Προσευχές πλάι στη λίμνη 20
Σκέψου τον εαυτό σου σα να ήσουν νεκρός, λέω στον εαυτό μου και δεν θα νοιώσεις τον ερχομό του θανάτου. Λείαινε τα αγκάθια του θανάτου όσο ζεις και όταν έρθει δεν θα έχει τα μέσα για να σε τσιμπήσει.
Σκέψου τον εαυτό σου κάθε πρωί σαν νεογέννητο θαύμα και δεν θα αισθανθείς τα γηρατειά.
Μην περιμένεις τον θάνατο να έρθει, γιατί ο θάνατος έχει ήδη έρθει και δεν σε έχει εγκαταλείψει. Τα δόντια του βρίσκονται διαρκώς στη σάρκα σου. Ότι ζούσε πριν τη γέννησή σου και ότι επιβιώσει μετά το θάνατό σου - αυτό ακόμα και τώρα ζει μέσα σου.
Μια νύχτα ένας άγγελος ξετύλιξε την κορδέλλα του χρόνου, το τέλος της οποίας δεν μπορούσα να καταννοήσω και μου έδειξε δύο τελείες επάνω στην κορδέλλα. "Η απόσταση ανάμεσα σε αυτές τις δύο τελείες" είπε, "είναι η διάρκεια του βίου σου".
"Αυτό σημαίνει πως ο βίος μου έχει ήδη τελειώσει," φώναξα "και πρέπει να προετοιμαστώ για το ταξίδι. Πρέπει να είμαι σαν την εργατική οικοδέσποινα, που περνά την παρούσα ημέρα καθαρίζοντας το σπίτι και κάνοντας προετοιμασίες για την αυριανή εορτή της Σλάβας."¹
Αλήθεια, η παρούσα ημέρα όλων των υιών των ανθρώπων είναι γεμάτη κατά το μεγαλύτερο μέρος με ανησυχία για την επόμενη μέρα. Κι όμως λίγοι από εκείνους, που πιστεύουν την υπόσχεσή Σου, ανησυχούν για το τι θα συμβεί την επόμενη μέρα από τον θάνατο. Ας είναι ο θάνατός μου, Κύριε, ένας αναστεναγμός όχι για αυτόν τον κόσμο, αλλά για το ευλογημένο και αιώνιο Αύριο.
Ανάμεσα στα σβυσμένα κεριά των φίλων μου, και το δικό μου κερί, επίσης, σβύνει. "Μην είσαι ανόητος" επιπλήττω τον εαυτό μου, "και μη λυπάσαι που σβύνει το κερί σου. Στ' αλήθεια τόσο λίγο αγαπούσες τους φίλους σου, που φοβάσαι να πας ξοπίσω τους, πίσω από τόσους πολλούς που έχουν βολτάρει μακριά; Μη λυπάσαι που το κερί σου χαμηλώνει, αλλά ότι αφήνει πίσω δυσδιάκριτο και χλωμό φως."
Η ψυχή μου έχει συνηθίσει να αφήνει το σώμα μου κάθε μέρα και κάθε νύχτα και να απλώνεται στα όρια του σύμπαντος. Όταν απλώνεται με αυτόν τον τρόπο, η ψυχή μου αισθάνεται σα να κολυμπούν πάνω της ήλιοι και φεγγάρια όπως οι κύκνοι κολυμπούν πάνω στη λίμνη μου. Λάμπει μέσα από ήλιους και συντηρεί ζωή σε γήινους πλανήτες. Υποστηρίζει βουνά και θάλασσες. Ελέγχει τις βροντές και τους ανέμους. Γεμίζει πλήρως το Χθές, το Σήμερα και το Αύριο.² Και επιστρέφει στην πυκνή και σαραβαλιασμένη οικία της σε έναν από αυτούς τους γήινους πλανήτες. Επιστρέφει στο σώμα που ακόμα, για άλλο ένα ή δύο λεπτά, καλεί δικό της και που τρεμοπαίζει σα σκιά ανάμεσα σε σωρούς από τάφους, ανάμεσα σε φωλιές από κτήνη, ανάμεσα σε ουρλιαχτά από ψεύτικες ελπίδες.
Δεν παραπονιέμαι για τον θάνατο, Ζώντα Θεέ, δε μου φαίνεται να είναι κάτι λυπητερό. Είναι ένας τρόμος που ο άνθρωπος έχει δημιουργήσει για τον εαυτό του. Πιο δυνατά από οτιδήποτε στη γη, ο θάνατος με σπρώχνει να Σε συναντήσω.
Είχα μια φουντουκιά μπροστά στο σπίτι μου και ο θάνατος την πήρε από μένα. Ήμουν θυμωμένος με τον θάνατο και τον καταράστηκα λέγοντας: "Γιατί δεν πήρες εμένα, ένα αχόρταγο κτήνος και πήρες κάτι αναμάρτητο;"
Αλλά τώρα σκέφτομαι τον εαυτό μου σα να ήμουν νεκρός και κοντά στη φουντουκιά μου.
Αθάνατε Θεέ, κλίνε το βλέμμα Σου σε ένα κερί που αργοσβύνει και άγνισε τη φλόγα του. Γιατί μόνο μια αγνή φλόγα ορθώνεται προς Το Πρόσωπό Σου και εισέρχεται στο βλέμμα Σου, με το οποίο προσέχεις τον σύμπαντα κόσμο.
1. Σλάβα - (Σερβική λέξη που σημαίνει "δόξα") στη Σέρβικη Ορθόδοξη εκκλησιαστική παράδοση, οι τελετές που γίνονται με ειδικό άρτο (κόλατς) και οίνο για να δοξάσουν τον προστάτη Άγιο της εορτής συνήθως συνοδευόμενες από πολυτελές γεύμα και πολλούς καλεσμένους στο σπίτι κάποιου.
2. "Ιησούς Χριστός ο Αυτός χθές, σήμερον και εις τους αιώνας" (Εβρ. 13:8)
Άγιοι Ορθοδόξων Εκκλησιών εκτός Ελλάδος
Moderator: inanm7
archimandritis Ιωάννης Κρεστιάνκιν
by Georgios Rossos » Fri Nov 18, 2011 10:17 pm
Δυστυχώς, το αγγλικό κείμενο.
ARCHIMANDRITE IOANN,
THE ELDER OF PSKOV-CAVE MONASTERY, REPOSED IN THE LORD
Pskov Cave Monastery of the Dormition of the Theotokos, February 5, 2006
On February 5, the day of All Russian New Martyrs and Confessors, the oldest monk and spiritual father of the Pskov Cave Monastery of the Dormition of the Theotokos, greatly loved Elder Archimandrite Ioann (Krestiankin), reposed in the Lord. He was 95 years old. Father Ioann passed away a few minutes after taking Holy Communion.
Father Ioann is known and revered in many countries of the world. It is impossible to convey what Father Ioann meant for his spiritual children and for all of the Russian Orthodox Church. In the last years, due to his age and poor health, he did not have an opportunity to receive all those who needed his advice. However letters for him from many parts of the world keep coming to Pskov Cave monastery. Father Ioann’s sermons and books keep opening a new, spiritual world for thousands of people and bring yearning souls to God. Among the most famous and popular books of his talk and letters are "The Experience of Preparing a Confession�, "Sermons, Thoughts and Congratulations�, "Reference Book for the Monastics and Laymen� and the compilation "Letters of Archimandrite Ioann (Krestiankin)�. Sermons and letters by Father Ioann have been translated into foreign languages and published abroad.
On April 11, 1910, in the town of Orlov an eighth child was born in the family of Mikhail Dmitrievich and Elizaveta Illarionovna Krestiankins. The boy was christened Ioann after Saint Ioann of Desert, whose memory was remembered that day. It is remarkable that the memory of Saint Venerable Mark and Jona of Pskov Cave monastery was celebrated the same day as well. Ivan helped at the church, throughout services since he was a little boy. Later in Orlov he became a postulant under the guidance of Archbishop Seraphim (Ostroumov), who was well-known for his strictness, When Ivan turned two, his father, Mikhail Dmitrievich, died. His highly devout and religious mother, Elizaveta Illarionovna, brought him up on her own.
Father Ioann has always gratefully remembered those who led him on his spiritual path. In his childhood in Orlov he was directed by archpriests Father Nikolai Azbukin and Father Vsevolod Kovrigin. When he was ten years old he was influenced by archpriest-staretz (spiritual Elder) Georgy Kosov from the village of Spas-Chekriak in Orlov region. Father Georgy was a spiritual disciple of Venerable Amvrosy of Optinsky monastery.
As a young man Father Ioann first learnt about his future monastic mission from his two friends, a future Martyr Archbishop Seraphim (Ostroumov) and Bishop Nikolai (Nikolsky). A nun-staritsa from Orlov, Vera Alexandrovna Loginova, when giving Father Ioann her blessing to live in Moscow, told him she would meet him in the land of Pskov in the distant future.
After finishing school Ivan Krestiankin did a book-keeping course and worked as an accountant having moved to Moscow. On January 14, 1945 at the Vagankovski cemetery’s church he was ordained deacon by Metropolitan Nikolai (Jarushev). The same year, on the day of Jerusalem icon of the Mother of God, October 25, he was ordained priest by Patriarch Alexy I. It was at the parish of the Nativity of Christ in Izmailovo, and he was left to serve there.
Father Ioann did an external Seminary degree and in 1950, having studied for four years at Moscow Theological Academy, he finished his PhD dissertation. But he had no chance to get the recognition of his work, because he was arrested for his zealous pastoral service at the end of April 1950. His verdict was seven years of labour camps. He was freed two years early, in February 1955 and was stationed in Pskov diocese, and in 1957 was sent to Riazan diocese where he served as a priest for nearly eleven years.
The young priest was ministered by the Spiritual Elders of Glinsk, and one of them, Schema-archimandrite Seraphim (Romantsev) became his spiritual father, and later received the monastic vows of his spiritual child. The last Elder of Optina Hegumen Ioann (Sokolov) saw a spiritual soul mate in an ordinary parish priest. Father Ioann was tonsured to monastic orders in Sukhumi on June 10, 1966, the day of Saint Sampson.
On March 5, 1967 hieromonk Ioann was admitted to Pskov-Cave monastery. He was consecrated Hegumen on April 13, 1970 and consecrated Archimandrite on April 7, 1973.
Father Ioann was taught by the monastic daily life itself and by the real people who were the devout monks of Pskov-Cave monastery: Hieroschemonk Simeon (Zhelnin), Schema-archimandrite Pimen (Gavrilenko), Archimandrite Afinogen (Agapov), abbot Archimandrite Alipiy (Voronov); also the last Valaam Elders: Hieroschemonk Mikhail (Pitkevich), Schehegumen Luka (Zemskov), Schemonk Nikolai (Monakhov), and retired Archbishops: Bishop Feodor (Tekuchev) and Metropolitan Veneamin (Fedchenkov).
Father Ioann himself suffered for his faith, having gone through prison camps, so his decease on the day of commemorating New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia is not a coincidence. We believe that having joined the other venerable souls he will face the Lord’s throne with heartfelt prayers for us.
Father Ioann will forever remain in the memory of all who knew him as a wise priest, to whom the Lord’s will was opened, who was a diligent monk, fasting and praying hard, who shared generously his rich life experience and warmed with his love everyone who turned to him for advice, and who was a worthy successor of the monastery’s tradition of Elders.
May his memory be eternal!
MAY GOD GIVE YOU WISDOM!
A LETTER OF FR. JOHN KRESTIANKIN
Be the salt of the earth
Pray to the Holy Martyr Tryphon, and through his intercessions you will always have work. Go to church to pray, and help whomever you can, but your main work should be your occupation in the world.
Believers should be the salt of the earth, and not close themselves up to people. Preach not so much with words as with your life, your patience and love towards suffering and lost people.
Do not look too far ahead, and if you will live every day with God and with prayer, the Lord will draw your little boat through life and direct it toward salvation.
May the Lord preserve you and make you wise!
http://www.bath-orthodox.org.uk/html/fr__ioann_krestiankin.html
ARCHIMANDRITE IOANN,
THE ELDER OF PSKOV-CAVE MONASTERY, REPOSED IN THE LORD
Pskov Cave Monastery of the Dormition of the Theotokos, February 5, 2006
On February 5, the day of All Russian New Martyrs and Confessors, the oldest monk and spiritual father of the Pskov Cave Monastery of the Dormition of the Theotokos, greatly loved Elder Archimandrite Ioann (Krestiankin), reposed in the Lord. He was 95 years old. Father Ioann passed away a few minutes after taking Holy Communion.
Father Ioann is known and revered in many countries of the world. It is impossible to convey what Father Ioann meant for his spiritual children and for all of the Russian Orthodox Church. In the last years, due to his age and poor health, he did not have an opportunity to receive all those who needed his advice. However letters for him from many parts of the world keep coming to Pskov Cave monastery. Father Ioann’s sermons and books keep opening a new, spiritual world for thousands of people and bring yearning souls to God. Among the most famous and popular books of his talk and letters are "The Experience of Preparing a Confession�, "Sermons, Thoughts and Congratulations�, "Reference Book for the Monastics and Laymen� and the compilation "Letters of Archimandrite Ioann (Krestiankin)�. Sermons and letters by Father Ioann have been translated into foreign languages and published abroad.
On April 11, 1910, in the town of Orlov an eighth child was born in the family of Mikhail Dmitrievich and Elizaveta Illarionovna Krestiankins. The boy was christened Ioann after Saint Ioann of Desert, whose memory was remembered that day. It is remarkable that the memory of Saint Venerable Mark and Jona of Pskov Cave monastery was celebrated the same day as well. Ivan helped at the church, throughout services since he was a little boy. Later in Orlov he became a postulant under the guidance of Archbishop Seraphim (Ostroumov), who was well-known for his strictness, When Ivan turned two, his father, Mikhail Dmitrievich, died. His highly devout and religious mother, Elizaveta Illarionovna, brought him up on her own.
Father Ioann has always gratefully remembered those who led him on his spiritual path. In his childhood in Orlov he was directed by archpriests Father Nikolai Azbukin and Father Vsevolod Kovrigin. When he was ten years old he was influenced by archpriest-staretz (spiritual Elder) Georgy Kosov from the village of Spas-Chekriak in Orlov region. Father Georgy was a spiritual disciple of Venerable Amvrosy of Optinsky monastery.
As a young man Father Ioann first learnt about his future monastic mission from his two friends, a future Martyr Archbishop Seraphim (Ostroumov) and Bishop Nikolai (Nikolsky). A nun-staritsa from Orlov, Vera Alexandrovna Loginova, when giving Father Ioann her blessing to live in Moscow, told him she would meet him in the land of Pskov in the distant future.
After finishing school Ivan Krestiankin did a book-keeping course and worked as an accountant having moved to Moscow. On January 14, 1945 at the Vagankovski cemetery’s church he was ordained deacon by Metropolitan Nikolai (Jarushev). The same year, on the day of Jerusalem icon of the Mother of God, October 25, he was ordained priest by Patriarch Alexy I. It was at the parish of the Nativity of Christ in Izmailovo, and he was left to serve there.
Father Ioann did an external Seminary degree and in 1950, having studied for four years at Moscow Theological Academy, he finished his PhD dissertation. But he had no chance to get the recognition of his work, because he was arrested for his zealous pastoral service at the end of April 1950. His verdict was seven years of labour camps. He was freed two years early, in February 1955 and was stationed in Pskov diocese, and in 1957 was sent to Riazan diocese where he served as a priest for nearly eleven years.
The young priest was ministered by the Spiritual Elders of Glinsk, and one of them, Schema-archimandrite Seraphim (Romantsev) became his spiritual father, and later received the monastic vows of his spiritual child. The last Elder of Optina Hegumen Ioann (Sokolov) saw a spiritual soul mate in an ordinary parish priest. Father Ioann was tonsured to monastic orders in Sukhumi on June 10, 1966, the day of Saint Sampson.
On March 5, 1967 hieromonk Ioann was admitted to Pskov-Cave monastery. He was consecrated Hegumen on April 13, 1970 and consecrated Archimandrite on April 7, 1973.
Father Ioann was taught by the monastic daily life itself and by the real people who were the devout monks of Pskov-Cave monastery: Hieroschemonk Simeon (Zhelnin), Schema-archimandrite Pimen (Gavrilenko), Archimandrite Afinogen (Agapov), abbot Archimandrite Alipiy (Voronov); also the last Valaam Elders: Hieroschemonk Mikhail (Pitkevich), Schehegumen Luka (Zemskov), Schemonk Nikolai (Monakhov), and retired Archbishops: Bishop Feodor (Tekuchev) and Metropolitan Veneamin (Fedchenkov).
Father Ioann himself suffered for his faith, having gone through prison camps, so his decease on the day of commemorating New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia is not a coincidence. We believe that having joined the other venerable souls he will face the Lord’s throne with heartfelt prayers for us.
