Orthodox Faith - Elder - alphabet. Who are the Orthodox elders? Orthodoxy Elder
This time we are talking with Metropolitan of Saratov and Volsk Longinus about elders and elders. We all need the help of spiritually experienced people in our Christian life. How can this help be obtained? Is it necessary to look for a "real old man" for this? In general, the elders - who are they, do they exist today? And what danger can be hidden behind the desire to communicate only with the elders, not paying attention to the opportunities that our church life gives, visiting a parish church?
- Vladyka, what is eldership?- Elderly is a special phenomenon that arose in monasticism and previously related only to monastic life. But in Russia in the 19th century, the elders went beyond the gates of the monasteries - or, more precisely, the world came to the monastery to the elders.
In general, an elder is the confessor of the brethren or sisters of the monastery. The fact is that living in a monastery implies spiritual guidance, the opening by the novice of his thoughts to the elder - confessor, abbot. This is the only way to learn science from sciences - spiritual doing. In general, monasticism is what one learns from each other. And although there are many wonderful books about monasticism that preserve its spirit, they still cannot replace live communication and the transfer of personal experience of struggling with one's passions. Actually, this struggle is the goal and the basis of the monastic deed. That is why the tradition is so important in monasticism, which is passed on “friend to friend” (there is such a Slavic word): from the elders to the younger, from those who have been living in the monastery for a long time to the novices.
Eldership assumes that the elder completely guides the novice in the spiritual life. Ideally, a person should not have any thoughts or wishes hidden from the spiritual mentor. All his actions he must trust to the elder, and everything that he does, he must do only with a blessing. It is in such self-denial, obedience that the monastic tradition is transmitted.
In the 19th century, thanks to the activities of the disciples of the remarkable ascetic, the Monk Paisiy Velichkovsky, monasticism flourished in Russia, and Optina Pustyn became one of the centers of the revival of monastic activity - later a monastery known throughout Russia. In modern Romania there is the Nyametsky monastery, which also became famous thanks to the works of Elder Paisius and his associates. And to this day, the word "elder" exists in the Romanian language, it is not translated. The elder is the abbot of the monastery, the elder is the abbess, the house in which the abbot or abbess lives is the old age.
In the 19th century in Russia, it turned out that laypeople, from ordinary peasants to well-known educated people, began to come to the confessors of Optina Hermitage for confession or for advice on everyday issues. These are the Kireevsky brothers, and the circle that subsequently developed around the Optina elder Macarius and was engaged in translating patristic literature into Russian. This is N.V. Gogol, and F.M. Dostoevsky, and L.N. Tolstoy ... Although Lev Nikolaevich was the greatest confusion and blasphemer of the Orthodox Church, nevertheless, he was drawn to the elders. After all, his famous departure from Yasnaya Polyana was not just a departure to the Ostapovo station. There he was detained by his relatives and admirers, because they did not want him to reach his final goal. And it was he who went to Optina Pustyn ... The very list of names of very famous people who left a deep mark in the history of Russian culture, literature, philosophy, suggests that the phenomenon of old age was of interest to the widest circle of society.
And in other Local Churches the eldership developed in a similar way. In the early 1990s, I had to visit the spiritual father Elder Cleopa (Ilie), well-known throughout Romania, - a man of unusually deep, amazing ascetic for our time. He survived imprisonment, in the 1940-50s he lived for a long time in the forest, hiding from the authorities during the persecution of the Church in communist Romania. By the 1990s, he was revered throughout the country as one of the world's greatest elders.
I came to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra when the well-known Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov) was still in the power - a wonderful confessor, a real elder. Thanks to the book of Vladyka Tikhon (Shevkunov) "Unholy Saints", Father John (Krestyankin) became known without exaggeration to all of Russia - but even before that the whole Church knew him. These elders were unusually loving people, patient, gentle in dealing with those who came - and very demanding of themselves. This is a very important criterion.
And today there are many people (as a rule, these are monastic confessors) who not only fulfill their monastic obedience, but also help people who come to them from the world. In the akathist to the Monk Sergius there is a poetic comparison: "a vessel full of grace and overflowing." This is probably how every elder can be characterized.
- This is a very beautiful characteristic. But in the minds of the people, an old man is, first of all, a perspicacious person. Right now you talked about your meeting with the amazing Romanian elder Cleopa, and I really wanted to ask you: "Did he reveal something to you?"
“You know, yes. There were three of us. And when he was informed that three hieromonks, students from Russia, had come, he said: "Oh, the metropolitans are coming, let them in." And two of us are already metropolitans, the third is an archbishop ...
But I'm kidding, of course. I think it was just a joke on his part. But seriously speaking, the most unnecessary thing in the Christian life is the search for clairvoyance. In no case should you strive for this. By this “demand for a miracle,” and a miracle on the stream (if they go to the “elder” by buses), we profane everything - we profane faith, eldership as a phenomenon and, in general, Christianity itself.
An elder is precisely a spiritual mentor. And any confessor should still know the person, be with him for some time. A wonderful example of an elder of our time is, of course, the Monk Paisios Svyatorets, who spiritually nourished the convent in Suroti, now one of the best, most comfortable monasteries in Greece.
Therefore, when someone from the outside comes to an old man - real or simply reputed as such - and demands an immediate miracle and insight: "Come on, tell me my whole life, and what should I do next," this is actually blasphemy. Not a single spiritually experienced person will give in to such requests and claims and, most likely, will quietly let such a visitor go home, saying a few words of consolation to him. In the same place where the playing of such moods, genuine spiritual life begins, there is no real eldership and never has been.
- Are there any elders in our days?
- I think yes. There are also spiritually experienced people today both in monasteries and in parishes. Without them, the Church would be very hard. But here you need to be very careful, do everything carefully and with consideration. And we must be very careful about the now widespread type of relationship, including with God, which is expressed in the words: "You are for me, I am for You."
- Nevertheless, many are looking for elders precisely in order to receive some kind of special advice, instruction ...
- There is a wonderful passage in the "Psychic Teachings of Abba Dorotheus". Abba Dorotheos quotes the words of Scripture: "Salvation is in many things advice," but he emphasizes: not in "advice with many," but "in many things advice" with an experienced person. And here, unfortunately, they like to do this: "Here, I was with such and such an old man, now we will go to another old man, then to another one." This is, of course, completely wrong. If we saw a spiritually experienced person, were able to stay near him, this is sometimes more important than long speeches. From the biographies of many saints, we know that people, even just observing them from afar, were edified by this more than by words. There are such cases in the lives of St. Sergius of Radonezh, John of Rila, and many other saints. Because a person who has fulfilled the commandments of God and has become worthy of God's grace is so different from those around him that he himself serves as an edification. But, I repeat, especially today, in our days, it seems to me wrong to go and look for an elder. At best, it won't do any good. And, of course, a completely monstrous practice - when they collect buses for a "trip to the elder." It's just business.
- As a rule, such trips are still made without a blessing ...
- Nobody can forbid anything to anyone. We are free people, we live in a free country - I sat down and went wherever you want. Therefore, we - bishops, clergy - not that we “forbid” or “do not bless”, but we are trying to explain that spiritual life does not consist in traveling from one elder to another.
You know, sometimes some people have a disdainful attitude towards ordinary priests, like: “Here I was with the elder - yes! And in our church - what kind of priests are they? They have a wife, children, and in general they are still boys ... ". Such neglect is essentially a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which is poured out on every priest at the moment of ordination and gives him the power to "knit and decide."
- Vladyka, you reminded about Elder Paisius Svyatogorets. I think that he still nourishes people - through his books. May be, modern man should this be the way to seek spiritual guidance?
- I think a modern person needs to go to church, participate in sacraments, read spiritual literature, including the books of those people who were spiritually experienced and enjoyed the disposition of their flock during their lifetime. And the Lord will send in due time everything that is needed - a good spiritual father, a good church community. And if it is necessary for a person, he will lead him to some kind of monastery. And there he will meet a monk, perhaps not glorified, not one of those to whom “spiritual tourists” travel in full buses, but someone who can give advice - which is exactly what this person needs, and at this particular time. And if a person hears this advice, fulfills - he will receive the greatest benefit that can only be obtained.
