantly, by the end of her days she turned to God with all her soul. She died shamelessly and peacefully, just shy of seventy. - Rest, O Lord, the soul of Your departed servant Evdokia! In addition to Golitsyn, he continued to be friends with Andrei Nikolaevich Muravyov, who kept traveling around the world and writing his excellent travel notes, which aroused hatred among liberal journalists - a secular writer and everything about faith, about Christ, about Christian shrines! It would be nice if it were “long-haired,” but it’s not. He, and even Gogol, became the same. The persecution of Muravyov in the press did not stop. Reading what was written in the press, even clergy began to distrust Andrei Nikolaevich. Filaret had to stand up for his friend: “But it’s incomprehensible to me how a traveler could write an entire book about Georgia, in which almost everything would be false. Does he consider those living in Georgia to be blind, and everyone living in Russia to be deaf, and therefore boldly writes lies? And what is the pleasure of writing almost an entire book of lies? Journalists are not very favorable to this writer and made comments to him regarding the style and content of his books, but did not accuse him of lying. There was, I remember, some remark from the Armenians about his presentation of their dogmas or rituals, but in this case it is doubtful whether he did not understand something, or whether they are trying to cover up what is really unseemly among them.” In Jerusalem, Archbishop Thaddeus of Sebaste gave Muravyov a small stone from the Holy Sepulcher, and he brought it to Moscow. Filaret, having visited Andrei Nikolaevich, carefully examined the various relics he had brought, and when he unwrapped the air in which the stone from the Holy Sepulcher was wrapped, he felt strong emotion and with tears pressed his lips to the stone. Muravyov had no intention of giving the relic to anyone, but the saint’s tears touched his heart, and then he had no choice but to give the stone to Philaret. And this despite the fact that he brought him as a gift several ancient icons, Jordanian water and part of the relics of the Holy Great Martyr Panteleimon, which Patriarch Kirill of Jerusalem asked to give to Philaret! In addition, two letters were brought from the patriarch of the holy city, blessing the Gethsemane monastery. On the holiday of Easter, the Metropolitan of Moscow brought letters and shrines to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. During the Little Supper, while the Easter stichera were chanted, Philaret placed a stone on the paten and, holding it above his head, carried it, as Muravyov writes, “from the throne of the Trinity to the tent of St. Sergius, where a special place was built for it, near the icon of the appearance of the Mother of God; There it is still kept, surrounded by diamonds.” This stone is still in the Trinity Cathedral of the Lavra. And on that day, rejoicing like a child at such an acquisition, Moscow Chrysostom notified the Orthodox people: – I bless with the prophet those who are pleased with the stone of Zion, who undertake a long journey in order to reverently see and kiss the stone on which, near which, under the shadow of which (for it is all one stone) lay the buried body of Christ, which was illuminated and penetrated by the light of the resurrected body of Christ. But what if I say that we can reverently behold and kiss this stone without having to travel to Jerusalem? - It seems like a dream; but, according to God’s dispensation, this is the truth. In the year of the Lord 1808, according to the inscrutable fate of God, the Church of the Sepulcher and Resurrection of Christ in Jerusalem was visited by fire. Everything that was added to the primitive, not handmade, but natural stone Sepulcher of the Lord by art for decoration, more or less suffered from the fire, and required renewal. On this occasion, the architect, who had authority in this renewal, out of respect for the reverent priest of the church, Thaddeus, who still lives in the rank of Archbishop of Sebaste, dared to separate a part of the sacred stone from the wall of the Lord’s bed and hand it over to the priest. God was pleased to incline the heart of Archbishop Thaddeus so that this sacred monument, with his written testimony about it, would move to Russia and become a local church property, as a blessing and consolation to the sons of faith, who, although they know that those who have not seen blessedness, have believed (John 20:29), yet out of love they desire even the traces of the Lord in Whom they believe, touch and kiss. Thus, I have the opportunity to invite you, without traveling to Jerusalem, now here to approach part of the Jerusalem life-receiving Holy Sepulcher and honor it with a reverent kiss... To warn ourselves, let us remember that the guard soldiers also approached the Sepulcher of Christ; but since in their hearts there was unbelief and selfishness, and dislike for the truth and not the desire for salvation, then from the light of the Resurrection that appeared to them they were reflected into death. To warn ourselves, let us remember that both the Jewish elders and the Pharisees touched the Holy Sepulcher; but since they were led to it not by truth, but by hypocrisy, not by faith, but by unbelief, not by love, but by enmity, they did not penetrate to the inner light of the Lord’s Sepulcher, but only put a seal on it from the outside, and for no one else but themselves; with unbelief and enmity they blocked themselves from entering the mystery of Christ, which they could not hide from the world. Christ the Lord, who was in the grave carnally, in hell with his soul, like God, in heaven with the thief, and on the throne you were with the Father and the Spirit, fulfilling everything indescribable, and you promised to remain with us until the end of the century! Grant us from the contemplation of Your life-giving tomb to draw inner light, and joy, and grace, and the hope of our resurrection, not into judgment, but into eternal life. Amen. In this entire speech there is sincere rejoicing in front of the shrine and the joy that he can provide his beloved children with the opportunity to touch the Holy Sepulcher here, in the depths of Russia, and not in Jerusalem, which he himself will never have the opportunity to visit. And Muravyov, go figure, wanted to keep it for himself!.. The Metropolitan of Novgorod and St. Petersburg, and he was Nikanor (Klementyevsky) from 1848, having received a copy of Philaret’s speech on the day of Easter, he approved it for publication, but crossed out everything that related to the stone, thereby showing that he did not really trust the reliability of the shrine: is it true that this is a stone from the Holy Sepulcher itself, or maybe a fake, a deception? Such distrust offended Filaret. It turned out that in St. Petersburg they did not believe not only Muravyov, but also him, who so sincerely felt the shrine. Nikanor soon came to his senses and allowed the text to be published in full in the “Works of the Holy Fathers” for 1850. In the fall, the House of Romanov celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the accession to the throne of Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich. Just think! - A quarter of a century has already passed since that alarming time when his brother Alexander departed and the December turmoil swept through. Outlining this entire era, Filaret said that the twenty-fifth anniversary of “stay, activity, exploits in a certain state of life represents such a field that to pass means to win no small victory over the all-changing force of time,” he praised the sovereign for ending the unrest and victory in wars, noted the suppression of recent rebellions and Polish uprisings already distant in time, “when the people, not entirely foreign, lost their dignity having received the kingdom only by the grace of the Russian Tsar and brought to a state of prosperity and prosperity unparalleled in the previous history, he repaid the benefits with ingratitude, and the good governance with rebellion. The thunderous blow of the Tsar’s truth was menacing and inevitable, striking sedition and self-will...” The saint noted the successes in legislation. He mentioned the return of two million Uniates to the fold of the Orthodox Church. And he wished the people to honor their king. That is, he again acted as an ardent reactionary. He knew what hatred he caused in the camp of the champions of democracy and freedom. Freedom! An intoxicating, inspiring, flying word. For how many decades have we heard from all corners, from all cracks: “Freedom!” It was as if the whole world was in prison and dreaming of the day when the sentence would end. And the entire religious future of humanity lay in two different polar understandings of freedom. In the summer of 1851, in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin, Saint Philaret delivered a sermon that could well be called a manifesto of freedom in its Christian understanding. He took as an epigraph the words from the First Epistle of the Apostle Peter, which spoke about the free servants of God and those who use freedom to cover up evil. He said: – Some people want to understand the name of freedom as the ability and freedom to do whatever you want. This is a dream; and the dream is not just unrealizable and absurd, but lawless and harmful. Do you know who was the first on earth to be seduced by this dream? – First man, Adam. Having received high abilities and powerful powers during creation, having been appointed ruler of heaven and earth, he enjoyed the most extensive freedom that a created being can have... The attempt of the forefather to illegally expand the area of ​​freedom, already almost universal, is surprising; however, it can be explained by the lack of knowledge of the experienced, the cunning of the tempter and the very vastness of real dominion, in which it was easy not to stop before the apparently insignificant limit... Understand, dreamers of boundless freedom, the disastrous madness of your dreams - understand, finally, although after cruel experiments, when freedom, which crushed its limits, more than once stained the face of the earth with innocent blood and, shedding streams human blood, drowned herself in them!.. But how can we more correctly understand and define freedom? – Philosophy teaches that freedom is the ability and freedom to wisely choose and do the best, and that by nature it is the property of every person. What, it seems, could you wish for more? But this teaching has its light at the height of speculation about human nature as it should be; and descending to experience and activity, such as it is, it encounters darkness and stumbling blocks... What can we say about the freedom of people who, although not in slavery to anyone, are subjugated by sensuality, taxed by passion, possessed by an evil habit? Is the greedy man free? Are you shackled in golden shackles? Is the carnivore free? Is he not bound, if not by cruel ties, then by soft nets? Are the proud and ambitious free? Are you not chained, not by your hands and feet, but by your head and heart, are you not chained to your own idol?.. Observation of people and human societies shows that people who have allowed themselves more into this internal, moral slavery - into slavery to sins, passions, vices - are more often than others zealots of external freedom - as much expanded freedom as possible in human society before the law and authority. But will the expansion of external freedom contribute to their liberation from internal slavery? - There is no reason to think so. It is more likely that the opposite should be feared. In whom sensuality, passion, and vice have already gained predominance, he, upon removing the barriers opposed to vicious actions by law and authority, will, of course, more uncontrollably than before, indulge in the satisfaction of passions and lusts and will use external freedom only to plunge deeper into internal slavery. Unhappy freedom, which, as the apostle explained, is like a cover for malice. Let us bless the law and the authorities, which, by setting, indicating and protecting, as necessary, the limits set for free actions, as much as they can, prevent the abuse of natural freedom and the spread of moral slavery, that is, slavery to sin, passions and vices... Here again the question arises: what is true freedom, and who can give it, and especially return it to those who have lost it through sin? – True freedom is the active ability of a person, not enslaved to sin, not burdened by a condemning conscience, to choose the best in the light of God’s truth and put it into action with the help of the gracious power of God... Let us love Christian freedom - freedom from sin, from passion, from vice, freedom to willingly obey the law and authority and do good for the Lord’s sake, through faith and love for Him.