Father Ioann will forever remain in the memory of all who knew him as a wise priest, to whom the Lord’s will was opened, who was a diligent monk, fasting and praying hard, who shared generously his rich life experience and warmed with his love everyone who turned to him for advice, and who was a worthy successor of the monastery’s tradition of Elders.
May his memory be eternal!
MAY GOD GIVE YOU WISDOM!
A LETTER OF FR. JOHN KRESTIANKIN
Be the salt of the earth
Pray to the Holy Martyr Tryphon, and through his intercessions you will always have work. Go to church to pray, and help whomever you can, but your main work should be your occupation in the world.
Believers should be the salt of the earth, and not close themselves up to people. Preach not so much with words as with your life, your patience and love towards suffering and lost people.
Do not look too far ahead, and if you will live every day with God and with prayer, the Lord will draw your little boat through life and direct it toward salvation.
May the Lord preserve you and make you wise!
http://www.bath-orthodox.org.uk/html/fr__ioann_krestiankin.html
- Georgios Rossos
Re: archimandritis Ιωάννης Κρεστιάνκιν
by Matina » Fri Nov 18, 2011 10:19 pm
Δεν πειράζει αδελφέ μου,καλώς μας ήρθες και keep posting.Υπάρχουν αρκετοί που μας διαβάζουν και θα τους ήταν ευκολότερο να διαβάζουν στ'αγγλικά. 
Ιn English:Welcome my brother is Jesus Christ and keep posting!There are many other people from abroad who are reading us and it would be easier for them to read in English.Thank you!
Ιn English:Welcome my brother is Jesus Christ and keep posting!There are many other people from abroad who are reading us and it would be easier for them to read in English.Thank you!
Last edited by Matina on Fri Nov 18, 2011 10:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
O Κύριός μου κι ο Θεός μου!
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Matina - Posts: 2161
- Joined: Tue Nov 15, 2011 10:36 am
Re: archimandritis Ιωάννης Κρεστιάνκιν
by Georgios Rossos » Fri Nov 18, 2011 10:21 pm
CHRIST IS RISEN!
Now all things are filled with light; heaven and earth, and the nethermost parts of the earth… Christ is Risen!
Children of God! From a fullness of unearthly joy I greet you with words full of Divine power: “Christ is Risen!” The holy fire of this salvific tiding has burst anew with bright flames over the Lord’s Tomb, and has spread throughout the world.
The Church of God, filled with the light of this fire, gives it to us: “Christ is Risen!”
Beloved in Christ brethren and sisters, my friends! You of course will have noticed that, of all our great and joyful Christian feasts, the feast of the Luminous Resurrection of Christ is characterized by a special solemnity, a special joy: it is the feast of feasts and the festival of festivals!
No service in our Orthodox Church is more magnificent, more heartfelt, than Paschal Matins. Therefore all the faithful rush to God’s church on the Paschal night. Indeed, the Paschal Divine service resembles a magnificent banquet prepared by the Lord for all those who stream under the grace-filled protection of His House.
Contemplate the contents of St John Chrysostom’s “catechetical homily”! With paternal tenderness and cordiality the Lord accepts those who love Him with all their being. “Blessed is he who has wrought from the first hour” – these are those who from their youth undeviatingly follow His Divine steps.
Yet he does not reject those who, overcoming doubt in their souls, approach God only in their mature or even elderly years. “Let him not fear for having delayed, for the Lord in His love will accept the last even as the first, accepting the deeds and welcoming the intention.”
Undoubtedly all who were in church on the Paschal night experienced an unusual delight… Our souls rejoiced, filled with a sense of gratitude to our Lord and Savior for the eternal life He has given us all. Indeed, Christ’s Resurrection raised the human race from earth to Heaven, giving an elevated and noble meaning to human existence.
The human soul yearns for the eternal life of joy. It seeks it… Therefore people rush to the luminous Matins in God’s church. And not only the faithful, but even those whose consciousness is from the Christian religion.
They come here not simply to look at the solemnity of the Christian service. Their souls, given by God to everyone at birth, are attracted to the light of the inextinguishable Sun of Truth, seeking the truth.
Faithful people on this holy night feel an abundant outpouring of the luminous joy of Christ’s Resurrection with particular power. And no wonder! Christ’s Resurrection is the foundation of our faith, the inviolable pillar of our earthly life.
By His Resurrection, Christ has given to people to comprehend the truth of His Divinity, the truth of His elevated teaching, the salvific nature of His death. Christ’s Resurrection is the completion of His earthly deed [podvig]. There could not have been any other end, for this was the direct consequence of the moral sense of Christ’s life.
If Christ be not risen, the Apostle Paul writes, then our preaching is in vain and our faith is futile. But Christ is risen, and He has raised all mankind with Him!
The Savior brought perfect joy to people on earth. Therefore on the Paschal night we hear a hymn that we ourselves take part in: “Angels in the heavens, O Christ our Savior, praise Thy Resurrection with hymns; deem us also who are on earth worthy to glorify Thee with a pure heart.”
In His prayer before His suffering on the Cross, He asked His Heavenly Father for the gift of this great joy for people: Sanctify them by Thy truth… that they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves (Jn 17:17, 13).
Through the Resurrection of Christ, a new world of holiness and true blessedness has been opened unto man.
During His earthly life the Savior repeatedly pronounced words that are precious to the faithful soul: Because I live, ye shall live also (Jn 14:19); My peace I give unto you (Jn 14:27); These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full (Jn 15:11).
The Apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, writes: For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection… Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him (Rom 6:5, 8).
A new life has been opened unto man. He has been given the possibility to die to sin in order to be raised with Christ and live with Him.
“A Pascha that hath opened the gates of Paradise to us,” we sing in the Paschal canon.
There is no joy, my beloved, more luminous than our Paschal joy. For we rejoice that, in the Resurrection, our eternal life has been opened unto us.
Our Paschal joy is joy for the transfiguration (change) of our life into an incorrupt life, in our aspiration for imperishable good, an incorruptible beauty. We now celebrate the greatest mystery, the Resurrection of Christ, the defeat of the Life-giver over death! Our Savior triumphed over evil and darkness, and therefore the Paschal Divine service of our Orthodox Church is so jubilant and joyful.
The faithful awaited this solemn service, preparing themselves for it during the long weeks of the Holy Forty Days. It is natural that their hearts are now filled with inexpressible joy.
The deepest meaning of Christ’s Resurrection is in the eternal life that He gave to all His followers. For 2000 years already His followers have unwaveringly believed not only that Christ arose, but in their own coming resurrection to eternal life.
Christ the Savior spoke many times during His earthly life about Himself as the bearer of life and resurrection. But then these words of the Divine Teacher were incomprehensible not only to the people who listened to Him, but even to His disciples and apostles.
The meaning of these words became clear only after Christ’s Resurrection. Only then did His apostles and disciples understand that He is, indeed, the Lord of life and the Conqueror of death. And then they went to preach throughout the entire world.
We, beloved, great each other during these joyful days with the words “Christ is Risen!” We will continue to greet one another in this way for the course of forty days, until the day of the Lord’s Ascension.
Just two words! But these are marvelous words, expressing unwavering faith, which gives joy to the human heart, in the truth of our immortality.
Christ is Life!
He many times spoke of Himself as the bearer of life and resurrection, as the source of eternal life, which is without end for those who believe in Him.
Christ is Risen! – and may our souls rejoice in the Lord.
Christ is Risen! – and may our fear of death vanish.
Christ is Risen! – and our hearts are filled with the joyful faith that we, too, will rise with Him.
To celebrate Pascha – this means to know with all one’s heart the power and grandeur of Christ’s Resurrection.
To celebrate Pascha – this means to become a new person.
To celebrate Pascha – this means with all one’s heart and mind to thank and glorify God for His ineffable gift, the gift of resurrection and love.
In these days we all exult and joyfully celebrate, praising and glorifying the deed [podvig] of the triumph of Divine love.
Christ is Risen!!!
Let us throw open our hearts to meet Him Who suffered, and died, and arose for our sake. He will enter and fill our life with Himself and His Light, transfiguring our souls. We answer this by striving towards Him along our way of the Cross, for at its end, there is no doubt, shines our own resurrection to life eternal.
http://sowingseedsoforthodoxy.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/bright-tuesday-fr-john-krestiankin/
- Georgios Rossos
Re: archimandritis Ιωάννης Κρεστιάνκιν
by Georgios Rossos » Fri Nov 18, 2011 10:22 pm
About Archimandrite John Krestiankin
On February 5, 2006, Russia's beloved elder, Archimandrite John (Krestiankin), reposed in the Lord. The Pravdoliubov family, full of priests and even new martyrs, lived in Ryazan Province, where Fr. John served for many years in various parishes. This family has produced even more priests, one of whom serves in the Resurrection Church in Moscow, and has written his recollections of a life-long relationship with the wise spiritual instructor.
Archimandrite John (Krestiankin).
For a long time, I did not write my recollections of Fr. John (Krestiankin). It seemed to me that everyone was writing their own. I thought, they will write everything they can! But when I read what many people really did write, I also wanted to write—especially since throughout many years of hearing confessions, I often cited Fr. John's opinion on the most varied issues.
I worked on my recollections throughout Great Lent of 2005, finished them on Pascha, and sent them to Pechory. Fr. John read these notes and approved them. He did not ask that anything be removed, had no problems with them, and now these notes are very, very dear to me. After all, Fr. John read them himself, and agreed with everything! He did not say that I wrote anything from my own self…
Thus, these recollections are valuable no matter how they have been written in that Archimandrite John (Krestiankin) himself approved of them.
* * *
My parents, Archpriest Anatoly and Olga Mikhailovna Pravdoliubov, were always very close to Fr. John (Krestiankin). When Fr. John served in the village of Troitsa-Pelenitsa (Yasakovo) in Ryazan diocese, my father was serving during those years in the town of Spassk-Ryazansky. These parishes were very close to each other and my parents often visited with Fr. John. Even then, they related to him as to an elder, although Fr. John was only four years older than my father. They were especially close during the time that Fr. John served at his last parish in Ryazan diocese—the St. Nicholas Church in the town of Kasimov. We children also remember that time well, for we were already sufficiently grown. We remembered the long Church services Fr. John served—All-Night Vigil with a litya, akathists, and very long sermons.
Fr. John did not serve in Kasimov very long, we remember that time as a great and significant period in our lives. I can explain this by saying that for Fr. John himself, every day was very important, and therefore people around him perceived time differently. A multitude of events fit into that short period of time: services, sermons, Fr. John's travels, after which he would always organize meetings where his close friends would gather with him: my parents and all the children, my uncle, Archpriest Vladimir Pravdoliubov and his family; and these talks would go on deep into the night. For the children, these were very important meetings—we were witnesses of the talks between clergymen, their discussions of pastoral problems, and questions regarding Church services.
At one of these meetings, Fr. John somehow mentioned monasticism. He was addressing my aunts, Vera Sergeyevna and Sophia Sergeyevna, as if urging them to think about receiving the monastic tonsure. Fr. John was not a monk before he moved to Pechory, and Vera Sergeyevna thought to herself, "And what is Fr. John? 'Grayish?' After all, he is not a monk!" Suddenly Fr. John turned to Vera Sergeyevna and said with a smile, "I'm grayish, grayish! Well, you also remain grayish for now."
Fr. John had a subtle sense of humor. Once after the Vigil service, he gave a very long sermon that lasted an hour and a half. When he had finished, he came up to the choir and asked, "Has anyone fallen out of the window?" My aunt Sophia Sergeyevna replied immediately, "What, is it already midnight?" Fr. John liked her answer.
In Kasimov, Fr. John began to serve the sacrament of Unction for all who wanted it. This had never been done before; Unction was considered a sacrament to be served only in case of serious illness. Fr. John agreed with this understanding of the sacrament, but persuaded my father, Archpriest Anatoly, and my uncle, Archpriest Vladimir, for a long time that such a time has come when no one can consider himself completely healthy—everyone has some kind of illness. Therefore, everyone can receive Unction once a year; and an announcement should be made in the church ahead of time so that everyone who wants to could come at the appointed time. Archpriests Anatoly and Vladimir agreed with Fr. John; nevertheless the Unction services at first took place not in the church, but at the home of my grandmother, Lydia Dimitrievna. This happened in February of 1967.
Two families gathered: that of Fr. Anatoly and of Fr. Vladimir. There were children and the elderly. The sacrament was served by Fr. John, my father and my uncle. They anointed everyone in order, and the priests anointed each other. After some time, the sacrament was served in the St. Nicholas Church, and then it was served yearly. I do not know how it was in other places, but this tradition gradually became widespread.
As for the allowed frequency of receiving Holy Communion, Fr. John said that everyone may receive once a month. He only blessed certain people to receive once every two weeks. I never heard of him blessing anyone to receive more often than that.
About confession, Fr. John said that in our time, both detailed and brief confessions are allowable. During the fasts, when there are great multitudes of people wishing to confess and receive the Holy Mysteries of Christ, there simply is no time for a detailed confession. When there is time, one should confess in detail; and when the time is short, there is nothing wrong with having a brief confession.
Fr. John left Kasimov on the second day of the feast of the Meeting of the Lord, on February 16, 1967, but we did not lose contact with him. Fr. John entered the Pskov-Caves Monastery [in Pechory, Pskov Province] as a monk—he had received the tonsure just before from Schema-Archimandrite Seraphim (Romanstov; canonized in 2010). I saw Fr. John in a klobuk and mantia for the first time when I came to visit him in the monastery. We children of Fr. Anatoly Pravdoliubov began visiting Pechory very often in order to receive Fr. John's blessing, hear his spiritual instructions, and pray at the monastery services.
The town of Pechory is located at such northern latitude that during the late spring and early summer, there are true "white nights," and during the winter, it is constantly dark. It would get light out by about 10:00 a.m., and by 4:00 p.m. it would be dusk. Thus, we would be going to church in the dark mornings, and by the evening services, it would almost be the dark of night. The number of pilgrims to the monastery greatly increased after Fr. John entered it. When we came to the monastery during the summertime, we would always meet some acquaintance there, either from Ryazan Province or from Moscow. There were significantly fewer pilgrims during the winter, and so we especially liked to go to Pechory during wintertime.
The train from Moscow arrived at the Pskov-Pechory station very early—at about five o'clock in the morning. The first bus that took people to the town would already be standing by the train station, and would depart while the train was still standing at the station. After Moscow life, people would find themselves in another world: quiet, white snow, frost, sidewalks sprinkled with sand and not salt as they were in Moscow. They would walk up to the monastery, the great gates of which would be yet closed. All would be silent, no one wanted to talk; they would wait until the monk-gatekeeper would open the gates. High above the gates hung a large icon of the Dormition of the Mother of God, and a red icon lamp always burned before it. Finally, the monastery gates would slowly open and the pilgrims would enter the monastery grounds, one-by-one. Upon entering, they would make the sign of the cross, bow, and pass under the stone archway of the St. Nicholas church "over the gates," from whence began the "Bloody Path"[1] to the ancient church of the Dormition of the Mother of God, built into the caves. There, the brothers' moleben was about to begin. In the darkness of early morning, the figures of the monks could be seen hastening to the start of the moleben.
At that time in the Dormition Church, it was always dark. Only the icon lamps burned; even the candles on the candle stands would not yet be lit. That was the accepted order in the monastery, so that the brothers' moleben and midnight office would be served in the natural light of the lamps. The most important part of the moleben was the reading of the Gospel, Mt. 11:27–30: All things have been delivered to Me by My Father… Especially penetrating and meaningful sounded the words: Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. At the midnight office, of course, the most meaningful chant was the song, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh at midnight…" The monks would be standing in the total darkness, in stately rows, before the icon of the Dormition of the Mother of God, the main holy shrine of the monastery, and sing simply, without haste, "The Bridegroom cometh at midnight, and blessed is that servant whom He shall find watching. But unworthy is he whom He shall find in slothfulness…" It seemed that the monks were contemplating these words rather than singing them. Fr. John never missed the brothers' moleben, and his voice could always be distinguished in this simple choir of monastery brethren.
After the moleben, Fr. John would go into the altar and stand before the table of oblation. He would remove particles of the prosphora to commemorate a multitude of people—those he knew and those who asked for his prayers. He would do this only up to the Cherubic Hymn, before which he would leave the table of oblation and no longer remove the particles. One day, he shared with us the feelings that he experienced during his prayers for people—the living and the reposed. He said, "It is as if people are walking past me; the closer it gets to the Cherubic Hymn, the faster they want to go past. They hurry each other along, as if pushing each others' shoulders, so that I can commemorate them in time…"
Our trips to Pechory became a necessity for us, and our parents only welcomed their children's initiative to go to the monastery, and to receive Fr. John's blessing for every important life step.