Newspaper "Orthodox Faith" № 12 (608)
This book is about a unique phenomenon of Russian spiritual culture: the Orthodox elders. It includes brief biographies of the elders, their sayings, teachings and advice, prayers to them, as well as information from previously inaccessible archives. The publication presents not only already well-known elders, whose biographies have been described more than once in Orthodox literature, but also those whose activities have so far remained not so famous. Each of the elders has his own destiny and his own character, but all of them are united by love for God and their spiritual children. And although little is known about many of them, some fragments of biographies are still shrouded in mystery, but their deeds, the memories of their spiritual children, who remember their mentors with love and warmth, remain. And if in our time many of us had such mentors, perhaps there would be more kindness and light in the world.
* * *
The given introductory fragment of the book Orthodox Elders: Life, Wisdom, Prayers (L.N.Slavgorodskaya, 2013) provided by our book partner - the company Liters.
Elders of ancient times
Saint Basil the Great
Basil the Great was born in Caesarea in Cappadocia. He came from a wealthy family known in Pontus and Cappadocia. His teaching was first directed by his father, a respected rhetorician in Pontus. Saint Basil received his further education in Caesarea in Cappadocia, in Constantinople, and, finally, in Athens.
Theophanes the Greek. Basil the Great. 1405
Here he met with Gregory the Theologian, and a friendship struck up between them, a deep spiritual closeness was established. A few years later, Saint Basil returned to Caesarea and first began teaching rhetoric. Then, following the admonitions of his sister, he decided to renounce the world and indulge in ascetic deeds.
At this time, he received baptism from the Caesarean Archbishop Dianius and was consecrated by them as a reader.
Then, to get acquainted with the monastic life, Saint Basil set off on a journey through Syria, Palestine and Egypt, where he became closely acquainted with the life of the ascetics.
Upon his return from the trip, Vasily distributed his property to the poor and retired to Pontus, where in the desert near Neocaesarea he indulged in ascetic deeds.
Saint Gregory of Nazianzus often visited him here; the ascetics spent time together in prayer, studying the Holy Scriptures and the works of the Church Fathers and church writers.
Here the friends jointly compiled a collection of Origen's works entitled Origenus Philokalia - Origen's Philanthropy (not to be confused with the Philosophy of Philosophy, compiled at the end of the 17th century by Macarius of Corinth and St. .).
Saint Basil, with the help of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, wrote the Rules of Monastic Life.
About 363 the successor to Bishop Dianius Eusebius of Caesarea summoned Saint Basil to Caesarea, consecrated him to the dignity of presbyter, and made him his assistant in preaching and in administrative affairs.
According to the old Orthodox tradition, miraculous icons were carried over the sick to get rid of serious ailments.
During these years, with the accession of Valens, the movement of heretical teachings intensified; the Caesarean region also began to experience the danger of their spread. Saint Basil, a zealous supporter of the Nicene confession, by all means resisted the threat of heresies and, in fact, headed the defenders of Orthodoxy in Caesarea, since Bishop Eusebius was a poorly educated person from the point of view of theology. Eusebius, who was raised from among the laity, had difficulty in understanding the difficult church situation.
After the death of Bishop Eusebius, Saint Basil was chosen as his successor. In the rank of Archbishop of Caesarea, Saint Basil was the leader of about 500 bishops of his district.
Saint Basil considered his main task to be the defense of the Orthodox faith from heretical turmoil.
Saint Basil died on January 1, 379. He was not yet fifty years old. He burned out in a terrible fire that blazed in the East and which he selflessly extinguished.
Prayers to St. Basil the Great
O great hierarch, God-wise universe to the teacher, blessed Father Basil! Great deeds and your labors, even for the glory of the holy Church, you have done: you are a firm confessor and the lamp of the faith of Christ on earth, you shine the light of the knowledge of God, burn false teachings, and proclaim the word of saving truth to the whole world. Now, commanding in heaven, have boldness towards the Holy Trinity, help us, with humility falling towards you, firmly and invariably preserve the holy Orthodox faith until the end of our life; soul-destroying teachings in words. Holy spirit of zeal, you flamed with it, O glorious Church of Christ to the shepherd, kindle with your intercession and in us, make them the same Christ to be shepherds, so we wholeheartedly enlighten and strengthen the verbal flock of Christ in the right faith. Ask, O merciful saint, from the Father of lights and to everyone, every gift is worthless: a good baby in the passion of God, for young chastity, for the old and the weak, for consolation for those who grieve, for healing ailing, for mistaken discipline and correction, for offended intercession for orphans and for orphans and Those who are tempted with grace-filled help, those who have departed from this temporary living, our fathers and brethren, a blessed repose. To her, holy God, look mercifully from the abode of the mountains on us humble, many temptations and misfortunes overwhelmed, and from the earth, raise those who are committed to the height of heaven. Grant us, gracious Father, your archpastoral and holy blessing, and this overshadowing, in this new summer and at all other times of our life in the world, repentance and obedience to the Holy Orthodox Church, we will live, the commandments of Christ diligently creating, laboring ascetic to the good faith, and so on We will reach the Kingdom of Heaven, where with you and all the saints vouch for the Holy Trinity, Consubstantial and Inseparable, petit and glorify forever and ever. Amen.
O great and most holy saint, Father Basil, glorious to the universal Church teacher, the glory of the Most Holy Trinity, an all-consuming champion, Mother of God and Her most blameless virginity, a pre-chosen confessor, blessed of purity, humility and patience. Sez, many sinful and unworthy to gaze at the heights of heaven, I humbly pray to you, O wise Church of Christ, to the teacher, teach me to lead my life in such a God-fearing way, but never on the path, by God's command, I will be disgusted, I will deviate or be seduced. Observe and deliver me with your powerful intercession from the temptations of the world and the wiles of the devil, as you delivered a young man from them, retreated from our Sweet Savior and fell into the power of Satan. Grant me spiritual strength to be an imitator of your high virtues: make me firm and unshakable in faith, strengthen me faint-hearted in patience and trust in the Lord, kindle true Christ's love in my heart, and I wish heavenly blessings more than anyone else and delight in them. Ask the Lord for me sincere regret about sin, so that the rest of my life in the world, repentance and fulfillment of the commandments of Christ, I will escort. When the hour of my end draws near, you, O gracious Father, with the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, then hurry up to help, protect me from the evil slander of the enemy, and grant me the heir of the existence of Paradise villages, but buy with you and with all the saints of the impregnable Majesty of God to the Throne I will appear and the Living-initial, Consubstantial and Indivisible Trinity I glorify and sing, ever and ever. Amen.
Venerable Seraphim, Sarov wonderworker
Reverend Seraphim was born on July 19, 1754 in the Kursk province. His father Isidor Moshnin was a merchant and took contracts for the construction of buildings, and his mother, Agafya Moshnina, was engaged in raising children and doing household work. At birth, the boy was given the name Prokhor, which he bore before taking monastic vows at the age of 32.
The first miracle happened to the boy in early childhood. Prokhor's father began the construction of the cathedral in Kursk, but died before the completion of the work, and his wife continued his work. Once she took Prokhor with her to the construction site, and he, still a young child, ascending the bell tower, stumbled and fell down. One can understand the state of the mother ... But everything is God's will: going downstairs, she found her son unharmed.
The child grew up. He was not like his peers: pampering and noisy games were not for him, he found himself in solitude, reading holy books and attending church services. And then one day he fell seriously ill. The doctors were powerless.
After some time, when the child no longer had any strength, in a vision the Mother of God herself appeared to him ... She kindly consoled the child, said that there was just a little more patience, and he would be healthy again.
The day after the vision, a procession was going on by the house where the Moshnins lived: carried the shrine of all Russia and the city of Kursk - the miraculous icon of the Mother of God- Kurskaya Korennaya. Seeing the procession from the window, Prokhor's mother, taking him in her arms, quickly left the house to meet those walking: according to the old Orthodox tradition, miraculous icons were carried over the sick to get rid of serious ailments ... This was the case with little Prokhor. And the miracle happened! Prokhor began to recover quickly, and his desire to serve the Lord grew stronger every day: Prokhor dreamed of becoming a monk.
His mother did not interfere with his desire and blessed him on the monastic path with a crucifix, which Prokhor wore on his chest all his life. Having made a pilgrimage on foot from Kursk to Kiev to worship the Caves saints, Prokhor knew God's will through the elder Dositheus, a hermit monk of the Kirovo-Pechersk monastery: he must go to the Sarov monastery, where the Holy Spirit will lead him to salvation, where he will end his earthly days.
Seraphim Sarovsky
After listening to the reclusive monk, Prokhor, bowing at his feet, set off on his way and in November 1778 came to Sarov to the abbot, Father Pachomius, who affectionately received the young man and appointed Elder Joseph as his confessor.
Life passed in daily service to God, but even this did not seem enough to Prokhor: his soul was striving for solitude. He told his confessor about his desire. The wise elder blessed him from time to time to retire in the monastery forest for prayer.
Two years passed in this way. Prokhor fell ill with dropsy. Despite the prayers and courting of the monastery elders, he was getting worse and worse. On the offer to call him a doctor, Prokhor refused, saying that he had surrendered himself into the hands of the Lord God and His Most Pure Mother.
And again a miracle happened: in an unspeakable light, the Mother of God appeared, accompanied by the holy apostles John the Theologian and Peter. The Mother of God touched Prokhor's side with a rod, and at the same hour the liquid filling his body began to flow out of him. Prokhor recovered quickly. Later, on the very spot where the apparition of the Mother of God was, a hospital church was built. The altar for one of the side-chapels Prokhor built with his own hand from a cypress tree and always received the Holy Mysteries in this church.
At the age of 32, Prokhor was tonsured a monk and received the name Seraphim, which means "fiery." Continuing his ministry with even greater diligence and diligence, Seraphim was ordained a hierodeacon and spent another six years in the ministry.
And again a miracle! During the liturgy on Maundy Thursday “I was illuminated by a light in which I saw our Lord God Jesus Christ in glory, shining, brighter than the sun, ineffable light and surrounded by angels, Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim. From the church gates He walked through the air, stopped opposite the pulpit and, raising His hands, blessed the servants and worshipers. Then he entered the local image, which is near the royal gates. I, the earth and the ashes, have been rewarded with a special blessing from Him. My heart then rejoiced in the sweetness of love for the Lord. "
After this vision, the Monk Seraphim seemed to have turned to stone: having changed in his face, he could not even utter a word, and, being brought into the altar under his arms, stood motionless for more than two hours. Coming to his senses and realizing what had happened, the Monk Seraphim spent all the nights until morning in prayer.
Upon reaching the age of 39, Seraphim left the monastery and settled in a wooden cell in a deep forest on the banks of the Sarovka River, five miles away from the monastery.
Leading an ascetic lifestyle, he still served God, tortured his flesh. He ate forest grass, and carried a bag of stones and sand over his shoulders, on top of which lay the Gospel. When asked why he carried a weight on his back, he replied: "I torment the tormenting me."
And once another miracle happened to him. He was chopping wood in the forest when three vagrants approached him and began to demand money. One of the robbers exclaimed:
“Many come to you to ask for your prayers, and they certainly bring both gold and silver!
The Monk Seraphim objected:
“I don’t take anything from anyone.
The robbers did not believe it and began to beat him. Father Seraphim was very strong and strong, and he had an ax in his hands. But he was a monk and could not answer blow for blow, therefore, surrendering himself into the hands of God, he threw away the ax and said:
- Do what you need!
After beating Seraphim and leaving him near the cell, the robbers began to look for money in the cell, but found there only an icon and several books ...
When Father Seraphim came to his senses, overcoming the pain, he thanked the Lord for his salvation and prayed for the forgiveness of the evildoers, and in the morning he wandered off to the monastery.
The called doctors found that Seraphim's head was broken, his ribs were broken, and terrible bruises and wounds on his body. The monk fell asleep. And in a dream, the Mother of God appeared before him with the apostles Peter and John. “What are you working on? – asked, turning to the doctors, the Most Holy Theotokos. – This one is of my kind! "
Waking up, the Monk Seraphim felt how strength returned to him, and on the same day he rose to his feet. But he returned to the forest, to the seclusion, only five months later, and the saint's back remained bent forever ...
And then they managed to catch the robbers, they soon came to ask for forgiveness, and Seraphim, out of the kindness of his soul, forgave them, since he considered such people not bad, but sick.
Improving in prayer, the Monk Seraphim embarked on the most difficult task - the feat of pillar-dwelling.
From 1804 to 1807, the Monk Seraphim, without speaking to anyone, spent 1000 days and 1000 nights in prayer, standing on the stones: one was in his cell, and the other stood in the forest thicket. On the stone in the cell, Seraphim stood from morning to evening, and at night he walked to the stone in the forest thicket. Raising his hands to heaven, he prayed, reciting a prayer: "God, have mercy on me, a sinner».
After the death of Seraphim, the stone that was in the forest was split into pieces, and its fragments went to pieces throughout Russia.
In 1810, the Monk Seraphim returned to the monastery, where for many years he retired to the seclusion of a monastic cell. There he did not receive anyone, but only prayed, sitting on a stump that served as a chair for him, in front of an icon and a lamp. And so 17 years passed ...
And again the vision of the Mother of God, who gave him a blessing to get out of seclusion, and the command to receive visitors and help them spiritually. This news quickly spread throughout Russia, and the crowd of the afflicted moved to the elder for help: every day, after the early liturgy and until late in the evening, he received people. Possessing the gift of clairvoyance, he felt a spiritual state, thoughts and circumstances that led to him thirsty for healing and spiritual help.
At the end of the earthly journey, the Mother of God again visited Seraphim, predicting his imminent death, and blessed him to prepare for the transition to another world. The elder and the saints accompanying the Mother of God blessed this. The Mother of God repeated again: "This one is of our kind." The visit to the Mother of God was in the presence of one of the Diveyevo sisters, who then spoke about it.
Monument to Seraphim of Sarov. Photo by Y. Chernikova
Another Monk Seraphim passed away on January 2, 1833, at the 79th year of his life, as he prophesied: "My death will open with fire."
January 1, 1833, Sunday, the Monk Seraphim in last time visited the church, received communion and lit candles to the icons. He was very weak, but calm and joyful. Saying goodbye to the brethren, he blessed and consoled everyone.
And the next day, one of the monks smelled smoke emanating from Seraphim's cell. Entering it, he saw the monk, kneeling, with his hands lying on the analogue, on which his head rested, and books smoldering from a fallen candle. There was no fire. The monk touched the monk on the shoulder, but there was no answer.
Long before his death, the Monk Seraphim made with his own hand an oak coffin, in which he was buried near the monastery cathedral.
From early childhood, being under the protection of the Lord, he acquired for himself great spiritual purity and was honored from God with the highest grace-filled gifts of teaching, insight, miracles and healings.
The Monk Seraphim appeared to many during his lifetime and in sleepy visions and healed from pernicious diseases, especially in the cholera time, when not only individuals, but also inhabitants of entire villages were healed from the water blessed from the Seraphim spring by the grace of God.
The demon-possessed saint of God sometimes healed only by his presence, the cross and prayer. Seraphim's prayers were so strong before God that there were examples of the recovery of the sick from the deathbed.
Prophecy of Seraphim of Sarov
At the beginning of the 20th century, the expectation of the end of the world was associated with the name of the Monk Seraphim. At the end of the century, the same thing was observed. "There will be once a King who will glorify me, - predicted the Sarov miracle worker, - after which there will be a great turmoil in Russia, a lot of blood will flow for the fact that they will rebel against the Tsar and His Autocracy, but God will magnify the Tsar. " “And the sorrow after the glorification of his name will be as follows,- Father said further, - that the angels will not have time to carry souls to heaven. " The predicted came true.
The saints, for their righteous life, invaluable help in healing from diseases that medicine cannot cope with, the spiritual self-improvement of the suffering, are glorified not only by sinful people who received help from them, but also by the Lord God himself. Sometimes he gives us, sinners and unbelievers, visible confirmation of the holiness of a person. So it was with the Monk Seraphim of Sarov.
It is customary in the Orthodox Church to reveal holy relics. This tradition, according to St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, "Are committed:
1) in fulfillment of the will and instructions of God, for miracles of healings testify that the Lord chose the remains of his saints by means of His mercies to people and help to those in need;
2) because the holy relics have a religious and moral effect on the human soul, serve as a living reminder of the saint, excite believers to imitate his exploits and unite the earthly Church with the heavenly, testifying to the existence of an immortal soul and eternal life;
3) in view of the fact that the holy relics are a guarantee of the participation of the saints of God in our prayers;
4) because the holy relics ... are a precious gift to help people. "
According to this tradition, on July 29, 1903, in the 150th year since the birth of the Monk Seraphim, in the temples of the Sarov Hermitage, All-night vigils were held for the ever-memorable Hieromonk Seraphim. In Sarov, about three hundred thousand people gathered to participate in this significant event, and on July 30, a grandiose procession of the cross from the Diveyevo monastery to the Sarov desert took place.
The emperor and his family also arrived to take part in the event, as the Monk Seraphim himself predicted.