Fr. John blessed me for army service with an icon of St. Sergius of Radonezh. I also received his blessing before entering the seminary. When Fr. John blessed me, he said, "Enter the seminary, and then the Theological Academy." When I was already working on my dissertation, Fr. John blessed me with an icon of the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian. The theme of my dissertation was very complicated—theological, Christological; and by blessing me with the icon of St. John the Theologian, Fr. John gave me to know that I would be able to tackle it.
When the time came for me to marry, my future wife, Liubov Dimitrievna, and I first went to see Fr. John, because we resolved to bind our lives together only if it be blessed.
Fr. John (Krestiankin).
We came to Fr. John and told him about our intention. Fr. John told us, "Today, after the evening service in the Dormition Church, there will be a monastic tonsure. Come and pray, and then we will decide whether you should take the tonsure, or enter into marriage."
You can imagine what feelings we took away from our meeting with Fr. John. For a whole twenty-four hours, we did not know what the answer would be, and in the evening we prayed in the Dormition Church, as Fr. John had told us to do. The monastic tonsure was performed in almost total darkness. Candles and icon lamps flickered, and the monks quietly sang, "In the Fatherly embrace..." The monk receiving the tonsure crawled along the stone floor in a long white gown, while the hieormonks and archimandrites, including Fr. John, covered him with their mantias. It was both solemn and sad. After the tonsure, we went back to the house where we were staying, and only the next evening were we with Fr. John again.
Without asking us anything, he blessed us for marriage with the icons of the Savior Made-Without-Hands and the "Jerusalem" Mother of God. We received invaluable instructions from him then. Fr. John talked about marriage as a sacrament, and said words that we have remembered all our lives. "A family is a domestic church," said Fr. John. "You should always have before your mental gaze the following picture: the icon of the Savior, the marriage bed, and the infant's cradle. Marriage is a sacrament. And what a miracle is the birth of children! "O Lord, Thou hast seen how my flesh was woven!" he cited from one of the psalms in the Russian translation.
Fr. John said that love never disappears in a Christian marriage; to the contrary, it grows more and more with every year, and the longer the spouses live together, the more they love each other.
I received Fr. John's blessing to become a deacon. At that time, I was subdeacon to His Holiness Patriarch Pimen. Having blessed me, Fr. John said, "Be in obedience to His Holiness the Patriarch: as he says, so let it be." I waited a rather long time… Finally, one day, after the Vigil in the Elokhov Cathedral,[2] when the curtain [on the royal doors] had already been drawn shut, I heard His Holiness Patriarch Pimen call me to his patriarchal place on the right side of the holy table, and then he said, "I am going to ordain you tomorrow." So, on Sunday, the fifth week of Great Lent, on the day of St. Mary of Egypt—April 1, 1979—His Holiness Patriarch Pimen ordained me a deacan and appointed me to serve in the church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Lefortovo.[3]
When I told Fr. John about this, he remembered the years of his imprisonment. "In 1950, I was imprisoned in Lefortovo prison," he said. Everyone who was with me in the prison cell could hear the ringing of the bells at the Sts. Peter and Paul Church. It is located near the prison; we would always know when important moments in the services were occurring, and we would pray especially fervently at that time."
After I had been ordained, I would come to the Pskov-Caves Monastery and serve with the monks… Sometimes I would be able to serve with Fr. John. This was a great consolation. One day, I served with Fr. John at the parish in the village of Yushkovo.
It was on the feast of St. Elias—the patronal feast of the parish. The church with the houses near it more resembled a monastery skete than a parish church. Fr. Paisy served there. He was a monk. Several elderly nuns lived at the church. Fr. Paisy always invited Fr. John to serve with him on that day, and Fr. John accepted his invitation for many years. Yushkovo is located about fifteen to twenty kilometers from Pechory, and therefore, having arrived that morning from Moscow, I was able to get to the church before the service started. When Fr. John saw me in the altar, he was very amazed, and asked, "How did you get here?" "I came especially to pray with you," I answered. "Will you serve?" asked Fr. John. "If you bless, I will," I said. "Definitely, serve!" said Fr. John.
That was a wonderful day! Before the beginning of the Liturgy, Fr. John served a moleben with an akathist to the Prophet Elias and a blessing of the waters. There were people near him, and everyone sang. After the Liturgy was a cross procession with a sprinkling of the people and the church. It was as if Fr. John was again serving in a parish. He talked with people, whole groups and families coming up to him. This was all at the parish, amidst the grasses and trees. The sun was shining, and it was very warm outside—the very height of summer! After the service and procession ended, Fr. John went to sprinkle the parish buildings with holy water. "Let's go, we'll sprinkle Maria's hut with holy water," he said, referring to the tiny house more resembling a hut that a house. Everyone had joyful smiles on their faces, and Nun Maria was simply elated that Fr. John had come to her house to sprinkle it with holy water.
Then there was a meal in Fr. Paisy's house. Again Fr. John talked with people, and there were very interesting conversations. One of the priests asked Fr. John if the Chernobyl catastrophe was apocalyptic, and could Chernobyl have been that very "Wormwood" cited in the book of Revelations? "I would not call that accident at the nuclear power plant a direct fulfillment of the Apocalypse," replied Fr. John. "One must relate very cautiously to any explanation of the book of Revelations, and there is a reason why the Church does not accept very many of the explanations regarding it. There is an explanation of the book of Revelations by St. Andrew of Cesarea—it is accepted by the Church, and it may be read. All the rest are very doubtful!" Fr. John also talked about how very bad it is when Church books and icons are sold in ordinary stores, next to very different products. "This should not be!" he said. He also said that every person should have a close connection with his guardian angel. In a word, the subjects of conversation were quite varied. Unfortunately, however, they did not last very long—Fr. John had to go back to the monastery.
A car was waiting for Fr. John at the foot of the hill on which the church stood—a "Volga," which Fr. Paisy had reserved earlier. We all descended the hill to that car, and Fr. John went up to the young driver and gave him a piece of candy. "No, thank you," the driver answered. Fr. John exclaimed, "What self-restraint!" There happened to be another car next to the "Volga"—a "Niva." The priest who had arrived in it drew Fr. John over to the car, asking him to go with him instead. "Where is your travelling companion, the tall, young man?" Fr. John inquired, because everyone had seen that priest in the church during the service, surrounded by a whole group of his parishioners. "There he is!" said batiushka, and opened the trunk of the Niva. In the trunk was a man, about thirty years old and two meters tall, literally doubled over. The priest had stuffed him in there in order to make room for Fr. John. "Have you no conscience?! What are you doing?! How could you treat a man like that?!" Fr. John said sternly. "I will not go with you!" He then instructed me to be seated in the back of the Volga, sat down next to me, and we drove back to the monastery, continuing our discussion.
The next day, that priest saw me in the monastery and said, "how I envy you: you drove together with Fr. John!"
Around the mid 1980's, the first confusion over the [social security] numbers started. At that time, it was not SSNs, but the new pension documents. People had to fill out some forms that required them to write a specific number, each form having its own. People started talking about the seal of Antichrist, and the unacceptability of such forms. People were always asking me how to relate to them. I considered that there wasn't anything particularly wrong with them, but I decided to ask the opinion of Fr. John. On one of my trips to Pechory, I told Fr. John in detail all about the people's concerns. Fr. John answered me personally in the following way. We must not fear any numbers. Numbers are everywhere: there are digits on watches, on documents, on the pages of books. We should instead fear the sins that we commit, and especially the temptations of these times. If we easily give in to these temptations, if we easily sin, then the spirit of antichrist is working in us, and the seal of antichrist could already be upon us, unnoticeably even to ourselves!
When the confusion over the SSNs arose, I asked him about this as well. Fr. John answered that everything he had said regarding the pension documents is applicable also to SSNs: we don't need to be afraid of any numbers!
I served in the church of Sts. Peter and Paul for a long time—eleven whole years. I became an Archdeacon, and served with a double orarion, but my desire was to serve in the priestly rank. I asked Fr. John several times for his blessing to submit a request to the Patriarch for ordination, but he answered, "The time has not yet come, it is still early." When they started calling me to Ryazan diocese, I went to get a blessing to transfer to that diocese. But Fr. John answered, "Under no circumstances! Stay where you are! You will be a priest. When the time comes, it will all happen by itself, without any requests! But for now, you shouldn't go looking for anything—that would be an asked-for cross, not your own, not from God, but from yourself. Over the course of twelve years, I was at six different parishes: Letovo, Nekrasova, Borets, Kasimov… but I never looked for anything. I was always transferred with various formulations: for the betterment of Church life, with regard to Church need… Never of my own asking! You, too—never go looking for anything; everything will come in its own time. By the way," added Fr. John, seeing my desire to transfer to another diocese, "You can do as you know best." "No, Fr. John, what are you saying?" I replied. "I will not take up anything without your blessing." It was obvious that Fr. John approved of this inclination [to follow his advice].
Several more years passed, and Fr. John said came to pass. In 1990, not long before our church's patronal feast—the Apostles Peter and Paul—I unexpectedly received an order from His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II stating that upon my ordination as a priest I am appointed to served in the church of the Resurrection of Christ in Solkolniki. On that same day, the feast on the Apostles Peter and Paul, the Patriarch came to our church and served a solemn Liturgy, at which he ordained me a priest. After the Liturgy, His Holiness said, "This is my first priestly ordination in Moscow." Truly, after his consecration as Patriarch on June 10, 1990, he had not yet ordained anyone.
I started serving right afterwards at my new position in Sokolniki, and at the first opportunity, I went to see Fr. John. I told him everything that had happened to me, and Fr. John congratulated me with my ordination into the priesthood, only approvingly nodding his head. He expressed his views in only a few words on everything I told him. When we went together to the service in the Dormition Church, Fr. John said to the priest who stood next to me in the altar, "Everything happens with Fr. Mikhail according to God's will. His guardian angel leads him by the hand."
By that time, for already a few years my parents were no longer among the living, and I always had filial feelings for Fr. John during those years. Especially now that I had come to him with news about my great joy at receiving the priestly ordination, I especially felt as if I had come to my own father.
My meetings with Fr. John usually took place in his cell. We would come to him at the appointed time, and the first thing he would do would be to stand before the icons[4] and read the prayer: "O Heavenly King," "When the Most High came down he confused the tongues, divided the nations; but when he parted the tongues of fire, he called all to unity, and with one voice we glorify the all-holy Spirit."[5] "We shall never cease to hymn Thy power, Most Holy Theotokos, unworthy as we are…" and we always understood that this was not just a conversation but a communion, in which we would hear instructions that we must fulfill. We knew that the answers to our questions to Fr. John would be an expression of God's will in our life. Not everyone has the happiness of being able to come to an elder, to ask him questions, receive specific answers (for example, about marriage), and be sure that this answer is God's will.
After praying, Fr. John would sit down on a small sofa. He would usually seat me to the left of himself, my eldest son, Seriozha to the right, and little Vanya would make himself at home on a small stool at his feet. Liubov Dimitrievna was always next to the youngest son, in front of Fr. John. No matter how much time would have elapsed since our last meeting with him, Fr. John always met us as if we had just seen each other recently. One day, after we had not seen each other for a rather long time, Fr. John said, "Old friends are getting together—I am very glad!" We would tell him about ourselves, and ask him questions. Fr. John always took a lively interest in everything: who is studying where, and who is doing what?
He would tell us about himself; at times relating how difficult it was for him. "I throw off sixty years from myself, and leave six," he once said to us.
He spoke about how important it is for a parish priest to relate to everyone equally, and never to allow any special feelings for one person or another. "Feelings are born in the head," he said, "they go down to the heart, and torment it."
When the time came for my eldest son to determine his path in life, Fr. John asked him, "Do you want to continue the work of your fathers?" "Yes, I do!" he answered fervently. "The priesthood is a calling," said Fr. John, and this was a blessing to our Seryozha for his whole life.
During the time we were expecting a child, Fr. John said to us, "You will have a boy. Call him John." Truly, a boy appeared in the world, and we called him John, in honor of Fr. John. We decided that his patron saint would be the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, and that his name day would be the same as Fr. John's—July 13, the Synaxis of the twelve apostles.
I asked Fr. John a question about spiritual fatherhood: how should one relate to the problem that comes up very acutely in many parishes everywhere—many priests who consider that they have a right to restrain their parishioners, and forbid them to confess to another priest.
Fr. John answered thus: "It is very important that all that comprises a person: reason, will, conscience, and spiritual freedom, not be violated. If they are violated, then sickness begins. As it is said in the Gospels, Christ healed the blind, the deaf, the lame, the lepers… (Fr. John paused and looked at me straight in the eye) and the demonized. Yes, that is also a sickness, a spiritual sickness. The beginning of that sickness is expressed in the fact that a person is deprived of his own will; he submits his will to another person. Then the conscience is almost in no state to speak to the person, it is silenced as the result of that person substituting his own responsibility before God with the responsibility of someone else."
"What is spiritual fatherhood?" continued Fr. John. "It is when a spiritually experienced elder has taken on spiritual children numbering no more than twelve. This is a spiritual fatherhood: when the elder literally feeds his children from his own hand, and passes them on to another in the case of his death. That is true spiritual fatherhood! But that cannot happen in our parishes. There should be total freedom there! Movement from one priest to another can occur for very different reasons. It could even happen because one priest has more time than another does. Why should I take the time of a terribly overburdened batiushka—it's better that I go to another one who is not so busy. One can then go to a less burdened priest without any confusion over it. Or, for example, a priest is transferred. Why should all his parishioners follow him to another parish? They should remain where they are and go to the priest who is serving with them, in the church that is near to home and is the parish of those people. I would always say to my parishioners when I was transferred, 'Stay where you are, do not run off anywhere, you now have a different batiushka. They are transferring me, and not you!' Otherwise, sometimes it happens that you say something at confession, and they answer you, 'My spiritual father blessed me to do this or that.' What spiritual father? Where is he, that spiritual father? It turns out that somewhere, far, far away, there is a batiushka, someone's spiritual father. Well, why? Why have these confusing complexities? You say in such cases, 'Do what you want!' Or it sometimes happens like this: people come to a priest and say, 'Batiushka, we have come to you for the last time—we are leaving you.' 'Well, go with God!' he answers them. That is how it should be!"
"Divisions into parishes have always existed. I remember it thus in Orel, where I spent my childhood," continued Fr. John. "But those divisions where first of all territorial. All of Orel was divided into distinct regions, which bound each person to his own church. Some streets were connected with one church, while other streets were connected to another church. The whole town was divided, and priests were not supposed to serve needs in a region that was not theirs. Pannikhidas, Communion, funerals, baptisms… every street knew its church. But people prayed wherever they wanted. It would even happen like this: before one Church feast or another, the priest would announce from the ambo that tomorrow, for example, is a certain feast, and we are all going to pray in some church he would name, where it they will celebrate their patronal feast. And all would go there. There should be division into parishes, but we all remain one whole Church, and we all raise our prayer to God as a united whole."
"Just as did His Holiness Patriarch Pimen," Fr. John once said, "I will say that the Church Slavonic language should always be used in our church services, as well as the old [Julian] calendar; and with Catholics, we can drink tea."
Archpriest Mikhail Pravdoliubov.
Archpriest Anatoly Pravdoliubov, my father, was very sick for a long time before his death. One day, when he was in a painful condition, he fell down and hurt himself badly. When I came to Fr. John and told him about it, he answered, "I will tell you about myself, how I also fell down one day. At one of my parishes, I was blessing a village home. I was walking through the house with a blessing brush in my hand, sprinkling the rooms with holy water, and did not notice that behind the curtain in one of them was an open trap door into the cellar. I took a step behind that curtain and did not even figure out immediately what happened: I had fallen into that cellar, ended up on its very bottom—on the earth. I lay there like that, spread out on the floor of the cellar, in my vestments, with the blessing brush and cross in my hands, like St. Nicholas as he is depicted on the icons. And it was alright! Even if a righteous man falls, he will remain whole," he quoted someone, and then added, "But that is not about us, not about us!" But I understood quite well that he was calling both himself and my father righteous men.
At the end of the 1980's, Fr. John talked about our times as about a time of bloodless martyrdom. "You are bloodless martyrs," he would say. And it will get even harder. Your time is harder than ours is, and one can only sympathize with you. But be brave and do not fear! Now there is confusion, turmoil, and muddle; and it will get even worse: perestroika, perestrelka, pereklichka [perestroika—change in the government, perestrelka—a shoot-out, and pereclichka—roll call]. The time is coming of serious spiritual famine, although the tables will be full."
Fr. John would also see us out with prayer. We would all arise and pray; Fr. John would take a brush and anoint each of us with oil from various holy places, then sprinkle each with holy water, give us a little to drink from a small silver cup that he always kept in his cell for this purpose, and then pour a little holy water on our chests. Then he would bless each of us, and we would depart from him with renewed spiritual strength.
Fr. John's love for God and all people passed on to us to a certain degree. That is why we always want to go to Pechory—to receive from Fr. John his grace-filled, prayerful help and blessing.