In the evening of the next day, the All-night Vigil began, at which the Monk Seraphim was glorified in the face of saints, and the next day the Divine Liturgy was served, after which the holy relics were carried around the throne and placed in a prepared shrine, after which a procession with the holy relics was performed around the monastery churches. ...
Upon the return of the procession, the worshipers knelt down, Metropolitan Anthony read a prayer to the Monk Seraphim, and the service ended. But prayer singing did not stop at night. This is how the pilgrims glorified the Monk Seraphim of Sarov.
Seraphim's prayers were so strong before God that there were examples of the recovery of the sick from the deathbed.
And then the October Revolution took place. You know very well what happened to the royal family, as well as the fact that after many decades, by God's will, the king and his family will also be canonized. "The villains will raise their heads high,- he said. - This will be sure: the Lord, seeing the unrepentant malice of their hearts, will allow their undertakings for a short time, but their illness will turn to their head, and the untruth of their destructive plans will come down to their top. The Russian land will be stained with rivers of blood, and many nobles will be beaten for the Great Sovereign and the integrity of his autocracy; but the Lord is not completely angry and will not allow the Russian land to collapse to the end, because in it alone Orthodoxy and the remnants of Christian piety are predominantly preserved..
Before the birth of the Antichrist, a great long war and a terrible revolution will take place in Russia, exceeding any human imagination, for the bloodshed will be the most terrible: the Razinsky, Pugachev's riots, the French Revolution - nothing in comparison with what will happen to Russia. There will be the death of many people loyal to the fatherland, the plundering of church property and monasteries, the desecration of the churches of the Lord, the destruction and plundering of wealth kind people, rivers of Russian blood will spill ... "
The time is coming for another prophecy of the monk to be fulfilled.
An amazing document has survived in the Russian paternal tradition, which is only today gaining wide publicity. This is about " Diveyevo secret”, Where Father Seraphim confessed to Motovilov that he would not lie in his flesh in Sarov. "The Lord God is pleased to take me, poor Seraphim, until the time of sowing a temporary life and therefore resurrect, and my resurrection will be like the resurrection of seven youths in the Okhlonskaya cave in the days of Theodosius the Youngest."
Every Christian knows about the resurrection of the four-day Lazarus, but few know the story of the resurrection of the seven Ephesian youths.
In the 3rd century, during the pagan persecution, seven young Christians took refuge in a mountain cave near the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor and, confident of their imminent demise, indulged in fasting and prayer. Indeed, the persecutor Decius filled up the inlet with stones so that the rebellious would die of starvation. And now, 170 years later, during the reign of Theodosius the Younger (408–450), the entrance to the cave was accidentally opened, and the young men, who had not aged at all, came out from there as living evidence of the resurrection of the dead. A miracle is not a violation of the laws of nature - it is a phenomenon that occurs in accordance with the laws of another, unknown to us cosmos ...
According to the testimony of the church historian Nicephorus Callistus, the emperor of Theodosius himself personally came from Constantinople to Ephesus to bow to the rebels as a wondrous testimony of the truth of Christ. He stayed in communion with them for seven days, after which the young men fell asleep peacefully, already before the Last Judgment, and their relics were glorified by many miracles.
This fact also exists independently of church tradition, by the power of historical reliability. It is found in the Ethiopian calendar and other Roman martyrologies; the relics of the youths were seen by the Russian abbot Daniel, who made a famous journey to the East in the 12th century; the Syrian Maronites, who broke away from the Orthodox Church in the 7th century, nevertheless continued to venerate the youths; a contemporary of the event, St. John Kolov, attested to it in the life of the Monk Paisius the Great (July 19). It is no coincidence that Elder Nektarios once said about the science of history: "She shows us how God leads nations, and gives, as it were, moral lessons to the Universe ..."
With the coming to power of the Bolsheviks, an atheistic attack on the Church began and a campaign was announced to open the relics, and in 1920, at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, chaired by V.I. Lenin was instructed by the People's Commissariat of Justice to develop regulation on the elimination of relics "on an all-Russian scale», and already in November 1920, the 9th uyezd congress of Soviets made a decision to dissect the shrine with the remains of the Monk Seraphim of Sarov. The relics were opened on December 17. In April 1927, they were removed from the Sarov Monastery and taken away in an unknown direction.
Trinity Cathedral of the Seraphim-Diveevsky Monastery
Presumably, they were transported to the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow, but then there was no information about their location, traces were lost. But the Orthodox, with God's help, did not lose hope of finding them.
The Monk Seraphim predicted that after his resurrection he would move to Diveyevo, which would be called so not by the name of the village, but by the world diva. Diveyevo and will become a place of salvation during the time of the Antichrist . "When the century is over, - said the father, - First, the Antichrist will remove the crosses from the temples and destroy the monasteries, and he will destroy all the monasteries. But it will come up to yours, it will come up, and the groove will become from earth to heaven! He can't even get up to you, he won't let a groove anywhere, so he'll go away. "
It is in Diveyevo that the preaching of world repentance will open in preparation for the Day of the Last Judgment, when the Lord will appear with the angels in flaming fire, so that "To separate the God-loving from the voluptuous and the humble-wise from the peace-loving"(Venerable Ambrose of Optina). A multitude of people from all over the world will gather for this sermon; this is the Diveyevo mystery of piety. And four relics will be opened, and the Monk himself will lie between them. "Few saints rest in Sarov, father, but there are no open relics, they never will, but I, poor Seraphim, will have them in Diveyevo!"
For many years, these prophecies were very vague, but now, at the end of 1990, in the Kazan Cathedral of St. Petersburg (in Soviet time- Museum of Atheism) when the museum was transferred from the Kazan Museum, the relics of Russian saints were discovered: holy noble Prince Alexander Nevsky, saints Zosima, Savvaty and German of Solovetsky.
In one of the premises of the cathedral, containing tapestries, an unremarkable mat was found, which does not have any identifying details. Opening it, those present discovered unknown relics, on which there was a copper cross and mittens, on which were embroidered: "Reverend Father Seraphim" and "Pray to God for us." The find made an indelible impression on those present, and the director of the museum informed Patriarch Alexy II about it.
With the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, a thorough examination of the relics was carried out. Their correspondence was established according to the detailed description in the acts of canonization of 1903 and according to the protocol of withdrawal.
The relics found in the museum completely coincided with the description of the relics in the documents. There was no doubt about the rediscovery of the relics of the Monk Seraphim of Sarov.
In the presence of the archbishops, the vestments and placement in the shrine of the venerable relics of the Monk Seraphim were performed; on January 11, 1991, in the Kazan Cathedral, a solemn ceremony of transferring them to His Holiness the Patriarch took place.
From early morning until late evening, people walked and walked in all places where the relics were transferred, applied to the holy relics, anointed with consecrated oil. The people rejoiced and rejoiced. Six months passed in this way.
After a six-month celebration in St. Petersburg and Moscow, the relics of Father Seraphim, according to the prophecy, were solemnly transferred to Diveyevo.
The procession ended in Diveyevo on July 30. The prophetic words of the Most Holy Seraphim were fulfilled: his holy relics are in the Trinity Cathedral of the Seraphim-Diveevsky Monastery. Thousands of people still go to him to ask for and receive protection and help.
But in our time, one more prediction of the Monk Seraphim is especially relevant: "The Lord will have mercy on Russia and lead her through suffering to great glory." So let us all work together to ensure that this prophecy is fulfilled as soon as possible.
Prayer to Seraphim of Sarov
Oh, wonderful father Seraphim, the great Sarov miracle worker, a hasty helper to everyone who comes running to you! In the days of your earthly life, no one is thin from you and is not comforted by leaving, but the vision of your face and the benevolent voice of your words was quick to everyone in sweetness. To this, the gift of healings, the gift of insight, the gift of the weak souls of healing, appear abundant in you. Whenever God calls you from earthly labors to heavenly rest, your love will cease from us, and it is impossible to eat, count your miracles, multiplied, like the stars of heaven: behold, all over the end of our earth, God's people appear and grant them healings. The same we cry out to you: oh, the prettiest and meek servant of God, bold to him a prayer book, who doesn’t call you to cut off, lift up your benevolent prayer for us to the Lord of forces, may it strengthen our state, may it grant us all that is useful in this life and all to the soul useful to salvation, may it protect us from the falls of sinful and true repentance, may it teach us, to bring us into the eternal Kingdom of Heaven without any doubt, wherever you are now in the everlasting glory, where you can sing with all the saints Life-giving Trinity until the end of the century. Amen.