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/44552.htm
On February 5, 2006, Russia's beloved elder, Archimandrite John (Krestiankin), reposed in the Lord. The Pravdoliubov family, full of priests and even new martyrs, lived in Ryazan Province, where Fr. John served for many years in various parishes. This family has produced even more priests, one of whom serves in the Resurrection Church in Moscow, and has written his recollections of a life-long relationship with the wise spiritual instructor.
Archimandrite John (Krestiankin).
For a long time, I did not write my recollections of Fr. John (Krestiankin). It seemed to me that everyone was writing their own. I thought, they will write everything they can! But when I read what many people really did write, I also wanted to write—especially since throughout many years of hearing confessions, I often cited Fr. John's opinion on the most varied issues.
I worked on my recollections throughout Great Lent of 2005, finished them on Pascha, and sent them to Pechory. Fr. John read these notes and approved them. He did not ask that anything be removed, had no problems with them, and now these notes are very, very dear to me. After all, Fr. John read them himself, and agreed with everything! He did not say that I wrote anything from my own self…
Thus, these recollections are valuable no matter how they have been written in that Archimandrite John (Krestiankin) himself approved of them.
* * *
My parents, Archpriest Anatoly and Olga Mikhailovna Pravdoliubov, were always very close to Fr. John (Krestiankin). When Fr. John served in the village of Troitsa-Pelenitsa (Yasakovo) in Ryazan diocese, my father was serving during those years in the town of Spassk-Ryazansky. These parishes were very close to each other and my parents often visited with Fr. John. Even then, they related to him as to an elder, although Fr. John was only four years older than my father. They were especially close during the time that Fr. John served at his last parish in Ryazan diocese—the St. Nicholas Church in the town of Kasimov. We children also remember that time well, for we were already sufficiently grown. We remembered the long Church services Fr. John served—All-Night Vigil with a litya, akathists, and very long sermons.
Fr. John did not serve in Kasimov very long, we remember that time as a great and significant period in our lives. I can explain this by saying that for Fr. John himself, every day was very important, and therefore people around him perceived time differently. A multitude of events fit into that short period of time: services, sermons, Fr. John's travels, after which he would always organize meetings where his close friends would gather with him: my parents and all the children, my uncle, Archpriest Vladimir Pravdoliubov and his family; and these talks would go on deep into the night. For the children, these were very important meetings—we were witnesses of the talks between clergymen, their discussions of pastoral problems, and questions regarding Church services.
At one of these meetings, Fr. John somehow mentioned monasticism. He was addressing my aunts, Vera Sergeyevna and Sophia Sergeyevna, as if urging them to think about receiving the monastic tonsure. Fr. John was not a monk before he moved to Pechory, and Vera Sergeyevna thought to herself, "And what is Fr. John? 'Grayish?' After all, he is not a monk!" Suddenly Fr. John turned to Vera Sergeyevna and said with a smile, "I'm grayish, grayish! Well, you also remain grayish for now."
Fr. John had a subtle sense of humor. Once after the Vigil service, he gave a very long sermon that lasted an hour and a half. When he had finished, he came up to the choir and asked, "Has anyone fallen out of the window?" My aunt Sophia Sergeyevna replied immediately, "What, is it already midnight?" Fr. John liked her answer.
In Kasimov, Fr. John began to serve the sacrament of Unction for all who wanted it. This had never been done before; Unction was considered a sacrament to be served only in case of serious illness. Fr. John agreed with this understanding of the sacrament, but persuaded my father, Archpriest Anatoly, and my uncle, Archpriest Vladimir, for a long time that such a time has come when no one can consider himself completely healthy—everyone has some kind of illness. Therefore, everyone can receive Unction once a year; and an announcement should be made in the church ahead of time so that everyone who wants to could come at the appointed time. Archpriests Anatoly and Vladimir agreed with Fr. John; nevertheless the Unction services at first took place not in the church, but at the home of my grandmother, Lydia Dimitrievna. This happened in February of 1967.
Two families gathered: that of Fr. Anatoly and of Fr. Vladimir. There were children and the elderly. The sacrament was served by Fr. John, my father and my uncle. They anointed everyone in order, and the priests anointed each other. After some time, the sacrament was served in the St. Nicholas Church, and then it was served yearly. I do not know how it was in other places, but this tradition gradually became widespread.
As for the allowed frequency of receiving Holy Communion, Fr. John said that everyone may receive once a month. He only blessed certain people to receive once every two weeks. I never heard of him blessing anyone to receive more often than that.
About confession, Fr. John said that in our time, both detailed and brief confessions are allowable. During the fasts, when there are great multitudes of people wishing to confess and receive the Holy Mysteries of Christ, there simply is no time for a detailed confession. When there is time, one should confess in detail; and when the time is short, there is nothing wrong with having a brief confession.
Fr. John left Kasimov on the second day of the feast of the Meeting of the Lord, on February 16, 1967, but we did not lose contact with him. Fr. John entered the Pskov-Caves Monastery [in Pechory, Pskov Province] as a monk—he had received the tonsure just before from Schema-Archimandrite Seraphim (Romanstov; canonized in 2010). I saw Fr. John in a klobuk and mantia for the first time when I came to visit him in the monastery. We children of Fr. Anatoly Pravdoliubov began visiting Pechory very often in order to receive Fr. John's blessing, hear his spiritual instructions, and pray at the monastery services.
The town of Pechory is located at such northern latitude that during the late spring and early summer, there are true "white nights," and during the winter, it is constantly dark. It would get light out by about 10:00 a.m., and by 4:00 p.m. it would be dusk. Thus, we would be going to church in the dark mornings, and by the evening services, it would almost be the dark of night. The number of pilgrims to the monastery greatly increased after Fr. John entered it. When we came to the monastery during the summertime, we would always meet some acquaintance there, either from Ryazan Province or from Moscow. There were significantly fewer pilgrims during the winter, and so we especially liked to go to Pechory during wintertime.
The train from Moscow arrived at the Pskov-Pechory station very early—at about five o'clock in the morning. The first bus that took people to the town would already be standing by the train station, and would depart while the train was still standing at the station. After Moscow life, people would find themselves in another world: quiet, white snow, frost, sidewalks sprinkled with sand and not salt as they were in Moscow. They would walk up to the monastery, the great gates of which would be yet closed. All would be silent, no one wanted to talk; they would wait until the monk-gatekeeper would open the gates. High above the gates hung a large icon of the Dormition of the Mother of God, and a red icon lamp always burned before it. Finally, the monastery gates would slowly open and the pilgrims would enter the monastery grounds, one-by-one. Upon entering, they would make the sign of the cross, bow, and pass under the stone archway of the St. Nicholas church "over the gates," from whence began the "Bloody Path"[1] to the ancient church of the Dormition of the Mother of God, built into the caves. There, the brothers' moleben was about to begin. In the darkness of early morning, the figures of the monks could be seen hastening to the start of the moleben.
At that time in the Dormition Church, it was always dark. Only the icon lamps burned; even the candles on the candle stands would not yet be lit. That was the accepted order in the monastery, so that the brothers' moleben and midnight office would be served in the natural light of the lamps. The most important part of the moleben was the reading of the Gospel, Mt. 11:27–30: All things have been delivered to Me by My Father… Especially penetrating and meaningful sounded the words: Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. At the midnight office, of course, the most meaningful chant was the song, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh at midnight…" The monks would be standing in the total darkness, in stately rows, before the icon of the Dormition of the Mother of God, the main holy shrine of the monastery, and sing simply, without haste, "The Bridegroom cometh at midnight, and blessed is that servant whom He shall find watching. But unworthy is he whom He shall find in slothfulness…" It seemed that the monks were contemplating these words rather than singing them. Fr. John never missed the brothers' moleben, and his voice could always be distinguished in this simple choir of monastery brethren.
After the moleben, Fr. John would go into the altar and stand before the table of oblation. He would remove particles of the prosphora to commemorate a multitude of people—those he knew and those who asked for his prayers. He would do this only up to the Cherubic Hymn, before which he would leave the table of oblation and no longer remove the particles. One day, he shared with us the feelings that he experienced during his prayers for people—the living and the reposed. He said, "It is as if people are walking past me; the closer it gets to the Cherubic Hymn, the faster they want to go past. They hurry each other along, as if pushing each others' shoulders, so that I can commemorate them in time…"
Our trips to Pechory became a necessity for us, and our parents only welcomed their children's initiative to go to the monastery, and to receive Fr. John's blessing for every important life step.
Fr. John blessed me for army service with an icon of St. Sergius of Radonezh. I also received his blessing before entering the seminary. When Fr. John blessed me, he said, "Enter the seminary, and then the Theological Academy." When I was already working on my dissertation, Fr. John blessed me with an icon of the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian. The theme of my dissertation was very complicated—theological, Christological; and by blessing me with the icon of St. John the Theologian, Fr. John gave me to know that I would be able to tackle it.
When the time came for me to marry, my future wife, Liubov Dimitrievna, and I first went to see Fr. John, because we resolved to bind our lives together only if it be blessed.
Fr. John (Krestiankin).
We came to Fr. John and told him about our intention. Fr. John told us, "Today, after the evening service in the Dormition Church, there will be a monastic tonsure. Come and pray, and then we will decide whether you should take the tonsure, or enter into marriage."
You can imagine what feelings we took away from our meeting with Fr. John. For a whole twenty-four hours, we did not know what the answer would be, and in the evening we prayed in the Dormition Church, as Fr. John had told us to do. The monastic tonsure was performed in almost total darkness. Candles and icon lamps flickered, and the monks quietly sang, "In the Fatherly embrace..." The monk receiving the tonsure crawled along the stone floor in a long white gown, while the hieormonks and archimandrites, including Fr. John, covered him with their mantias. It was both solemn and sad. After the tonsure, we went back to the house where we were staying, and only the next evening were we with Fr. John again.
Without asking us anything, he blessed us for marriage with the icons of the Savior Made-Without-Hands and the "Jerusalem" Mother of God. We received invaluable instructions from him then. Fr. John talked about marriage as a sacrament, and said words that we have remembered all our lives. "A family is a domestic church," said Fr. John. "You should always have before your mental gaze the following picture: the icon of the Savior, the marriage bed, and the infant's cradle. Marriage is a sacrament. And what a miracle is the birth of children! "O Lord, Thou hast seen how my flesh was woven!" he cited from one of the psalms in the Russian translation.
Fr. John said that love never disappears in a Christian marriage; to the contrary, it grows more and more with every year, and the longer the spouses live together, the more they love each other.
I received Fr. John's blessing to become a deacon. At that time, I was subdeacon to His Holiness Patriarch Pimen. Having blessed me, Fr. John said, "Be in obedience to His Holiness the Patriarch: as he says, so let it be." I waited a rather long time… Finally, one day, after the Vigil in the Elokhov Cathedral,[2] when the curtain [on the royal doors] had already been drawn shut, I heard His Holiness Patriarch Pimen call me to his patriarchal place on the right side of the holy table, and then he said, "I am going to ordain you tomorrow." So, on Sunday, the fifth week of Great Lent, on the day of St. Mary of Egypt—April 1, 1979—His Holiness Patriarch Pimen ordained me a deacan and appointed me to serve in the church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Lefortovo.[3]
When I told Fr. John about this, he remembered the years of his imprisonment. "In 1950, I was imprisoned in Lefortovo prison," he said. Everyone who was with me in the prison cell could hear the ringing of the bells at the Sts. Peter and Paul Church. It is located near the prison; we would always know when important moments in the services were occurring, and we would pray especially fervently at that time."
After I had been ordained, I would come to the Pskov-Caves Monastery and serve with the monks… Sometimes I would be able to serve with Fr. John. This was a great consolation. One day, I served with Fr. John at the parish in the village of Yushkovo.
It was on the feast of St. Elias—the patronal feast of the parish. The church with the houses near it more resembled a monastery skete than a parish church. Fr. Paisy served there. He was a monk. Several elderly nuns lived at the church. Fr. Paisy always invited Fr. John to serve with him on that day, and Fr. John accepted his invitation for many years. Yushkovo is located about fifteen to twenty kilometers from Pechory, and therefore, having arrived that morning from Moscow, I was able to get to the church before the service started. When Fr. John saw me in the altar, he was very amazed, and asked, "How did you get here?" "I came especially to pray with you," I answered. "Will you serve?" asked Fr. John. "If you bless, I will," I said. "Definitely, serve!" said Fr. John.
That was a wonderful day! Before the beginning of the Liturgy, Fr. John served a moleben with an akathist to the Prophet Elias and a blessing of the waters. There were people near him, and everyone sang. After the Liturgy was a cross procession with a sprinkling of the people and the church. It was as if Fr. John was again serving in a parish. He talked with people, whole groups and families coming up to him. This was all at the parish, amidst the grasses and trees. The sun was shining, and it was very warm outside—the very height of summer! After the service and procession ended, Fr. John went to sprinkle the parish buildings with holy water. "Let's go, we'll sprinkle Maria's hut with holy water," he said, referring to the tiny house more resembling a hut that a house. Everyone had joyful smiles on their faces, and Nun Maria was simply elated that Fr. John had come to her house to sprinkle it with holy water.
Then there was a meal in Fr. Paisy's house. Again Fr. John talked with people, and there were very interesting conversations. One of the priests asked Fr. John if the Chernobyl catastrophe was apocalyptic, and could Chernobyl have been that very "Wormwood" cited in the book of Revelations? "I would not call that accident at the nuclear power plant a direct fulfillment of the Apocalypse," replied Fr. John. "One must relate very cautiously to any explanation of the book of Revelations, and there is a reason why the Church does not accept very many of the explanations regarding it. There is an explanation of the book of Revelations by St. Andrew of Cesarea—it is accepted by the Church, and it may be read. All the rest are very doubtful!" Fr. John also talked about how very bad it is when Church books and icons are sold in ordinary stores, next to very different products. "This should not be!" he said. He also said that every person should have a close connection with his guardian angel. In a word, the subjects of conversation were quite varied. Unfortunately, however, they did not last very long—Fr. John had to go back to the monastery.
A car was waiting for Fr. John at the foot of the hill on which the church stood—a "Volga," which Fr. Paisy had reserved earlier. We all descended the hill to that car, and Fr. John went up to the young driver and gave him a piece of candy. "No, thank you," the driver answered. Fr. John exclaimed, "What self-restraint!" There happened to be another car next to the "Volga"—a "Niva." The priest who had arrived in it drew Fr. John over to the car, asking him to go with him instead. "Where is your travelling companion, the tall, young man?" Fr. John inquired, because everyone had seen that priest in the church during the service, surrounded by a whole group of his parishioners. "There he is!" said batiushka, and opened the trunk of the Niva. In the trunk was a man, about thirty years old and two meters tall, literally doubled over. The priest had stuffed him in there in order to make room for Fr. John. "Have you no conscience?! What are you doing?! How could you treat a man like that?!" Fr. John said sternly. "I will not go with you!" He then instructed me to be seated in the back of the Volga, sat down next to me, and we drove back to the monastery, continuing our discussion.
The next day, that priest saw me in the monastery and said, "how I envy you: you drove together with Fr. John!"
Around the mid 1980's, the first confusion over the [social security] numbers started. At that time, it was not SSNs, but the new pension documents. People had to fill out some forms that required them to write a specific number, each form having its own. People started talking about the seal of Antichrist, and the unacceptability of such forms. People were always asking me how to relate to them. I considered that there wasn't anything particularly wrong with them, but I decided to ask the opinion of Fr. John. On one of my trips to Pechory, I told Fr. John in detail all about the people's concerns. Fr. John answered me personally in the following way. We must not fear any numbers. Numbers are everywhere: there are digits on watches, on documents, on the pages of books. We should instead fear the sins that we commit, and especially the temptations of these times. If we easily give in to these temptations, if we easily sin, then the spirit of antichrist is working in us, and the seal of antichrist could already be upon us, unnoticeably even to ourselves!
When the confusion over the SSNs arose, I asked him about this as well. Fr. John answered that everything he had said regarding the pension documents is applicable also to SSNs: we don't need to be afraid of any numbers!
I served in the church of Sts. Peter and Paul for a long time—eleven whole years. I became an Archdeacon, and served with a double orarion, but my desire was to serve in the priestly rank. I asked Fr. John several times for his blessing to submit a request to the Patriarch for ordination, but he answered, "The time has not yet come, it is still early." When they started calling me to Ryazan diocese, I went to get a blessing to transfer to that diocese. But Fr. John answered, "Under no circumstances! Stay where you are! You will be a priest. When the time comes, it will all happen by itself, without any requests! But for now, you shouldn't go looking for anything—that would be an asked-for cross, not your own, not from God, but from yourself. Over the course of twelve years, I was at six different parishes: Letovo, Nekrasova, Borets, Kasimov… but I never looked for anything. I was always transferred with various formulations: for the betterment of Church life, with regard to Church need… Never of my own asking! You, too—never go looking for anything; everything will come in its own time. By the way," added Fr. John, seeing my desire to transfer to another diocese, "You can do as you know best." "No, Fr. John, what are you saying?" I replied. "I will not take up anything without your blessing." It was obvious that Fr. John approved of this inclination [to follow his advice].