Second prayer
O great saint of God, reverend and God-bearing our Father Seraphim! Look at us from the furnace of glory, the humble and the weak, burdened with many sins, your help and consolation of those who ask. Come to us with your mercy and help us to preserve the Lord's commandments immaculately, keep the Orthodox faith firmly, earnestly bring repentance in our sins to God, prosper gracefully in the piety of Christians and are worthy of your intercession in prayer to God for us. She, holy of God, hear us praying to you with faith and love, and do not despise us who demand your intercession: now and at the hour of our death, help us and intercede with your prayers from the evil slander of the devil, may we not have those power, but let us be worthy of thy help to inherit the bliss of the heavenly abode. We place our hope on you, merciful Father: truly guide us to salvation and lead us to the non-evening light of eternal life by your divine intercession at the throne of the Most Holy Trinity, may we glorify and sing with all the saints the venerable name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, till the end of time. Amen.
Prayer three
O Venerable Father Seraphim, the True God, zealous to the zealous, the Orthodox Church is a new adornment, the wondrous ascetic of Christian piety! We come running to you, we ask you, we open our thoughts to your sorrowful souls. Pray to God for people who are overwhelmed by the passions and vanity of this world: do not stop praying to Him for all those who come to you and ask for your help. Do not despise our little zeal, multiply this through your prayer. Grant us by the grace of God deliverance from sorrows and healing from diseases, heal our mental and bodily ailments, direct our minds to the knowledge of the Orthodox faith, and help us all the commandments of God. Save the minds of Orthodox people from obscuration and unbelief, but you have to create the love of Christ for each other, and so in the piety of Christ, prosperous, in the joy of the heart we exclaim to you: Rejoice, our helper; rejoice, our healing; rejoice, our consolation; rejoice, our healing; rejoice, our consolation; rejoice, our joy; Reverend Father Seraphim, and grant us your joy forever and ever. Amen.
Exaltation
We bless you, reverend Father Seraphim, and we honor your holy memory, mentor of monks and interlocutor of Angels.
Troparion, voice 4
From the youth of Christ you loved, more blessed, and to the One who worked ardently with lust, you fought with unceasing prayer and labors in troubles, having acquired the love of Christ with a tender heart, the chosen one is beloved Mother of God Thou hast appeared. For this, for the sake of thy cry: save us with thy solitaries, Seraphim, venerable our Father.
Kontakion, voice 2
Having left the beauty of the world and even perishable in it, venerable, you have moved into the Sarov monastery: and having lived there like an angel, you had a path to salvation for many: for this sake, Christ, to you, Father Seraphim, glorify, and enrich with the gift of healings and miracles. With the same cry: Rejoice, Seraphim, venerable our father.
The Orthodox Church differs from the evangelical ones widespread today by its rich heritage and traditions. The traditions of the elders are especially controversial, since Protestants categorically refuse to recognize anyone's human authority, except the apostles. However, for the correct formation and existence of the Church, the presence of wise and respectable people in it is simply necessary.
Meaning and history of the term
Among the Orthodox people, you can often hear the words "We will ask the elder", "We will consult with the venerable elder", why do they say that and what does the name "elder" mean? This concept can be found in the Bible and church traditions, but even today it is found in modern Orthodox literature and the colloquial speech of believers.
The designation "old man" indicates special abilities minister of the church
Very often, when the word "elder" is heard in people, a picture of a tall gray-haired old man, who is leaning on a staff and dressed in a cloak or a simple hoodie, appears in their heads. For some reason, they believe that he should go from city to city, beg and prophesy to everyone. In fact, things are a little different.
Read about Orthodox elders:
In Orthodoxy, many types of asceticism are widespread, among them both hermitism and monasticism, as well as the elders. This asceticism means the spiritual guidance of a person who has lived a full mature life over younger believers and monks. At the same time, the elder does not have to be of old age, because wisdom cannot be measured in years, therefore it can be given by the Lord to a very young person.
Important! An elder is, first of all, a wise and spiritually mature person who can instruct others on the path, can give correct advice in spiritual life.
For the first time, such asceticism as eldership was recorded on the territory of Greece around the 10th century AD. Then a certain community of monasteries was formed there, headed by an elderly man. It was he who made decisions important for the community, resolved conflicts and difficult situations, and also represented the entire monastic community.
In Russia, eldership was born on the territory of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, where monastic life was concentrated at that time. There, too, a mentor led the community of monks and was their representative. Most often, he became a monk in his youth and by his old age (maybe 40-50 years old) with his life he won spiritual authority for himself.
In a monastery, a father could be an abbot, a leader, or simply a revered brother - everything depended on a person's personal ambitions and aspirations.
Elders in Orthodoxy
Despite the fact that this concept is extremely common and often found in Orthodox literature, it is not officially recognized in the modern church, i.e. a person cannot be officially called an elder.
Church eldership in Orthodoxy has existed since the 10th century
Most often, this popular rumor calls wise servants or monks, and thus spreads the message about him among people. Only once in the speech of the Holy Patriarch was the expression "holy elder" about the eminent John Krestyankin, which happened after his death.
Attention! The official list of the Russian Orthodox Church, which lists the names of such venerable people, simply does not exist.
This uncertainty causes a number of certain problems, because without official recognition as the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, anyone can call himself a spiritual mentor. And since they have great influence among the people, it is so very easy to spread heresies and false theological dogmas. Today, members and leaders of many sects call themselves confessors, thus misleading ordinary laity and bringing them a lot of trouble, first of all, darkening their hearts and leading astray their spirit.
Nevertheless, a number of Orthodox canonized saints during their lifetime were precisely the fathers-mentors - wise and spiritually mature people, to whom they turned for help and advice. Sergei Radonezhsky, Spiridon Trimifuntsky, Alexander Svirsky - all of them were venerable people of God during their lifetime, and then became part of the host of saints of the Orthodox Church.
The fate of such people is sharply different from each other, if Simeon Verkhotursky lived in the world and was at the same time a secret monk, then Fedor Tomsky traveled the world and was known as an eternal wanderer without a home and shelter. But Basil the Blessed pretended to be insane (he was a holy fool) in the name of Christ. And in the bloody century of communism there were venerable elders, among them Luka Voino-Yasenetsky, who was a doctor and a monk, and also father Nikolai Guryanov, who survived the revolution and two World Wars, can be distinguished. Only the Lord's gift of wisdom and knowledge unites them all.
So, despite the lack of a modern definition and position in the ROC, mentor fathers are an important and integral part of its life and healthy functioning. It is they who help young people to grow correctly in the bosom of the Church and become spiritually mature people.
On a note! The most similar image of such a confessor is presented in the famous Russian film "The Island", when all people from nearby cities and distant countries come to a simple monk for advice and help.
Opportunities for the Elders
Why do such people attract pilgrims and seekers of salvation and advice? What makes them stand out among others, that people strive to get to them, talk and receive blessings? First of all, it should be said that not every elderly person can be called such a respectable word. Some older people swear and live in such a way that the most dissolute young people can envy them. Are there not many elderly drunks and thieves on the streets every day?
Important! Mentors are distinguished by a God-fearing life and some wisdom from above, because sometimes they give advice that cannot come to the mind of an ordinary person. Often the Lord endows such Christians with special gifts of healing or prophecy, then they can help those in need not only with a word, but also with a real deed - to heal the sick, to raise the dead.
Most often, the talents of such people include:
- the healing power of prayer from diseases and ailments;
- wisdom from above, which helps to guide the one asking on the right path;
- solving the problems of the laity;
- assistance in resolving conflicts and difficult situations among the clergy;
- clairvoyance;
- the power to cast out demons.
Icon "Cathedral of Optina Elders"
People need the Lord's guidance every day, not to mention important events in their lives. So visiting a confessor, as well as a conversation with him, often helps to understand a difficult situation, to make an important decision that will be blessed. Novices consult with such a mentor on all spiritual matters and strive to be like children, so that the confessor would lead them through life and help. At the same time, the elders are not always distinguished by a kind disposition, but as soon as you have chosen him as a mentor, you can no longer change.
Elders are distinguished by a special reverent relationship with the Lord, and this is what attracts people to them. After all, the closer you become to Christ, the clearer He appears in you, which means that a person acquires divine features. That is why it is important at least once in your life to communicate with such a person, to ask for blessings and wisdom. But, of course, you should independently take an example from them and devote your life to the Lord, because without Him you will not be able to achieve anything good in life.
Read about Orthodoxy:
The elders of our time
As mentioned above, the ROC does not officially endow the title of elder, but the people independently spread news about them around the world. Since there is no officially recognized list of such people marked by God, only an approximate list can be made. Today they add to it:
- Shhiarchimandrite Vlasia Peregontseva - he lives in the Pafnutevo-Borovsky Monastery near the city of Kaluga and receives everyone for a conversation. He has the gift of healing, so there are always long queues to see him.
- Archimandrite German - he is the rector of the Church of Peter and Paul and also receives people who come to him for advice and help in solving spiritual difficulties. Father Herman also conducts rituals of deliverance from demons and blesses spouses for the birth of children.
- Father Adrian - he lives in the Holy Dormition Pskov-Pechersky Monastery and frees people from demons.
- Father George (Savva) is the abbot of the Holy Spirit Monastery in Timashevsk (Kuban), which he himself created. He introduced the strict Athonite charter into the monastery, which somewhat frightens off the laity (they are afraid of radicalism), but at the same time he is an extremely wise man and always helps the needy with a word.
In addition to them, many spiritual mentors serve people on the territory of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. Among them are archimandrites Dionysius and Ambrose, schema-archimandrites Eli and John, fathers Jerome and Hilarion, and many others.
How to choose a confessor
Visiting a wise person on an ongoing basis is extremely beneficial for a fulfilling and correct spiritual life. However, it is not always possible to distinguish an old man from a liar and a "wolf in sheep's clothing." How to understand whether it is worth visiting this or that sage?
Elders have a unique gift in their own way, which they share with people
- To begin with, it should be understood that a blessed person who leads a healthy spiritual life on his own always stands out. His life is not at variance with his words, he prays day and night, observes all fasts, gives himself to the service of the Lord and people.
- At the same time, one should carefully listen to what this person teaches - is it possible to find confirmation of his words in the Bible, the dogmas of the Orthodox Church and traditions or not? If a person deceives and spreads heresy, you can always check this and understand that you have a false old man in front of you. There are cases when such wolves in sheep's clothing forced the laity to do useless and harmful things, so one forced a pregnant woman to fast, which brought almost to the state of miscarriage, and the other threatened the couple forever to "seal" them for the birth of a child due to the fact that those expressed a desire not to visit him again. Such fathers should be avoided and, if possible, reported to the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church.
- In addition, you can listen to the opinion of the clergy. It is good, before going to the sage, to turn to the priest of the local temple or someone to whom you have confidence and ask him about this or that preacher.
- You can also talk with other lay people and ask them who they visited and what impression they have left.
- Modern media should not be ruled out either - you can always read the opinions of others on the forum or websites.
The Lord created a multifunctional Church, one minister in it strengthens the other in word and deed. That is why the support of the elders, their prayers and words to the laity and monks, as well as the clergy, is so necessary. Patriarch Kirill has a mentor who lives in Optina Pustyn and regularly consults and confesses with him.
Everyone needs a confessor for reinforcement and guidance, so one should not neglect such an important type of asceticism and visit such a person for prayer and conversation.
A documentary about the elders in Orthodoxy
An old man without a novice is not an old man
- Father Panteleimon, who are the elders? How are they different from spiritual teachers or just from wise people?
- The determining factor here, first of all, is the relationship between the elder and the novice, because just as there cannot be a son without a father, a father without a child, so there cannot be an old man without a novice. This is a very close and absolutely trusting relationship, when a novice is ready for Christ's sake to surrender all his will into the hands of the elder, ready to learn from him the monastic life. The elder, unlike the father, is chosen, but when he has chosen, there is no turning back. It doesn't matter what your old man is, hot-tempered, not hot-tempered, gentle or strict - you don't care anymore, you love him like your own father. And there can be no other for you. The Monk John Climacus says: before you have chosen your spiritual father, you have the right to consider the traits of his character. If you have already become his child, then, looking at him with a critical eye, you terribly destroy your relationship.
- Probably, as in marriage: you chose each other, got married or got married - you won't get married.
- Yes indeed. I got married, and suddenly discovered that the soulmate had a slightly different character than it seemed at first, but you already have a very close relationship and it would be a disaster to abandon them.
Sometimes the novices, knowing the peculiarities of their character, deliberately chose for themselves very harsh elders. For example, in our book there is a story about Elder Ephraim of Katunak, who had a very strict mentor: he almost did not give any monastic instructions, but on everyday matters he was always very tough. And for Father Ephraim, it turned out to be incredibly useful! He loved his elder with all his heart, he cared about him. And when his mentor, father Nicephorus, was dying, he repeatedly asked for forgiveness from his disciple and said to those around him: "This is not a man, this is an angel!"
In such a relationship between a novice and an elder, the concept of eldership is revealed in the greatest possible way. It is difficult to describe the love of a father for his son. And the love with which the elder loves the novice - although it may never manifest itself in these relationships, the elder can be strict and harsh towards the novice - the love that the Lord gives is very strong. On Mount Athos, eldership and obedience to an elder is perceived as a sacrament, and, accordingly, both participants in this sacrament are guided by the Lord. In his relationship with the elder, the novice learns to hear and obey God.
- That is, he perceives the will of the elder as the will of God?
- Exactly. The ancient patericon preserved the following words of Abba Pimen: "The will of man is a copper wall that stands between him and God." And the novice quietly, piece by piece, dismantles this copper wall, obeying his elder, although his instructions may often be incomprehensible or even change every minute. But if, with love for God, with love for the elder, the novice tries to fulfill these instructions, then a special work takes place in his soul, he feels the breath of the Holy Spirit. Often, the Lord also expects from us those things that we would not want - out of laziness, out of distrust of God: we want to first be explained why this should be done, and only then we will do it. And the elder is not obliged to explain anything to the novice.
There are different relationships. If there is a novice who sincerely obeys the elder, then the elder receives from God admonition on how to lead him correctly to the Kingdom of Heaven. If the novice turns out to be very obstinate and self-willed, then the elder remains to show the condescension and mercy that God shows to us, enduring our disobedience and self-will. For example, about one of the elders - Father Cyril of Kareysky - it is said that he loved to pray at night, he performed, in the full sense, all-night vigils, and the novice scolded him for this. And so the elder tried to hide his exploits from him, endured reproach.
Junior Elderly
- Can we say that monasticism is such a vanguard of Christianity, and eldership is the vanguard of monasticism? Are people on the front lines who pass on their experience?
- In general, yes. There is even a depicting example of this. Elder Joseph the Hesychast, famous in Russia, in his youth had a very hot character and kept his fervor until old age; once he had a vision that he was on the front lines in a battle with demons. And he was not scared, did not hide behind other people's backs, but, on the contrary, was eager to fight! Indeed, there are such fiery fighters, and in some exceptional cases they grow up almost without spiritual guidance.
Actually, Father Joseph was one of those who searched all over Athos and could not find a spiritual leader for himself. His companion, Father Arseny, although he was ten years older than Father Joseph in age and in monastic deed, did not take on the burden of spiritual guidance, but said to his younger brother: “Please, be an old man, but I promise that I will stay with you. in obedience to death. " It is not so important who is older in age! Spiritual experience plays a huge role: a person should teach based on his own experience, and not be a "trader in someone else's wisdom." Only by speaking from their experience did the fathers understand that their word was effective.
This relationship between the elder and his novice, who are close by every day from morning to evening, can only to some extent be transferred to the relationship between a spiritually experienced person and the laity, but here, too, trust and obedience play a huge role.
- Should it be absolute obedience? Is it possible for a layman?
- No, no one demands absolute obedience in this case. But if a person comes with a specific question and the elder answers him, enlightened by God, then, no matter how strange this answer, the questioner should act according to what was said. Otherwise, it turns out that he came to ask God and turns his nose up: "Lord, you are saying something so strange, I will do it my own way."
Having faith, sincere trust, and a willingness to take advice that may seem strange are very important. Often, if there is no such faith, the Lord does not reveal anything about a specific person to the elder - the absence of an answer will be more useful than an answer that will not be accepted. “God took away from the elders the grace of words,” says the Memorable Legends, “and they do not find what to say, because there is no fulfilling word for them.”
- And how many are generally ready for such obedience? Or do most of us still listen to the will of God according to the principle “If I don’t like it, it’s as if I didn’t hear anything”?