Several more years passed, and Fr. John said came to pass. In 1990, not long before our church's patronal feast—the Apostles Peter and Paul—I unexpectedly received an order from His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II stating that upon my ordination as a priest I am appointed to served in the church of the Resurrection of Christ in Solkolniki. On that same day, the feast on the Apostles Peter and Paul, the Patriarch came to our church and served a solemn Liturgy, at which he ordained me a priest. After the Liturgy, His Holiness said, "This is my first priestly ordination in Moscow." Truly, after his consecration as Patriarch on June 10, 1990, he had not yet ordained anyone.
I started serving right afterwards at my new position in Sokolniki, and at the first opportunity, I went to see Fr. John. I told him everything that had happened to me, and Fr. John congratulated me with my ordination into the priesthood, only approvingly nodding his head. He expressed his views in only a few words on everything I told him. When we went together to the service in the Dormition Church, Fr. John said to the priest who stood next to me in the altar, "Everything happens with Fr. Mikhail according to God's will. His guardian angel leads him by the hand."
By that time, for already a few years my parents were no longer among the living, and I always had filial feelings for Fr. John during those years. Especially now that I had come to him with news about my great joy at receiving the priestly ordination, I especially felt as if I had come to my own father.
My meetings with Fr. John usually took place in his cell. We would come to him at the appointed time, and the first thing he would do would be to stand before the icons[4] and read the prayer: "O Heavenly King," "When the Most High came down he confused the tongues, divided the nations; but when he parted the tongues of fire, he called all to unity, and with one voice we glorify the all-holy Spirit."[5] "We shall never cease to hymn Thy power, Most Holy Theotokos, unworthy as we are…" and we always understood that this was not just a conversation but a communion, in which we would hear instructions that we must fulfill. We knew that the answers to our questions to Fr. John would be an expression of God's will in our life. Not everyone has the happiness of being able to come to an elder, to ask him questions, receive specific answers (for example, about marriage), and be sure that this answer is God's will.
After praying, Fr. John would sit down on a small sofa. He would usually seat me to the left of himself, my eldest son, Seriozha to the right, and little Vanya would make himself at home on a small stool at his feet. Liubov Dimitrievna was always next to the youngest son, in front of Fr. John. No matter how much time would have elapsed since our last meeting with him, Fr. John always met us as if we had just seen each other recently. One day, after we had not seen each other for a rather long time, Fr. John said, "Old friends are getting together—I am very glad!" We would tell him about ourselves, and ask him questions. Fr. John always took a lively interest in everything: who is studying where, and who is doing what?
He would tell us about himself; at times relating how difficult it was for him. "I throw off sixty years from myself, and leave six," he once said to us.
He spoke about how important it is for a parish priest to relate to everyone equally, and never to allow any special feelings for one person or another. "Feelings are born in the head," he said, "they go down to the heart, and torment it."
When the time came for my eldest son to determine his path in life, Fr. John asked him, "Do you want to continue the work of your fathers?" "Yes, I do!" he answered fervently. "The priesthood is a calling," said Fr. John, and this was a blessing to our Seryozha for his whole life.
During the time we were expecting a child, Fr. John said to us, "You will have a boy. Call him John." Truly, a boy appeared in the world, and we called him John, in honor of Fr. John. We decided that his patron saint would be the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, and that his name day would be the same as Fr. John's—July 13, the Synaxis of the twelve apostles.
I asked Fr. John a question about spiritual fatherhood: how should one relate to the problem that comes up very acutely in many parishes everywhere—many priests who consider that they have a right to restrain their parishioners, and forbid them to confess to another priest.
Fr. John answered thus: "It is very important that all that comprises a person: reason, will, conscience, and spiritual freedom, not be violated. If they are violated, then sickness begins. As it is said in the Gospels, Christ healed the blind, the deaf, the lame, the lepers… (Fr. John paused and looked at me straight in the eye) and the demonized. Yes, that is also a sickness, a spiritual sickness. The beginning of that sickness is expressed in the fact that a person is deprived of his own will; he submits his will to another person. Then the conscience is almost in no state to speak to the person, it is silenced as the result of that person substituting his own responsibility before God with the responsibility of someone else."
"What is spiritual fatherhood?" continued Fr. John. "It is when a spiritually experienced elder has taken on spiritual children numbering no more than twelve. This is a spiritual fatherhood: when the elder literally feeds his children from his own hand, and passes them on to another in the case of his death. That is true spiritual fatherhood! But that cannot happen in our parishes. There should be total freedom there! Movement from one priest to another can occur for very different reasons. It could even happen because one priest has more time than another does. Why should I take the time of a terribly overburdened batiushka—it's better that I go to another one who is not so busy. One can then go to a less burdened priest without any confusion over it. Or, for example, a priest is transferred. Why should all his parishioners follow him to another parish? They should remain where they are and go to the priest who is serving with them, in the church that is near to home and is the parish of those people. I would always say to my parishioners when I was transferred, 'Stay where you are, do not run off anywhere, you now have a different batiushka. They are transferring me, and not you!' Otherwise, sometimes it happens that you say something at confession, and they answer you, 'My spiritual father blessed me to do this or that.' What spiritual father? Where is he, that spiritual father? It turns out that somewhere, far, far away, there is a batiushka, someone's spiritual father. Well, why? Why have these confusing complexities? You say in such cases, 'Do what you want!' Or it sometimes happens like this: people come to a priest and say, 'Batiushka, we have come to you for the last time—we are leaving you.' 'Well, go with God!' he answers them. That is how it should be!"
"Divisions into parishes have always existed. I remember it thus in Orel, where I spent my childhood," continued Fr. John. "But those divisions where first of all territorial. All of Orel was divided into distinct regions, which bound each person to his own church. Some streets were connected with one church, while other streets were connected to another church. The whole town was divided, and priests were not supposed to serve needs in a region that was not theirs. Pannikhidas, Communion, funerals, baptisms… every street knew its church. But people prayed wherever they wanted. It would even happen like this: before one Church feast or another, the priest would announce from the ambo that tomorrow, for example, is a certain feast, and we are all going to pray in some church he would name, where it they will celebrate their patronal feast. And all would go there. There should be division into parishes, but we all remain one whole Church, and we all raise our prayer to God as a united whole."
"Just as did His Holiness Patriarch Pimen," Fr. John once said, "I will say that the Church Slavonic language should always be used in our church services, as well as the old [Julian] calendar; and with Catholics, we can drink tea."
Archpriest Mikhail Pravdoliubov.
Archpriest Anatoly Pravdoliubov, my father, was very sick for a long time before his death. One day, when he was in a painful condition, he fell down and hurt himself badly. When I came to Fr. John and told him about it, he answered, "I will tell you about myself, how I also fell down one day. At one of my parishes, I was blessing a village home. I was walking through the house with a blessing brush in my hand, sprinkling the rooms with holy water, and did not notice that behind the curtain in one of them was an open trap door into the cellar. I took a step behind that curtain and did not even figure out immediately what happened: I had fallen into that cellar, ended up on its very bottom—on the earth. I lay there like that, spread out on the floor of the cellar, in my vestments, with the blessing brush and cross in my hands, like St. Nicholas as he is depicted on the icons. And it was alright! Even if a righteous man falls, he will remain whole," he quoted someone, and then added, "But that is not about us, not about us!" But I understood quite well that he was calling both himself and my father righteous men.
At the end of the 1980's, Fr. John talked about our times as about a time of bloodless martyrdom. "You are bloodless martyrs," he would say. And it will get even harder. Your time is harder than ours is, and one can only sympathize with you. But be brave and do not fear! Now there is confusion, turmoil, and muddle; and it will get even worse: perestroika, perestrelka, pereklichka [perestroika—change in the government, perestrelka—a shoot-out, and pereclichka—roll call]. The time is coming of serious spiritual famine, although the tables will be full."
Fr. John would also see us out with prayer. We would all arise and pray; Fr. John would take a brush and anoint each of us with oil from various holy places, then sprinkle each with holy water, give us a little to drink from a small silver cup that he always kept in his cell for this purpose, and then pour a little holy water on our chests. Then he would bless each of us, and we would depart from him with renewed spiritual strength.
Fr. John's love for God and all people passed on to us to a certain degree. That is why we always want to go to Pechory—to receive from Fr. John his grace-filled, prayerful help and blessing.
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/44552.htm
- Georgios Rossos
Re: archimandritis Ιωάννης Κρεστιάνκιν
by Georgios Rossos » Fri Nov 18, 2011 10:24 pm
On St. John Climacus, and the Miraculous Revelation of Patriarch Tikhon's Relics
A sermon given on the fourth Sunday of Great Lent, the week of St. John Climacus, on March 23/April 5, 1992, two days before the feast of the Annunciation.
And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live?
And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest.
Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones,
and say unto them, O ye dry bones,
hear the word of the LORD.
Ezekiel 37:3–4
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!
Icon of the Ladder of Divine Ascent, Mt. Sinai
The Church dedicates the fourth Sunday of Great Lent to the memory of St. John Climacus, or ”of the Ladder,” as the author of The Ladder is called. There is a deep meaning in this. After all, the fast is entirely connected with repentance.
But what does it mean to repent? Only to name your sins and say, ”I have sinned”? No! This is not enough for repentance. To repent means to change your sinful thoughts and feelings, to correct yourself, to become different. It is good to admit your sins, to feel the weight of sinful falls. But in place of a defiled life made straight by our Lord Jesus Christ through repentance, we need to begin the creation of a new life, a life according to the spirit of Christ. We need to grow, to spiritually ascend "from strength to strength," as up the steps of a ladder.
St. John of the Ladder left us a remarkable work entitled, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, which contains teaching on the ascent to the Lord. As The Ladder instructs, Christian growth and progress is achieved through ascetic labors. If Lord on His part provides a person with grace along the path to the Kingdom of God, then the person on his part must provide self-denial and labor.
The Ladder consists of thirty homilies (chapters), like steps, according to the age at which the Lord Jesus Christ began His ministry.
At the first step, the saint places the renunciation of earthly attachments. Then follow: detachment, life in exile, obedience, repentance, remembrance of death, tears, and meekness. Further on, the passions and others sinful states are revealed, and instructions are given for the struggle with them. Then is illustrated the path of the virtues, the mother of which is "holy and blessed" prayer. The "Ladder" is crowned by the union of three virtues—faith, hope, and love.
We will give a brief account of the saintly writer's life.
St. John Climacus lived in the sixth century. He received a good education, but left the world at age sixteen, entering the monastery on Mt. Sinai, where he was tonsured a monk at age twenty by Elder Martyrius. St. John lived with his elder in total obedience for twenty years. The Raithu monk Daniel writes of St. John that as a youth of sixteen, he ascended Mt. Athos in body, but in soul he ascended the heavenly heights.
After his elder's death, St. John departed to the Sinai desert called Thola, and lived there for forty years performing great ascetic labors, in ceaseless prayer, and deep compunction of heart and tears. He lived in a small cave, which people called "tear-streaming." The saint left the coenobium so that the monks would not hear his lamentations, and his lamentations and cries were very strong. Fasting, prayer, tears, silence, and the writing of books—this is what made up the life of St. John. He came to the monastery every Saturday and Sunday for services, to receive the Holy Mysteries, and to talk with the brethren.
After forty years of ascetic labors, St. John was chosen as abbot of Sinai. This appointment had been foreshown long ago. When Elder Martyrius came with his young disciple, John, to Anastasios the Great, the latter asked him, "Who is this youth, and who tonsured him?" Martyrius answered, "He is your servant, father, and I tonsured him." Then Abba Anastasios said, "Who would have thought that you would tonsure the abbot of Sinai?"
Another time, Abba Martyrius and John went to the great John the Sabbaite. The latter rose, poured some water, washed John's feet, and kissed his hand. When the disciple of the Sabbaite, Stephan, asked his elder why he did this, he received the reply, "Believe me, my son, I do not know who this youth is, but I received the abbot of Sinai, and washed the feet of the abbot."
The life of St. John was itself truly a ladder. The saint knew from experience what true spiritual life is, and therefore he wrote The Ladder at the request of the Abbot of Raithu, John.
Isn't it true, brothers and sisters, that a work containing such rare spiritual experiences and such superlative soul-saving advice is worth reading, if only out of inquisitiveness, during these days of fasting and repentance? Whoever can read it but does not is punishing his own self, for he deprives his soul of a most healthy and sweet food. For those who do not have a copy, we will try to read it from the ambo. [The Ladder can be found online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=102547112, although this is not the preferred Orthodox translation, which was published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery.]
Patriarch Tikhon
Patriarch and Confessor Tikhon.
My dear ones, today, in the capital city of Russia, Moscow, another great solemnity is being observed—no small event in the spiritual life of our much suffering Motherland.
Given to Orthodox Russia for general veneration, as a living example of faithfulness to God even unto death, are the relics of His Holiness, Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow and All Russia, who finished his earthly course sixty-seven years ago on the feast of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Mother of God. St. Tikhon's seven years as Patriarch, which essentially became for him a way of the cross and Golgotha, shines forth now for all the world to see.
Today in Moscow, after a service by the Council of Russian Bishops, the relics of Patriarch Tikhon will be translated from their place of burial underneath the small cathedral into the large cathedral of Donskoy Monastery.
Come, ye of Russia, and see, and bow down, and be edified, and be strengthened by the strength of spirit of the one who, while in the grave, received the power and authority from God to help the living! Let us learn through today's events the law of God, in order to live eternally in God, and by God.
Except the Lord build the house, in vain do they labor that build it. Except the Lord guard the city, in vain doth he watch that guardeth her (Ps. 126:1).
In vain did the builders of a new Russia labor for seventy-five years, embarking upon the path of war against God (they did not learn from the builders of the tower of Babylon). In vain did they destroy every manifestation of spirituality and sanctity, hiding the bearers of God's gifts in the earth and in the waters, in slanders and lies, and in all manner of falsehood.
And as the sun passes through unclean places and yet is not defiled, so do these Godly luminaries arise pure, and reflect the radiance of the Eternal Sun—God. From beneath a bushel, in the right season, the Lord extricates these pure, fragrant candles, and places them upon the church candlestand of Russia.
The eleventh Patriarch of Russia, Tikhon, took upon himself the work from God during troubled and sorrowful times to preach the word of truth and love to the Russian people. The Patriarch suffered and wept over his desecrated Motherland, along with all the people. "We will reject the old world and build an earthly paradise—without God, without Christian conscience, and without obedience to the commandments of our ancestors," announced the new leaders, "and whoever does not want our earthly paradise, whoever does not believe in us, whoever does not accept our faith—him we will destroy." That was the terrible program that the holy Patriarch Tikhon had to face. For seven and a half years he did the work of God, enduring desecration and violence; and he was ready many times to receive a martyr's death at the hands of evildoers.
As opposed to the wicked spirit of the time, the holy Patriarch was steadfast and firm, especially when defending the Church from enemies. His words could be helpful also to all of us now, as the Church is again experiencing many sorrows and troubles. He would say, "Let my name perish in history, but let the Church be benefitted."
As Patriarch Tikhon preserved the Church in the purity of Orthodoxy during a period of ecclesiastical collapse, persecution, and schism, so does he now call us to follow his example, and walk in his path.
"Sin has corrupted our earth; let us purify our hearts with repentance and prayer," the saint preached to our grandmothers and grandfathers. Doesn't his voice today reach us, their grandchildren, as the fierce wind of hardship bursts through every door without exception? After all, we have seen the prophecies of many holy men already fulfilled, and the cup of God's wrath continues to pour out over a world that wars against God. But God will not be mocked. We are witnesses of that fact. The pastors and sheep of Christ's flock endure mockery, but those who endure and glorify God in their patience, will rise in glory and strength. They continue their work even after death—they carry their faith, their preaching of God, and life in God, to all people.
I would also like to bring to your memory the words of the humble Patriarch-martyr, which he pronounced after one of the numerous attempts upon his life. With these words the holy hierarch thanked the people for their love and prayer: "Submissive to the will of God, I remain at peace about my lot… and if the Lord sends me a peaceful death… blessed be the name of the Lord. But if it is my lot to live only few more days and die either from the knife or from gunshot, or by some other violent death, and no one will know where I am buried—may God's will be done; I am not better than my brothers who have already thus died. I would only wish that such a death might serve to cleanse me of my many sins, and be acceptable to the Lord as a fragrant sacrifice for the people…"
On March 1925/April 7, 1925, on the day of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Mother of God, on the day of the beginning of the salvation of mankind, Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow and All Russia reposed in the Lord. He died and was hidden for a time by God; for only the Lord could preserve his relics from the ubiquitous spirit of evil, which crushed every expression of sanctity in our time.