- There are always people who are ready to perceive what they hear with a pure heart. And it also happens that someone with great pride takes on an unbearable feat of absolute obedience and at the same time places an unbearable burden on another, because for an elder to bear the burden of his novices is also a difficult feat, the elder must be a really strong prayer book. Obedience cannot be learned in five minutes. it long way, on which there will be many falls. The experience of the elders is important here, as well as a sober look at oneself - “the son of difficult mistakes”. Awareness of one's own weakness is one of the key moments of Orthodox asceticism. But after all, a person who is just getting up on downhill skiing is first of all taught to fall correctly - so that he does not injure himself, but can get up and move on. So it is in the spiritual life: under the supervision of our elders, we learn not to fall to death, and to get up with youthful jealousy.
- Who are the Young Elders and how to protect themselves from falling into false obedience to them?
- Only our Lord God is truly holy, yet people, even saints, have certain human weaknesses and shortcomings. Those priests who have been appointed by the Church to carry out spiritual obedience, to direct the spiritual life of people, also have some imperfections. Their task is to shepherd the church flock, preventing the sheep from falling into the perilous abysses of heresies, witchcraft, apostasy and other evil, but also not depriving them of their inner freedom. In many matters, even the Apostle Paul gave only advice, and did not impose his decision - just as a good shepherd does not pass off his human reasoning as Divine revelation. Obedience is a matter of love and trust, not an army discipline. But it happens that the priest, because of mixed pride, considers his opinion to be the only correct one and tries to push the child into the Kingdom of Heaven by force: he makes a vital choice for him or points out in small things, without receiving any divine enlightenment for that.
We must look for a spiritual father “not with eyes, but with tears,” ask the Lord to hand us over to the good shepherd. First, let us learn to be simple lambs of Christ's flock, love the church, watch our language and deeds, show respect for our parish priest - and if the Lord deems it useful for us, then he will certainly arrange a meeting with the elder.
A miracle is not useful for everyone
- They say that the world rests on the elders, on their prayer. Is it true, or rather a cliché?
- In a Russian proverb it is said that a city does not stand without a saint, but a village without a righteous man. Even in everyday life this can be seen: there is a person on whom the school is based - and not necessarily the director; there is a person on whom the parish is - and not necessarily the abbot. And here and there it may be Aunt Masha, a cleaning lady who simply greets everyone affectionately and quietly prays for everyone.
At the same time, it is very clearly felt how precarious and fragile everything in our life is, at one moment everything can collapse. And the Lord keeps the world by His mercy through the prayer of His saints: some of them are already in Heaven, and someone else lives on earth and completes his path of ascent.
- Partly because a person wants to see in the old man some, roughly speaking, a magician who, with a wave of a magic wand, will solve all his problems. And, not finding such a thing, people say: “No, I will not obey the one who tells me to do something, to work, I need a seer, a miracle worker! There are no such people today ... "
We must understand that not everyone benefits from a miracle - more often than not we need to roll up our sleeves and solve problems ourselves. If you have an overgrown garden, and there are no tractors in this village that would clear it, you will have to take a shovel and a hoe and work yourself. And if the miracle tractor does all the work for you, then you yourself will be lazy, your life will become simple, but not good.
In some cases, it is really necessary that a miracle be manifested. So that a hopelessly sick child would suddenly jump up and run joyfully, and thanks to this, everyone's faith would be strengthened. But this does not mean that with every sneeze of a child, you need to run to the elder and ask for healing. The search for elders who would solve our problems for us is psychologically quite understandable.
- Often the elders were people without education, simple, and this confuses those who come ...
- The Lord can make an old man even a not very educated person - he announced His will through the donkey. You just have to open your ears, open your heart to hear.
- Paisiy Svyatogorets, it seems, had only a few classes of school behind his back, and people were queuing up to him for advice!
- The Monk Paisios is a man with an amazing sharpness of mind, attentiveness to himself, to those around him, and to nature. The enormous wealth of his soul was poured out on everyone, and thanks to the talent to clothe instructions in such a witty, visual form, his words were easily remembered. He gave a lot of examples from ordinary life, very vivid comparisons with nature, he spoke very easily. The oral tradition, which underlies the patericon, also belongs to this style. Let's say that such and such an old man lived, his life was hidden from human eyes, but sometimes he said or did something bright to teach people. For example, he took a basket, poured sand into it, came to the monastery, where the brethren reproached each other, and walked around the courtyard. He was asked, "What are you doing, Abba?" He replied: “I hung my sins behind my back, I don’t care about them, so I go, I look at strangers.” Such short instructive stories, also with a grain of humor, are well remembered and often come to mind at the right moment. For example, it is difficult to retell the life of the Monk Ambrose of Optina, but those short sayings that he often used are easy to remember and can cheer a person up in time and tell him how to act.
Obedience of the Archondar Monk
- Elders are very different, they do not fit into one type. Elder Paisiy was a very simple man with humor, Elder Joseph was a very ardent, extraordinary ascetic. Can you give any other examples?
- For example, in our patericon we have a story about an elder who was an archondar, that is, responsible for receiving pilgrims. But at the same time he was a terrible silent man! That is, according to his position, this old man is obliged to talk to everyone ... being a very quiet person himself, very modest. The people who came to the monastery of St. Paul were greatly surprised at this. And then ... they sent greeting cards to the monks: "We congratulate you on your archondarine!" Because, although he was silent, and, it would seem, was unsociable, but from him came the love that everyone felt.
There are also foolish elders whom people mistook for madmen, but whom they sometimes could find, for example, standing in the middle of the street, in tatters, barefoot, performing the divine service from beginning to end from memory!
There were abbots who, with maternal solicitude, fulfilled all obediences and for all their abbess did not make a single remark to anyone! They themselves did the work that needed to be done by other monks, and prayed that the Lord would enlighten them. By their example, they influenced the novices even more than if they shouted and stamped their feet.
There are stories about amazingly hardworking monks who had golden hands: they grew such tomatoes in their garden that they had to climb a ladder to pick them!
There are also such stories. One person before coming to Athos was engaged in spiritualism. And when he decided to go to the Holy Mountain and went to the last session of spiritualism, the spirits did not appear for a long time and finally said to one of those present: "We will not appear until this person changes his decision to go to Athos." And he, having come to Athos, began to write about the terrible harm that spiritualism brings.
Such different people lived on Athos - a real flower garden of characters and talents!
- Ancient lives often paint an ideal image of ascetics. Do you write about modern elders without idealization?
- Of course, there are examples of falls and uprisings, the patericon also speaks of the dangers that may lie in wait on the path of excessive heroism. For example, in our book there is a story about a monk who lived as a hermit and was a very strict fasting man: he ate food every two days or even less often. From such harshness towards himself, he, in the end, was somewhat damaged. When he was taken to the monastery to take care of him, this ascetic was very irritable, he did not want to say a kind word to anyone, he could not pray, everything in him was in full swing - and for himself such a state, practically God-forsaken, was very painful. He stayed there for several months, understood his condition, reconciled with everyone, prayer returned to him, and he rested in peace.
There is a story about a monk who lived on Mount Athos and commanded the workers. Over time, he plunged into the hustle and bustle of life, grew fat and abandoned his monastic rule. He returned to his former youthful fervor in the faith after one terrible vision, and lived a very dignified monastic life.
These are stories about living, not idealized people, and for this they are valuable! These are not superman coloring books. It happened that the robbers became saints, and the monks, after severe falls, returned to monastic life and even received the gift of miracles.
Therefore, the stories from the life of the elders provide rich enough material for making decisions in our everyday troubles.
"I realized that I am at home"
- Father Panteleimon, where does such attention to Athos come from in Russia today?
- The fact is that the monastic tradition was not interrupted on Athos. In Russia, it was restored mainly from books, but there the tradition has lived for many centuries. And, in fact, the Russian Church has always been oriented towards Athos. If we take such a fundamental book as the Typicon, which defines the charter of our liturgical life, then we can see that according to its rules people live more on Athos than in our parish churches: sunset, and in many other moments the monastic life there is much closer to the centuries-old tradition.
- Have you ever met people who could be called elders?
- I had a little contact with Archimandrite Parthenius (Murelatos), the abbot of the monastery of St. Paul on Mount Athos. This is a mountain man, in every sense. A feeling of very deep solidity emanates from him - this is a person about whom worldly waves break. At the same time, he is very simple and wise, loving, next to him you feel like a little boy next to a big grandfather who loves you, you feel great respect and awe. You are a little scared - you understand that he already knows everything about you - but at the same time, the feeling of security next to him does not leave you.