In 1989, by God's will, Patriarch Tikhon was canonized. This took place on September 26, the commemoration day of the holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian—the Apostle of love; this is very significant and has a mystical meaning. In the life of Godly people, as in the life of any person, there is nothing accidental; for the world is ruled and directed by God, with Whom everything exists in harmony, and is ordered sensibly. Only, one must have the eyes to see it.
The main guiding sign of Patriarch Tikhon's whole life, as he himself discerned it, were the words of the Holy Gospel of John, which he heard with his spiritual ears on the day of his consecration as a bishop: Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? (Jn. 21:15). And these words of the Lord's resounded to the Patriarch as a question to his life forever: "Tikhon! Lovest thou Me?" And he always answered, "Yeah, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee!" He loved Him even unto death, all his life, through all his works.
Patriarch Tikhon implicitly asked this same question to everyone he met along his life's path. He directed these words to his Russian flock: "Rus', lovest thou the Lord?" And many, many of his co-strugglers and contemporaries answered him with the loyalty of love, following their Patriarch and father even unto the death of the cross, to their own sainthood.
Now, in our day, Rus' hears this same question from the relics of Holy Hierarch Tikhon. Now, only the words, "Yeah, Lord, we love Thee," embodied by our life, promises us life. But indecision, duplicity, and indifference promise us death, and not only spiritual death.
Patriarch Tikhon's life reminds us of God. The life of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon witnesses to God. His life, death, and rest with the saints calls Rus' to awaken from spiritual sleep, in order to revive in God, and live in God.
On February 22, 1992, there was a miracle of the uncovering of the relics of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon. It has not been so long since the time when no one could have conceived of this happening—we all know that right after the Patriarch's death, rumors spread that his remains had been destroyed. Who launched this thought into the air? Malefactors, or benefactors? God knows. Just try to figure out what happened then! Only now we understand and thank God, for this was the work of His hands. He preserved them.
Now, the time has come, and Russia again needs the preaching of the faith; and who is better able to preach it than he whose life was a living witness to the faith? Again, a miracle occurs—a maleficent hand, attempting to bring sorrow once more to the newly reopened house of God, Donskoy Monastery, commits arson. But from this ill-intentioned fire shone the light of grace—holy relics.
It was in connection with that very fire and the subsequent renovation that the thought arose to find out if those rumors were true. Thus, the Lord revealed to the world the relics of His servant.
The Patriarch was the spiritual leader of the Russian people during a very difficult time. He continues to be so during our difficult time in Russia—a time of schism, separation, and falls.
The Church's duty in such trials is to inspire and unite the people for the sake of saving their native land, faith, and truth, serving for unification under the spiritual leadership of His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. This is why the Council of Bishops was called during the days prior to this event—to strengthen the wavering, encourage the faint-hearted, rebuke those in error, and help all who need help.
It is significant that having made the decision concerning Church unity, the Council of Bishops completed its work at the reliquary of St. Tikhon, giving thanks for the convening of the Council, and praying to the holy Patriarch at the Throne of the Lord.
We also join with them in our prayers to the Patriarch-martyr for our Church and for our Fatherland, and pronounce the wonderful troparion composed to St. Tikhon. Here it is—listen to it![1]
Let us praise Tikhon, the patriarch of all Russia,
And enlightener of North America
An ardent follower of the Apostolic traditions,
And good pastor of the Church of Christ.
Who was elected by divine providence,
And laid down his life for his sheep.
Let us sing to him with faith and hope,
And ask for his hierarchical intercessions
Keep the church in Russia in tranquility,
And the church in North America in peace.
Gather her scattered children into one flock,
Bring to repentance those who have renounced the True Faith,
Preserve our lands from civil strife,
And entreat God's peace for all people!
Archimandrite John (Krestiankin)
Translated by Nun Cornelia (Rees)
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/45797.htm
A sermon given on the fourth Sunday of Great Lent, the week of St. John Climacus, on March 23/April 5, 1992, two days before the feast of the Annunciation.
And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live?
And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest.
Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones,
and say unto them, O ye dry bones,
hear the word of the LORD.
Ezekiel 37:3–4
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!
Icon of the Ladder of Divine Ascent, Mt. Sinai
The Church dedicates the fourth Sunday of Great Lent to the memory of St. John Climacus, or ”of the Ladder,” as the author of The Ladder is called. There is a deep meaning in this. After all, the fast is entirely connected with repentance.
But what does it mean to repent? Only to name your sins and say, ”I have sinned”? No! This is not enough for repentance. To repent means to change your sinful thoughts and feelings, to correct yourself, to become different. It is good to admit your sins, to feel the weight of sinful falls. But in place of a defiled life made straight by our Lord Jesus Christ through repentance, we need to begin the creation of a new life, a life according to the spirit of Christ. We need to grow, to spiritually ascend "from strength to strength," as up the steps of a ladder.
St. John of the Ladder left us a remarkable work entitled, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, which contains teaching on the ascent to the Lord. As The Ladder instructs, Christian growth and progress is achieved through ascetic labors. If Lord on His part provides a person with grace along the path to the Kingdom of God, then the person on his part must provide self-denial and labor.
The Ladder consists of thirty homilies (chapters), like steps, according to the age at which the Lord Jesus Christ began His ministry.
At the first step, the saint places the renunciation of earthly attachments. Then follow: detachment, life in exile, obedience, repentance, remembrance of death, tears, and meekness. Further on, the passions and others sinful states are revealed, and instructions are given for the struggle with them. Then is illustrated the path of the virtues, the mother of which is "holy and blessed" prayer. The "Ladder" is crowned by the union of three virtues—faith, hope, and love.
We will give a brief account of the saintly writer's life.
St. John Climacus lived in the sixth century. He received a good education, but left the world at age sixteen, entering the monastery on Mt. Sinai, where he was tonsured a monk at age twenty by Elder Martyrius. St. John lived with his elder in total obedience for twenty years. The Raithu monk Daniel writes of St. John that as a youth of sixteen, he ascended Mt. Athos in body, but in soul he ascended the heavenly heights.
After his elder's death, St. John departed to the Sinai desert called Thola, and lived there for forty years performing great ascetic labors, in ceaseless prayer, and deep compunction of heart and tears. He lived in a small cave, which people called "tear-streaming." The saint left the coenobium so that the monks would not hear his lamentations, and his lamentations and cries were very strong. Fasting, prayer, tears, silence, and the writing of books—this is what made up the life of St. John. He came to the monastery every Saturday and Sunday for services, to receive the Holy Mysteries, and to talk with the brethren.
After forty years of ascetic labors, St. John was chosen as abbot of Sinai. This appointment had been foreshown long ago. When Elder Martyrius came with his young disciple, John, to Anastasios the Great, the latter asked him, "Who is this youth, and who tonsured him?" Martyrius answered, "He is your servant, father, and I tonsured him." Then Abba Anastasios said, "Who would have thought that you would tonsure the abbot of Sinai?"
Another time, Abba Martyrius and John went to the great John the Sabbaite. The latter rose, poured some water, washed John's feet, and kissed his hand. When the disciple of the Sabbaite, Stephan, asked his elder why he did this, he received the reply, "Believe me, my son, I do not know who this youth is, but I received the abbot of Sinai, and washed the feet of the abbot."
The life of St. John was itself truly a ladder. The saint knew from experience what true spiritual life is, and therefore he wrote The Ladder at the request of the Abbot of Raithu, John.
Isn't it true, brothers and sisters, that a work containing such rare spiritual experiences and such superlative soul-saving advice is worth reading, if only out of inquisitiveness, during these days of fasting and repentance? Whoever can read it but does not is punishing his own self, for he deprives his soul of a most healthy and sweet food. For those who do not have a copy, we will try to read it from the ambo. [The Ladder can be found online at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=102547112, although this is not the preferred Orthodox translation, which was published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery.]
Patriarch Tikhon
Patriarch and Confessor Tikhon.
My dear ones, today, in the capital city of Russia, Moscow, another great solemnity is being observed—no small event in the spiritual life of our much suffering Motherland.
Given to Orthodox Russia for general veneration, as a living example of faithfulness to God even unto death, are the relics of His Holiness, Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow and All Russia, who finished his earthly course sixty-seven years ago on the feast of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Mother of God. St. Tikhon's seven years as Patriarch, which essentially became for him a way of the cross and Golgotha, shines forth now for all the world to see.
Today in Moscow, after a service by the Council of Russian Bishops, the relics of Patriarch Tikhon will be translated from their place of burial underneath the small cathedral into the large cathedral of Donskoy Monastery.
Come, ye of Russia, and see, and bow down, and be edified, and be strengthened by the strength of spirit of the one who, while in the grave, received the power and authority from God to help the living! Let us learn through today's events the law of God, in order to live eternally in God, and by God.
Except the Lord build the house, in vain do they labor that build it. Except the Lord guard the city, in vain doth he watch that guardeth her (Ps. 126:1).
In vain did the builders of a new Russia labor for seventy-five years, embarking upon the path of war against God (they did not learn from the builders of the tower of Babylon). In vain did they destroy every manifestation of spirituality and sanctity, hiding the bearers of God's gifts in the earth and in the waters, in slanders and lies, and in all manner of falsehood.
And as the sun passes through unclean places and yet is not defiled, so do these Godly luminaries arise pure, and reflect the radiance of the Eternal Sun—God. From beneath a bushel, in the right season, the Lord extricates these pure, fragrant candles, and places them upon the church candlestand of Russia.
The eleventh Patriarch of Russia, Tikhon, took upon himself the work from God during troubled and sorrowful times to preach the word of truth and love to the Russian people. The Patriarch suffered and wept over his desecrated Motherland, along with all the people. "We will reject the old world and build an earthly paradise—without God, without Christian conscience, and without obedience to the commandments of our ancestors," announced the new leaders, "and whoever does not want our earthly paradise, whoever does not believe in us, whoever does not accept our faith—him we will destroy." That was the terrible program that the holy Patriarch Tikhon had to face. For seven and a half years he did the work of God, enduring desecration and violence; and he was ready many times to receive a martyr's death at the hands of evildoers.
As opposed to the wicked spirit of the time, the holy Patriarch was steadfast and firm, especially when defending the Church from enemies. His words could be helpful also to all of us now, as the Church is again experiencing many sorrows and troubles. He would say, "Let my name perish in history, but let the Church be benefitted."
As Patriarch Tikhon preserved the Church in the purity of Orthodoxy during a period of ecclesiastical collapse, persecution, and schism, so does he now call us to follow his example, and walk in his path.
"Sin has corrupted our earth; let us purify our hearts with repentance and prayer," the saint preached to our grandmothers and grandfathers. Doesn't his voice today reach us, their grandchildren, as the fierce wind of hardship bursts through every door without exception? After all, we have seen the prophecies of many holy men already fulfilled, and the cup of God's wrath continues to pour out over a world that wars against God. But God will not be mocked. We are witnesses of that fact. The pastors and sheep of Christ's flock endure mockery, but those who endure and glorify God in their patience, will rise in glory and strength. They continue their work even after death—they carry their faith, their preaching of God, and life in God, to all people.
I would also like to bring to your memory the words of the humble Patriarch-martyr, which he pronounced after one of the numerous attempts upon his life. With these words the holy hierarch thanked the people for their love and prayer: "Submissive to the will of God, I remain at peace about my lot… and if the Lord sends me a peaceful death… blessed be the name of the Lord. But if it is my lot to live only few more days and die either from the knife or from gunshot, or by some other violent death, and no one will know where I am buried—may God's will be done; I am not better than my brothers who have already thus died. I would only wish that such a death might serve to cleanse me of my many sins, and be acceptable to the Lord as a fragrant sacrifice for the people…"
On March 1925/April 7, 1925, on the day of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Mother of God, on the day of the beginning of the salvation of mankind, Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow and All Russia reposed in the Lord. He died and was hidden for a time by God; for only the Lord could preserve his relics from the ubiquitous spirit of evil, which crushed every expression of sanctity in our time.
In 1989, by God's will, Patriarch Tikhon was canonized. This took place on September 26, the commemoration day of the holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian—the Apostle of love; this is very significant and has a mystical meaning. In the life of Godly people, as in the life of any person, there is nothing accidental; for the world is ruled and directed by God, with Whom everything exists in harmony, and is ordered sensibly. Only, one must have the eyes to see it.
The main guiding sign of Patriarch Tikhon's whole life, as he himself discerned it, were the words of the Holy Gospel of John, which he heard with his spiritual ears on the day of his consecration as a bishop: Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? (Jn. 21:15). And these words of the Lord's resounded to the Patriarch as a question to his life forever: "Tikhon! Lovest thou Me?" And he always answered, "Yeah, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee!" He loved Him even unto death, all his life, through all his works.
Patriarch Tikhon implicitly asked this same question to everyone he met along his life's path. He directed these words to his Russian flock: "Rus', lovest thou the Lord?" And many, many of his co-strugglers and contemporaries answered him with the loyalty of love, following their Patriarch and father even unto the death of the cross, to their own sainthood.
Now, in our day, Rus' hears this same question from the relics of Holy Hierarch Tikhon. Now, only the words, "Yeah, Lord, we love Thee," embodied by our life, promises us life. But indecision, duplicity, and indifference promise us death, and not only spiritual death.
Patriarch Tikhon's life reminds us of God. The life of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon witnesses to God. His life, death, and rest with the saints calls Rus' to awaken from spiritual sleep, in order to revive in God, and live in God.
On February 22, 1992, there was a miracle of the uncovering of the relics of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon. It has not been so long since the time when no one could have conceived of this happening—we all know that right after the Patriarch's death, rumors spread that his remains had been destroyed. Who launched this thought into the air? Malefactors, or benefactors? God knows. Just try to figure out what happened then! Only now we understand and thank God, for this was the work of His hands. He preserved them.
Now, the time has come, and Russia again needs the preaching of the faith; and who is better able to preach it than he whose life was a living witness to the faith? Again, a miracle occurs—a maleficent hand, attempting to bring sorrow once more to the newly reopened house of God, Donskoy Monastery, commits arson. But from this ill-intentioned fire shone the light of grace—holy relics.
It was in connection with that very fire and the subsequent renovation that the thought arose to find out if those rumors were true. Thus, the Lord revealed to the world the relics of His servant.
The Patriarch was the spiritual leader of the Russian people during a very difficult time. He continues to be so during our difficult time in Russia—a time of schism, separation, and falls.
The Church's duty in such trials is to inspire and unite the people for the sake of saving their native land, faith, and truth, serving for unification under the spiritual leadership of His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. This is why the Council of Bishops was called during the days prior to this event—to strengthen the wavering, encourage the faint-hearted, rebuke those in error, and help all who need help.
It is significant that having made the decision concerning Church unity, the Council of Bishops completed its work at the reliquary of St. Tikhon, giving thanks for the convening of the Council, and praying to the holy Patriarch at the Throne of the Lord.
We also join with them in our prayers to the Patriarch-martyr for our Church and for our Fatherland, and pronounce the wonderful troparion composed to St. Tikhon. Here it is—listen to it![1]
Let us praise Tikhon, the patriarch of all Russia,
And enlightener of North America
An ardent follower of the Apostolic traditions,
And good pastor of the Church of Christ.
Who was elected by divine providence,
And laid down his life for his sheep.
Let us sing to him with faith and hope,
And ask for his hierarchical intercessions
Keep the church in Russia in tranquility,
And the church in North America in peace.
Gather her scattered children into one flock,
Bring to repentance those who have renounced the True Faith,
Preserve our lands from civil strife,
And entreat God's peace for all people!
Archimandrite John (Krestiankin)
Translated by Nun Cornelia (Rees)
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/45797.htm
- Georgios Rossos
STARETS NIKOLAY GURYANOV
by Georgios Rossos » Fri Nov 18, 2011 10:34 pm
Ο Nicolay Guryanov γεννήθηκε στις 26 Μαΐου 1909 από μια οικογένεια εμπόρων στην Αγία Πετρούπολη Gubernia. Σε μια περιοχή του Samolva στο χωριό Chydskiye Zahody.
Από την παιδική του ηλικία βοηθούσε στην εκκλησία. Το 1926 τέλειωσε την παιδαγωγική ακαδημία Gatchina. Το 1929 έλαβε μια παιδαγωγική εκπαίδευση στο LENINGRAD INSTITUTE. Όμως δεν μπόρεσε να την τελείωση γιατί αποκλείστηκε από την παιδαγωγική σχολή επειδή αγωνίστηκε να μην κλείσει μια εκκλησία κοντά στο ξενοδοχείο.
Το 1931 ο Nicolay Guryanov συνελήφθηκε άδικα και αποστέλλεται στην φυλακή “KRESTY” – στο Λένινγκραντ σε ένα στρατόπεδο συγκέντρωσης κοντά στο Κίεβο της Ουκρανίας και πέρασε 7 χρόνια στο Syktyvkar – Δημοκρατία του Κόμι- σε φυλάκιση. Ο Νικόλαος εργάστηκε ως καθηγητής μαθηματικών σε σχολεία της περιφέρειας του Tosno.
Επίσης υπηρετούσε και ως ψάλτης στην εκκλησία του Tosno.
Κατά την διάρκεια του Β Παγκοσμίου πολέμου δεν είχε μετακινηθεί λόγο της αδυναμίας των ποδιών του που είχαν προκληθεί από την εργασία στα στρατόπεδα συγκέντρωσης.
Όταν το GDOV καταλήφτηκε από τα γερμανικά στρατεύματα ο Nicolay με άλλους κατοίκους βρισκόταν εξόριστος στην βαλτική. Εδώ γίνεται φοιτητής στο Βίλνιους THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY στη Λιθουανία που άνοιξε το 1942. Μετά από 2 εκπαιδευτικά εξάμηνα στα σεμινάρια ο Nicolay Guryanov ήταν εσώκλειστος στο ιερατείο από το μητροπολίτη έξαρχο Σέργιο VOSKRESENKIY στη Ρίγα στον ορθόδοξο καθεδρικό ναό της Γεννήσεως. Αργότερα ανέλαβε ιερέας σε διάφορες ενορίες την Βαλτικής. Κατά την διάρκεια 1949-1951 ο Nicolay μελετούσε με μερική απασχόληση στο Λένινγκραντ THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY και το 1951 έγινε δεκτός στο πρώτο έτος της Ακαδημίας αλλά δεν μπόρεσε να συνεχίσει παραπέρα. Το 1958 μεταφέρθηκε στην επισκοπή Pskov σαν ιερέας στον άγιο Νικόλαο στο νησί της TALABSK –ZALIT- όπου πέρασε τα υπόλοιπα 42 χρόνια της ζωή του ως ιερέας όπου και συνταξιοδοτήθηκε σε μεγάλη ηλικία κατοικώντας σε ένα μικρό ξύλινο σπίτι.
Μεταξύ πολλών από εκείνους που είχαν την δυνατότητα να τον επισκεφτούν τον τελευταίο καιρό ήταν αστέρια της ποπ μουσικής ο Andrey Makarevich και η Valentina Tolknova. Από τα μέσα από του 1999 ο στάρετς όρισε να μην συναντά κανένα το οποίο αυτό γεγονός προκάλεσε τους προσκυνητές ώστε έγραψαν παράπονα στο Ρώσο πρόεδρο.
Τον τελευταίο χρόνο πριν το ευλογημένο τέλος Nicolay Guryanov παρά την ασθένεια του ωστόσο βρήκε τη δύναμη να δεχθεί προσκυνητές , για τους ενισχύσει και να δυναμώσει την πίστη τους. Οι σκέψεις του στάρετς κατά την διάρκεια αυτών των επιγείων συνομιλιών έγινε εν είδος πνευματικής διαθήκης για πολλούς ορθοδόξους Ρώσους.
Τον Ιούνιο του 2002 μια ομάδα ορθοδόξων ιερέων επισκέφτηκαν τον Νικολάι για να πάρουν μια ευλογία.
Ρωτήθηκε λοιπόν . Θα δούμε Ορθόδοξο Τσάρο;
Ο Nicolay σχημάτισε το σημείο του Σταυρού. Προσευχήθηκε και σταθερά είπε. « Α. Ο Τσάρος έρχεται!».
Ο Nicolay Guryanov πέθανε την νύχτα της 24 Αυγούστου 2002 στην ηλικία των 92 ετών. Θάφτηκε στις 26 Αυγούστου στο νησί TALABSK.
ΠΙΣΤΟΠΟΙΗΜΕΝΕΣ ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΗΣ ΣΕ ΕΡΩΤΗΜΑΤΑ
Είναι γραμμένο από αυτόν ότι συνήθισε να βρίσκει άτομα που είχαν χαθεί και άτομα που είχαν πέσει όμηροι και είχαν ελευθερωθεί από ληστείες και αλλά. Έγινε ιδιαίτερα διάσημος μετά από ένα επιζώντα ναύτη που ήρθε σε αυτόν και αναγνώρισε τον στάρετς όταν του εμφανίστηκε αυτός κατά την διάρκεια ενός ατυχήματος.
Τον Σεπτέμβριο του 1997 μια ομάδα 10 πιστών επισκέφτηκαν τον Nicolay στην ξύλινη καλύβα του. Ήρθαν να ευλογηθούν από αυτόν με το ιερό λάδι. Μια γυναίκα ρώτησε .
« Πατέρα Νικολάι ποιος θα είναι μετά τον Γέλτσιν;» Μου απάντησε « στη συνέχεια θα υπάρχει η στρατιωτική δύναμη του……θα είναι σύντομη. Αλλά η ηλικία ότι θα είναι μικρή όπως είναι και ο ίδιος. Θα υπάρξουν διώξεις μετά από τους μοναχούς και την εκκλησία.
Η ισχύς του θα είναι όπως ήταν και κατά την διάρκεια των κουμουνιστών…..»
Ρώτησε πάλι « και τα θα είναι μετά ; μετά θα είναι ένας ορθόδοξος Τσάρος. Θα ζούμε για να το δούμε αυτό;». «Εσείς, ναι». Μετά από αυτά τα λόγια ευλόγησε την γυναίκα.
ΠΟΙΗΤΙΚΑ ΔΩΡΑ
Ο Nicolay Guryanov ήταν προικισμένος με ένα ειδικό μουσικό χάρισμα.
Ο στάρετς αγαπούσε το την εκκλησία και το εκκλησιαστικό τραγούδι και πολλούς εκκλησιαστικούς ύμνους και τραγούδια τα είχε γράψει μόνος του. Πολλοί από τους ύμνους όπως « Η ΕΚΤΙΜΗΣΗ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΗΝ ΜΗΤΕΡΑ ΤΟΥ ΘΕΟΥ» , « ΣΩΤΗΡΑ ΘΕΡΜΑΝΕ ΤΗΝ ΨΥΧΗ ΜΟΥ», «ΓΙΑ ΤΟΝ ΦΥΛΑΚΑ ΆΓΓΕΛΟ», έγιναν πραγματικά εθνικά προφητικά τραγούδια στο δρόμο για την αληθινή μετάνοια.
Κάποιος προσκυνητής είπε.
«Ήρθα στον πατέρα με αμφιβολίες σχετικά με την ζωή μου με ένα κενό μέσα μου και απάντησε σε όλα . τραγούδησε την ζωή μου και στο τέλος είπε λίγα λόγια κατευθυντήρια.
Και όλα μέσα μου ξεκαθάρισαν και ξέσπασα σε δάκρυα και έφυγα με ειρήνη και παρηγοριά. Τώρα πια ήξερα πως πρέπει να ζήσω και τι να κάνω.»
Αυτές οι ιστορίες που ακούγονται συχνά από προσκυνητές πολλούς από τους οποίους έγινα η αρχή για μια νέα ζωή -εν ΧΡΙΣΤΩ ΖΩΗΣ-
ΔΙΔΑΣΚΑΛΙΑ
Ερωτήθηκε ποια θεωρεί την πιο πλέον επικίνδυνη αμαρτία στη ψυχή των ανθρώπων;
Και ο πατήρ Νικολάι απάντησε. « Απιστία! Αυτό είναι τρομακτικό.»- Ακόμα και για τους Χριστιανούς; « Ναι, μάλιστα μεταξύ Ορθοδόξων Χριστιανών»
Οι προσκυνητές στην συνέχεια ρώτησαν . Τι θα μπορούσατε να πείτε στους Ορθοδόξους Χριστιανούς για την σωτηρία;
« Άκου εδώ πιστέ άνθρωπε πρέπει…. Με την αφθονία της αγάπης να κατακλίσεις τον περίγυρο που σε περιβάλει. Κατάλαβες ; με την αφθονία της αγάπης.
Η ΑΦΩΣΙΩΣΗ ΤΟΥ ΚΑΙ Ο ΣΕΒΑΣΜΟΣ ΣΤΟΝ ΤΣΑΡΟ NICHOLA II
Στο δωμάτιο του πατέρα Nicolay Guryanov ήταν γεμάτο φωτογραφίες και εικόνες του Νικολάου ΙΙ και των συγγενών του. Διατηρούσε άλμπουμ ταινίες ντοκιμαντέρ που αναφέρονταν σχετικά με τον τελευταίο τσάρο της Ρωσίας.
http://apantaortodoxias.blogspot.com/2009/03/starets-nikolay-guryanov.html
- Georgios Rossos
Re: STARETS NIKOLAY GURYANOV
by Georgios Rossos » Fri Nov 18, 2011 10:47 pm
Elder Nikolai Gurianov (sometimes spelled "Nikolay Guryanov) was born May 26, 1909, in the village of Chudskie Zakhody, Gdov District of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, into a pious, long-established merchant family. From early youth, Nikolai served as an altarboy. In the 1920s, the parish to which he belonged was visited by Metropolitan Benjamin (later glorified as a hieromartyr) of Petrograd and Gdov. Here is how Nikolai described that event: “I was still only a child. Vladyka served, and I held his staff. Then he hugged me, kissed me, and said, ‘How fortunate you are to be with the Lord.’”
In 1926 he finished Gatchina Pedagogical College and in 1929 he received an incomplete pedagogical education at the Leningrad Institute, from which he was excluded for having stood up at a meeting against the closure of one of the nearby churches. During the period 1929-31 the future elder taught mathematics, physics and biology, and served as a chanter. In 1931, Gurianov was unjustly arrested, and sent to the prison "Kresty" (Crosses) in Leningrad, to a concentration camp near Kyiv in Ukraine and spent 7 years in Syktyvkar (Republic of Komi) in imprisonment. In his difficult trials, he encountered many spiritual strugglers, luminaries of the Orthodox Faith, whose examples set the path he would later take in serving God and the Church. Freed, Nikolai worked as teacher of mathematics in the schools of Tosno district since Leningrad residence was denied him. He chanted in a church there as well.
During World War II he was not mobilised due to the weakness of his feet which had been caused by work at the concentration camps. When Gdov district was occupied by German troops, Nikolai together with other residents was exiled to the Baltic. Here he became a student at Vilnius Theological Seminary in Lithuania which opened in 1942. After two semesters of seminary studies Gurianov was consecrated to the priesthood by the exarch Metropolitan Sergius (Voskresenkiy) at Riga Orthodox Cathedral of Christ`s Nativity in Latvia. Later, he served as priest at different parishes in the Baltic states. During 1949-1951 Nikolai studied part time at the Leningrad Theological Seminary and in 1951 was admitted for the first year to the Academy, but having completed one year of part-time studies he did not continue further.
In 1958, Fr. Nikolai was transferred to the Diocese of Pskov. At his request, he was assigned to be rector of the Church of St. Nicholas on Zalit Island on Lake Chudo . Fr. Nikolai served his first Liturgy there in 1958 on the Feast of the Protection of the Most-holy Theotokos, and it was there that he spent the next 44 years of his pastoral service. He eventually was elevated to Archpriest, and had the honor of wearng a bishops mitre and vestments and an episcopal panagia without being a bishop. It was also there that he became the one whom Orthodox believers in Russia and abroad know as Batiushka Nikolai, the Elder of Zalit Island.
The time of the “finding” of the Elder, i.e., the point at which he threw open the doors of his humble cell to everyone who was in need, came at the same time as the fall of the Soviet regime, the year that was the beginning of a second Baptism of Rus’. From that moment, the Russian Church began to gather unto itself a great multitude of new converts.
It was not easy for this flock of newly-born people, newly turned to the Church, to make firm a foundation for new life within themselves. The people had been too crippled by decades of atheism. To bolster and raise up their spirits demanded a leaven of absolutely unique power. It seems that it was provided to them by in the person of Elder Archpriest Nikolai, by the Lord, the invisible Head of the Church. He was that spiritual power that would penetrate not only into the souls of those drawn to Christ. In his presence, all of newly-baptized Russia , whose impression of righteousness had, at best, been gleaned from books, received a clear and comprehensible understanding of the meaning of Orthodox holiness. “Everything will be as you need it to be,” he would often say to fearful people, as if to say that no circumstance could hold sway over a Christian who had a true and unwavering faith.
People came to the Zalit spiritual struggler not just from all over Russia, but from throughout the world. Among many of those who were allowed to visit him in recent times were pop stars Andrei Makarevich and Valentina Tolkunova. From the middle of 1999 the starets did not meet anyone due to illness, which provoked pilgrims to such a point that complaints were written to the administration of the Russian president.
In his final year, before his blessed end, Nikolai, despite his illness nevertheless found the strength to receive pilgrims, to strengthen them and instruct them in faith. The thoughts of the starets spoken during these earthly conversations became a sort of spiritual testament for many Russian Orthodox.
Guryanov died on the night of August 24, 2002, at the age of 92. He was buried on August 26 on the island of Talabsk.
The following was written as an obituary shortly after the Elder's departure:
"Very recently the famous elder, known to all, Archpriest Nikolai Gurianov of the isle of Zalit reposed in the Lord. He was in his 93rd year. As his cell-attendants reported, Fr. Nikolai was fully conscious before his death, although he was so weak he could barely speak. When they felt that the elder was about to depart this life, they began to read the special service of the Canon for the departure of the soul from the body. He held a candle in his hand. One of his cell-attendants assisted him, but he held the candle fully consciously.
"And when they read the prayer of absolution, that is, at the very end of that service, he could tell that he was drawing his last breath. A cell-attendant said to him: 'Christ is Risen!' Very, very quietly, barely audibly, he whispered: 'Truly He is Risen!' and gave up his righteous soul. Truly Fr Nikolai’s death seemed more like a falling asleep, a dormition. Of course I do not know what those closest to him, who were next to him at that time experienced. But I will tell you what I experienced when I found out about his death and what I felt when I was present at the burial of that great elder."
Miracles:
- A spiritual child of the Elder has written the following: "Father Nikolai demonstrated amazing clairvoyance, knowledge of what was transpiring in a person’s soul and thoughts, knowledge of the future and of things far away. It was as if he could look into a book and read clearly and precisely the information written there about what we needed. Even when he was conversing with people who came to see him, he looked somewhat off to the side and above them. Indeed, one might think that Fr Nikolai was looking off somewhere and when he had read or heard something, he immediately passed it on to those who came seeking understanding from him."
- According to one biographer, the following is written: "Sometimes he himself would appear to people to bring them words of consolation, instruction, and criticism. It seemed that for him, neither temporal nor geographical limitations existed; it was as if he lived in a different space and in another body. I myself was an eyewitness to such happenings. I will mention but one example: The assistant conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra made a guest appearance in St. Petersburg. He spent some time with the Elder on the island, and related to him all of his misgivings: on the eve of his arrival, his wife had been in an automobile accident, and had experienced a miscarriage. This alarmed the husband, and evoked the mournful idea that in those events he should see God’s ill will toward the marriage. The Elder comforted the musician and said that his fears were unwarranted. The next day, the happy man telephoned his wife in America to share with her his happiness. 'I know everything,' answered his wife from the other end of the line. 'How did you hear?' asked the startled conductor. 'While I was dozing, he came to me in a dream with words of love and consolation.' A great many such incidents took place in his life."
- It is written of him that he used to find lost people and freed hostages from bandit captivity, all the while remaining in his tiny hut.
- He became particularly famous after a surviving sailor came to him and recognized in him the starets who appeared to him during an accident. The sailor had originally come to the island to see a respected man and only after recognized him.
- Gurianov was endowed with a special musical gift which he used in combination with his gift of clairvoyance. Starets loved ecclesiastical singing, and composed many spiritual songs and hymns which he performed himself. Many of his songs such as "Appraisal to the Mother of God", "To the Guardian Angel", "Savior, Warm My Soul", "Brotherly Hymn" and others became truly national indicating in the prophetic songs the way to true repentance.
"I came to Father Nikolai being torn with doubts about my life, with an empty, insignificant question and he in answer sang all my life in song and in the end said a few guiding words. And everything became clear to me, I said farewells in tears and left in peace and consoled - now I knew how should I live and what to do." - such stories were often heard from pilgrims, for many of whom the meeting with the Starets became the beginning of new life - life in Christ.
- There is also a reported weeping icon as well as a weeping photo of the Elder:
Prophecies:
- In September 1997, a group of 10 piligrims visited Nikolai in his wooden hut. He came out to bless people and anoint them with holy oil. One woman asked: "Father Nikolai, who will be after Yeltsin?" He replied: "Afterwards there will be the military one...His power will be short. But his age is little as he is himself. There will be persecutions, upon the monks and the church. His power will be as it was during the communists...". She asked again: "And what will be after? After will there be an Orthodox Tsar. Will we live to see that?" "You, yes." After those words he blessed the woman.
- In June 2002, a group of Orthodox priests and laity visited Nikolai for his blessing. He was asked: "Will we see an Orthodox Tsar?" Nikolai having traced the sign of the cross, prayed and firmly said "A Tsar is coming!"
Sayings:
- The Elder would ask all Orthodox: "And you, have you repented for the Tsar slain, for Russia laid waste, for the faith profaned?"
- "We don’t know ourselves, so we don’t raise our noses in the air."
- "Rejoice and be glad that we belong to Christ."
- "We must preserve, in a holy manner, the purity of Orthodoxy and what has been entrusted to us by the Holy Fathers. In order to do that, we have to explain, in a calm and peace-loving way, and by any means possible, how the Ecumenists have gone astray. We must not be silent, but must lovingly clarify, and must avoid any arguing."
- Once he was asked what he considered to be the most dangerous sin in the souls of people? Father Nikolai answered: "Unbelief! This is frightening." Even with Christians? they would ask. "Yes, even, with Orthodox Christians".
The pilgrims then asked: "Batushka [Russian for "Father"], what would you say to all Orthodox Christians about salvation? " He would answer: "Listen here, the believing man, he must...with abundance of love relate to everything that surrounds him. Understood? With abundance of love."
Controversy:
The room of Father Gurianov was filled with photos and images of Nicholas II and the Royal Family. He kept albums, films, and documentaries telling about the last Russia Tsar. With these it is said Gurianov also honored Tsar Ivan the Terrible and Rasputin.
My Response To The Controversy:
As far as Elder Nikolai's devotion to the last Royal Family of Russia, it is hardly a controversy anymore since all Orthodox Churches have recognized their canonization since the year 2000 as "Passion-bearers" - people who accepted their imminent death with Christian humility - and an appropriate apologia for their canonization was given by the Moscow Patriarchate as well as reported miracles throughout the world including weeping icons. More can be read here: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/tsarcanonization.htm.
As far as the extent Elder Nikolai honored Ivan the Terrible and Rasputin is up for speculation and the resources are not available to me. We should not jump to extremist conclusions based on hearsay. If he was in the wrong however, we should keep in mind that even a holy elder can jump to a wrong conclusion but still have the right intentions.
The controversial Metropolitan Ioann of St. Petersburg, who died in 1995, is noted as the originator of a movement to canonize Ivan the Terrible and Rasputin. Ioann taught that the monarchy was the last bastion of the Orthodox Faith in a battle against the anti-Christian forces of Jews, Freemasons and Western Christian heretics, who he said led the Russian people to atheism and liberalism. This was a minor movement that gained a loud voice over time and was severely criticized by the Moscow Patriarchate, though it got a lot of attention in the media. It is possible Elder Nikolai either was influenced by or even influenced this movement, but this information is not available at this time. If he was, he seems to not have been vocal about it.
What is important to keep in mind is that Elder Nikolai had no hatred in his heart and discouraged such an attitude to all his visitors. He was not anti-semetic either since Jews would visit him also, such as Andrei Makarevich mentioned above. His devotion to Tsar Ivan the Terrible may have only been a respect he showed to the man who established the Russian monarchy and he may have believed the ill-repute of Rasputin was part of a conspiracy or maybe he merely accepted the supposed endorsement of St. John of Kronstadt (which may or may not have been given). Today we seem to know the truth about Rasputin and the evidence points to the probability that he was a corrupt man who in fact aided in the fall of the monarchy. But there are many credible sources that argue Rasputin was a victim of slander, such as his daughter Maria. I don't see much harm in honoring Ivan the Terrible as a national hero. To me it is akin to the Romanian's honor of Vlad the Impaler as a hero. One should keep in mind that Russian tradition believes Tsar Ivan sincerely repented of his evil deeds and even though he murdered many innocent people it is said that he was fed false information thinking he did it for the greater good.
The only problem I see in this issue is if the honor goes so far as to seek canonization for Ivan the Terrible and Rasputin. No evidence points to the conclusion that this is what Elder Nikolai endorsed, and if he did it was probably because he was fed the wrong information. We simply do not have any information. As Patriarch Alexi said back in 2001, speaking of the drive for the canonization of Ivan the Terrible and Rasputin: "This is madness! What believer would want to stay in a church that equally venerates murderers and martyrs, lechers and saints?"
Video:
Below is a beautiful video of Elder Nikolai and shows what great devotion he inspired among the Russian people. The video is in Russian, but he can be heard saying: "My time is up, as the yesterday, like smoke my life is blown away, and the doors of death, dreadfully heavy, are so very close, so close to me."
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hd1U31Piy0[/youtube]
(Russian)
- Georgios Rossos
Re: archimandritis Ιωάννης Κρεστιάνκιν
by eternity » Fri Nov 18, 2011 11:03 pm
Τhank you also for your useful information. It will be food for thought for us .Welcome !
«Φώτισόν μου, το σκότος, Κύριε!» (Άγιος Γρηγόριος Παλαμάς).
-
eternity - Καθολικός Συντονιστής
- Posts: 7487
- Joined: Tue Nov 15, 2011 1:33 pm
Igumen Nikon Vorobev
by Georgios Rossos » Sat Nov 19, 2011 4:20 pm
A Quest for Truth on the Path of Reason. Igumen Nikon (Vorobiev)
Igumen Nikon (Vorobev)
It is impossible that man should never be troubled, if only for fleeting moments in his life, by these questions: Why do I live? What is the meaning of all existence? Where does everything end up? What is truth? For many, these questions have been questions of life and death.
It was for one twentieth-century ascetic of piety, Igumen (Abbot) Nikon (Vorobiev, †1963).[1] His thirst for answers to these questions was so great that when he was a student he would spend his last dime, literally going hungry, in order to buy books. He was able to read only at night. At first he immersed himself entirely in science. He followed all of its latest achievements. He yearned for the moment when science would give the final word, and all truth would be revealed. But alas, the more he learned, the more disappointed he became in the ability of science to explain anything about the meaning of life. He found that science was not at all interested in this question.
He turned to philosophy. At one time he became particularly interested in Henri Bergson.[2] He studied the French and German languages. Thanks to his astounding intellectual stamina and talent, he attained such success in philosophy that even his teachers would sometimes come to him for consultation. Even so, his immersion in philosophy never brought him the desired results.
“The study of philosophy,” he said at the end of his life,
Showed me that each philosopher considered he had found the truth. How many philosophers have there been? But there is only one truth. My soul yearned for something else. Philosophy is but a surrogate; it is like chewing gum instead of bread. Can chewing gum satisfy your hunger? I understood that just as science says nothing about God or the future life, neither does philosophy. It became perfectly clear to me that it was necessary to turn to religion.[3]
In 1914 he graduated brilliantly from realschule [secondary school emphasizing hard sciences —Trans.] and made a final attempt to find meaning in life without God, without the Church, entering the Petrograd Psychoneurological Institute. But there he met with no less disappointment. “I saw that psychology does not study man at all, only his ‘packaging’—the speed of mental processes, perception, memory.… Such nonsense; it was just as repugnant.” He left the institute after the first year. Soon he experienced a serious spiritual crisis. He began to have thoughts of suicide.
Then one day in the summer of 1915, in the town of Vyshny Volochok, when he suddenly felt a particular sense of total despair, a thought struck him like lightning about his childhood faith: What if God really does exist—shouldn’t He reveal Himself? But he was not a believer! From the depth of his soul, in his desperate state, he cried, “Lord, if You exist, reveal Yourself to me. I am not seeking You out of some earthly desire. I only need to know one thing—do You exist, or not?” And the Lord revealed Himself! He revealed Himself [so convincingly], that he said, “‘Lord, let anything happen to me, any sorrows, any tortures, only do not turn me away, do not deprive me of eternal life.’ With my whole soul, completely consciously, I said, ‘I don’t need anything, not family life, or anything else; only make it so that I should never fall away from You, that I should always be with You.’”
“It is impossible to relate,” said Fr. Nikon,
That action of grace which convinces a person of the existence of God with the power of something obvious, that leaves no room for the slightest doubt. The Lord reveals Himself as, for example, a bright ray of sun suddenly shines after dark clouds. You no longer doubt: was it the sun, or did someone shine a light? The Lord revealed Himself to me in such a way, that I fell to the ground with the words, “Lord, glory to Thee, I thank Thee. Grant me to serve Thee all my life. May all the sorrows and suffering on earth come upon me, only don’t let me fall away from Thee, or lose Thee.”
Then I heard the ringing of a large church bell. At first I paid it no attention. Then, when I saw that it was already almost three o’clock in the morning and the ringing continued, I remembered my mother’s words when she told me about the old people who would visit them and say that spiritual people sometimes hear bells ringing from heaven.
He was very unsure about this bell ringing, worried that it might have been a hallucination. He was reassured when he read the autobiography of Sergei Bulgakov, who related concerning his conversion experience that, “Not in vain did I hear the ringing of bells from heaven all that summer.” “Then,” remembers Fr. Nikon, “I also recalled Turgenev’s story ‘Living Relics,’ in which Lukeria also said that she heard ringing ‘from above,’ not daring to say, ‘from heaven.’” From this, Fr. Nikon came to the conclusion that “together with this spiritual experience, the Lord also allowed me to perceive my communion with heaven in a sensory way.” The Lord reveals Himself to some people in an internal way and at the same time, through special outward signs to assure and support them.
A radical change in world view happened in just one moment; it seems a miracle clearly occurred. Just the same, this miracle was the natural, logical completion of his search for truth on the path of reason. The Lord revealed the meaning of life to him, let him taste and see that the Lord is good, and let him know the Truth. This is what Fr. Nikon said about his first experiences after conversion:
After this, the Lord begins to lead a person along a complicated path, a very complicated path. I was amazed when I entered a church after this Divine revelation. I used to go to church earlier—out of compulsion; we were taken to church during high school also. But what did we do there? I would stand there like a pillar, without any interest, thinking my own thoughts.
But after my conversion my heart opened up a little, and the first thing I remembered when I entered the church was the story about Prince Vladimir’s ambassadors [to Constantinople], who upon entering the Greek Church did not know where they were—on heaven, or on earth. So the first perception in the church after experiencing such a state is that you are not on the earth. The Church is not the earth—it is a little piece of heaven. What joy it was to hear, “Lord have mercy!” This had an amazing effect on my heart; all the Services, continual remembrance of the name of God in various forms, the singing, the readings. It evoked a sort of ecstasy, joy; it filled me.…
When a person comes and falls down before the Lord, saying, “Lord, do as Thou wilt; I know nothing (and truly, what do we know?), do as Thou wilt, only save me,” then the Lord Himself begins to lead that person.
That young man really didn’t know anything about the spiritual path at that time, but he fell down with tears to God, and the Lord Himself led him. “He led me in such a way after this; I lived two years in Volochok, read books, and prayed at home.” This was the period of his “burning” heart,” as Fr. Nikon recalls. He did not see or hear what was happening around him. At that time he was renting half of a private house in Sosnovitsy (near Vyshny Volochok). He was twenty-two years old. On the other side of a thin dividing wall were dancing, song, laughter, and youthful games; they were having fun. They tried to invite him, too, for he was an interesting person—intelligent, attractive, and educated. But he had lost his taste for the world.
The next two years of his life were a time of unceasing spiritual labors, true asceticism. He was acquainting himself for the first time with the writings of the Holy Fathers, and reading the Gospels for essentially the first time. This is what he said about this period when he had reached the end of his life:
It was only in the Holy Fathers and the Gospels that I found something truly valuable. When a person begins to struggle with himself, when he tries to travel the path of the Gospels, then the Holy Fathers become something he needs, they become his family. A Holy Father becomes his closest teacher, who speaks to the soul; and the soul receives it with joy and is consoled. Those philosophers and various disgusting sectarian teachings evoked boredom, depression, and nausea; but I came to the Fathers as to my own mother. They soothed me, gave me wisdom, and fed me.… Then the Lord gave me the thought to enter the Moscow Theological Academy (in 1917). This meant very much to me.
From Chapter 3:2 of The Search for Truth on the Path of Reason, by Alexei Osipov (Pokrov Press/Sretensky Monastery, 2009)
A Biography of Abbot Nikon
Abbot Nikon (in the world, Nikolai Nikolaevitch Vorobiev) was born in 1894 into a large peasant family, in the village of Mikshino, Tver Province. Ever since childhood, he excelled in seriousness, impeccable honesty, remarkable warmth, concern for everyone, and an unquenchable thirst for ultimate truth, a thirst to comprehend the purpose of human existence.
Like most ordinary people of that time, he was brought up with only external, traditional religiosity, with no firm spiritual foundation or clear understanding of the essence of Christianity. Such an upbringing could at best instill in one only a healthy sense of morality; the future spiritual struggler very quickly lost his childish faith. With true zeal, he immersed himself in the study first of science, then philosophy, in the naive belief that truth was hidden therein. He quickly came to understand that that was not the case. Later he confessed "I came to understand that, just as science tells [us] nothing of God, of the life to come, neither will philosophy give us anything. The conclusion became absolutely clear: I had to turn to religion." His education at the Petrograd Institute of Psycho-Neurology brought him nothing but disillusionment: "I saw that psychology studies not [the whole] man, but only his "skin" - the rate of processes, perception, memory ... It was such nonsense, that it was repugnant to me." After tortured searching, and already with a feeling of total hopelessness, the 20-year old suddenly remembered the faith of his youth and, from the depths of his being, began to call out, almost in despair, "O Lord, if You exist, show Yourself! I am not seeking You for some mercenary reason. I need [to know] but one thing: do You exist, or not?" The Lord mysteriously showed Himself, and from that moment on, everything in Nikolai Vorobiev's life radically changed: Years of constant spiritual struggle and true asceticism followed. Cautiously and carefully, he used the Sacred Scriptures, which had become a source of real joy and comfort for him, to guide him in his spiritual life.
At the age of 36, after most serious testing of his powers, Nikolai Nikolaevitch Vorobiev accepted monastic tonsure, taking the name Nikon. One year later, Nikon became first a Hierodeacon, and soon thereafter, a Hieromonk. On March 23, 1933 (the anniversary of his tonsure) he was arrested and sentenced to 5 years in a Siberian camp. For several years after his release, deprived of the possibility of continuing to serve as a priest, Fr. Nikon worked as a physician's assistant in Vyshnyaya Volotchka. During World War II, many church buildings were returned to the Russian Orthodox Church, and it once again became possible for him to serve as a priest. In 1944 Hieromonk Nikon was appointed rector of the Annunciation Church in Kozelsk, where he served until 1948. Thereafter, he was transferred, first to Belev, then to the town of Efremov, then to Smolensk, and finally, in what he considered to be exile, to a then impoverished and run-down parish in the town of Gzhatsk.
At his new post, he at first had to endure incredible social and material difficulties. Almost immediately after receiving any money, batiushka would distribute it [to the needy], so he never had any money at all. His only possessions beyond the barest essentials consisted of books, primarily the writings of the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church.
In the last years of his life, when already an Abbot, Nikon was afflicted with a multitude of sorrows, secular difficulties, and vanities. Before his death, he said "That vanity allowed me to see that we ourselves alone are incapable of doing anything good." By his own admission, during that period he came to understand and to experience the beginnings of Christian humility, to experience what shows us "…that in and of ourselves, we are nothing; we are merely God's creation. Thus, of what do we have to be proud, and what do we have to compare with God?"
Before his death, Nikon endured one final trial, that of severe illness. For over three months prior to his death he was unable to ingest any food other than milk. Yet, he uttered no complaint, remained ever calm and focused, and most of the time had a little smile on his face. Right up to his death, he remained fully conscious and lucid, and expended all his energies on instructing those around him. He adjured them to preserve the faith by keeping the commandments and repenting; follow in all ways possible the teachings of Bishop Ignaty Biranchaninov; and take special care to avoid the vanities, that utterly desolate the soul and draw it away from God. To the mourners around his bed he would say: "There is no reason to feel sorry for me. Thanks be to God that I have already completed my earthly path. I never wanted to live; I did not see anything interesting in this life, and I was always amazed that others would find something in it and cling to it with all of their might. Although I have done nothing good in my life, I have always sincerely striven [to move] toward God. Therefore, with all my soul, I place my hope in God's mercy. The Lord cannot spurn one who always did as much as possible to strive toward Him. I feel sorry for you. What else are you to face? The living will envy the dead."
Abbot Nikon (Vorobiev)'s peaceful end came on September 7, 1963. He was buried in the town of Gzhatsk (now called Gagarin).
In the minds of those contemporary Orthodox Christians who sincerely seek after salvation, Abbot Nikon has deservedly become one of the great teachers of repentance in recent history. "Here, as I am dying, is my last will: Repent, think of yourselves as that publican, as sinners, implore God for His mercy and take pity on one another."
From the website of the Church of St. John the Baptist
Alexei Ilyich Osipov
07 / 09 / 2011
[1] See Maria Naumenko, Letters to Spiritual Children (by Igumen Nikon) (Richfield Springs, N.Y.: Nicodemos Orthodox Publication Society, 1997).
[2] Henri-Louis Bergson (1859–1941) was a French philosopher, influential in the first half of the twentieth century.
[3] This and following quotes by Igumen Nikon are taken from tape recordings.
- Georgios Rossos
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