A completely different character is Schema-Archimandrite Gabriel (Bunge) from Switzerland, with whom I happened to live for a week. He is a man of the broadest erudition, fluent in many languages, reading the Holy Fathers in the original, a man of German accuracy. It is both joyful and very interesting to be near him, and at the same time you are afraid that your insensitivity might cause inconvenience or cause dissonance. It is precisely the desire to be “on the same wavelength” with the elder that should be characteristic of the novice - he learns to understand from the half-word of the elder and is in a hurry to fulfill his will.
- How did you come to monasticism yourself?
- Everything was somehow surprisingly smooth and painless. If someone can talk about coming to faith through sorrow and difficulties, then I rather did not understand how to thank God for the abundance of everything that He gives me! Probably, the countdown can begin with my baptism, at the age of 11. True, churching did not begin with him. However, from the Sacrament itself, a surprisingly bright, clear feeling of the beginning of a new life remained - it remained forever.
- Did you decide to be baptized yourself?
- No, my mother brought me. Then there was a good school, admission to the university, wonderful friends - I don't remember any difficulties. Once my acquaintances took me to the Easter service in the church, and standing there, in this cramped situation, I suddenly realized that I was at home here. That I am where I should be, and this place is absolutely dear and joyful for me. And then, little by little, a meaningful churching began: I read patristic literature avidly, began to help in church - just then my studies at the university ended. It was somehow very natural, in such a "soft way" I entered the seminary, then the academy *. And life under the protection of St. Sergius, in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, had a great influence on me. There I found my confessor, who once asked: "If a small monastery appears, will you go?" I say, "I'll go." Then a small monastery really appeared, and I went after graduating from the Academy. This path was, it seems to me, just covered with carpets!
- Without a doubt?
- There were some worries. But they somehow disappear from memory, and the tender, loving hand with which the Lord led you - its sensation remains. Most of the worries are connected with some stupid attempts to turn aside, when it was clear that they were being taken in the wrong direction. There were abrupt and incorrect movements ...
- There is such a saying: if you are 99 percent sure of the choice of monasticism, and you are 1 percent in doubt, then when you put on the mantle, 99 percent of confidence will turn into 99 percent of doubts. Is it really so?
- It depends on what you have imagined about the monastery. If you have any expectations, then the discrepancy between these expectations, which can quite naturally arise, will lead to disappointment. Naturally - because you can imagine a certain picture of the monastery, peeping through the keyhole, and then you go in - and everything is different there! And if you do not expect anything especially - again, as in the relationship of spouses, you do not expect that the bride will always cook deliciously for you, keep the house in perfect condition and always be in a good mood - then your illusions will not break on reality, you will not be disappointed. When you get married, a person is important to you as he is, regardless of any external circumstances. The same applies to the monastery: you do not come to the walls, not to the way of life, you come first of all to your confessor. That is, you entrust yourself to him. And you become such a soft clay: here I am, mold what you want out of me, I completely trust you. And if you are hard as a stone, and they are trying to sculpt something out of you, painful sensations arise.
- Trust in God and trust in man are close concepts. You trust God in the first place, which means that the Lord will save you, will not give you an offense and will grant you the Kingdom of Heaven. It is not easy to live with trust, but it is even more painful to live, constantly expecting a catch, fearing everything. Yes, you can exist like a wise gudgeon, hollowing out a small hole for yourself and not sticking out anywhere from there, but this can hardly be called life! And a life with trust is a life that is in full swing! You are ready for something new every day. And with such trust, you value less what is squeezed in your hands, and less upset because of your mistakes and falls.
I have such an association. Your task is to bring water in a glass from one end of the field to the other. And you, joyful and self-confident, take this full glass and go! But a little water spilled - you start to get nervous. A little more spilled - you start to get even more nervous, your hand begins to shake, you completely lose your temper and are ready to throw this glass on the ground and sit down, burst into tears. This attitude happens when you are looking at the wrong thing. You are told: bring at least some water to the other end of the field. This is your final goal and the rest is little things. And it doesn't matter which one you come - you can get all covered in mud, it doesn't matter how much water you spill - maybe only a drop will remain in the glass on the bottom, but you must complete the task. There is the One who entrusted it to you. And the less attention you pay to yourself, and more - to what is expected of you, the better. And vanity sticks out, you want to bring a glass full. Forget about falling, remember about the final goal. It is not you and not your failures or successes that are important, it is your relationship with God, your trust in Him that is important. This approach, it seems to me, is correct. Your distrust stops you, closes in on yourself and the glass, but the goal is not visible, and you can sit down and live your whole life at this end of the field, the glass will stand in front of you, and you will be afraid to take and carry it.
- Everything that you talked about today - both about eldership and about obedience - all this is united by some kind of joy. Finally, tell me, please, what place does joy occupy in the life of monks, elders, and even in ordinary Christian life?
- There is a well-known phrase: if people knew what joy monasticism is full of, everyone would run to become a monk; but if people knew what sorrows awaited them there, no one would go into monasticism. And if you refer to familiar secular texts, then the following song comes to mind: “She goes through life laughing, meeting and saying goodbye, not upset ... but they do not notice how the one who goes through life laughing cries at night”. Therefore, when there is an intense inner life, work, overcoming one's laziness and unwillingness, the Lord rewards all this with joy. And he sends amazing people to meet. The Lord does not deceive the trust that you place in Him. This does not mean that there are some kind of mutual settlements with God or with an elder. The experience simply appears, which affirms you in your chosen intention. And why should we be "beeches" and indulge in self-digging, if Christ is risen and the doors of paradise are open for us? We sit, lose heart, sulk, but the doors are open and the sun is shining through them ...
Old man- a spiritual leader and mentor of a Christian, a saint who acquired in Christian exploit such gifts of the Holy Spirit as dispassion, prudence, humility, love, insight, teaching, consolation, healing, and so on. Communion with God and the Divine Population, which became “the temple of the living God, who guides and instructs him in all words, deeds and thoughts, and because of inner enlightenment, he learns the will of the Lord, as if hearing some voice» ( St. Theophan the Recluse), is a mentor through whom to those who resort to it, the will of God is directly revealed.
1. Definition of the concept of "eldership"
THEM. Kontsevich, giving a definition of the concept of eldership, asserts that "eldership is a prophetic ministry":
"True eldership is a special gift of grace - charisma - direct guidance by the Holy Spirit, a special kind of holiness."
“The Apostle Paul, regardless of the hierarchy, list three ministries in the Church: apostolic, prophetic, and teaching.
Directly behind the apostles are the prophets (Eph. 4:11; 1 Cor. 12:28). Their ministry consists mainly of edification, exhortation, and comfort (1 Cor. 14: 1, 3). For this very purpose, as well as for indication, or warning, future events are foretold by the prophets.
The will of God is directly revealed through the prophet, and therefore his authority is unlimited.
Prophetic ministry is a special gift of grace, the gift of the Holy Spirit (charisma). The prophet has a special spiritual vision - clairvoyance. For him, the boundaries of space and time seem to expand, with his spiritual gaze he sees not only the occurring events, but also the ones to come, sees their spiritual meaning, sees the human soul, his past and future.
Such a high calling cannot but be associated with a high moral level, with purity of heart, with personal holiness.
The holiness of life was required from the prophet from the earliest times of Christianity: "He must have the" disposition of the Lord. " A false prophet and a (true) prophet can be learned from temper, ”says the oldest monument of the 2nd century -“ The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles ”(Didachi).
The ministries listed by the Apostle Paul have been preserved in the Church at all times. Apostolic, prophetic and teaching ministries, being independent, can be combined with the rank of bishop or presbyter.
Prophetic ministry associated with personal holiness flourished with the rise of Church life, and dwindled during periods of decline. It is most clearly manifested in the monastic eldership.
The influence of the elders extended far beyond the walls of the monastery. The elders nourished not only the monks, but also the laity. Possessing the gift of clairvoyance, they edified everyone, exhorted and consoled (1 Cor. 14: 1, 3), healed everyone from spiritual and physical diseases. They warned against dangers, showed the way of life, revealing the will of God. "
“Elderhood is not a hierarchical degree in the Church, it is a special kind of holiness, and therefore it can be inherent in everyone. An elder could be a monk without any spiritual degrees, as was in the recent past, at the beginning of his eldership, Father Barnabas Gethsemane. An elder can also be a bishop, for example, Ignatius Brianchaninov, or Anthony of Voronezh, a great contemporary of St. Seraphim. Of the priests, let us name Fr. John of Kronstadt and Fr. Georgy Chekryakovsky. Finally, an old woman can also become an elder, like, for example, the perspicacious blessed Praskovya Ivanovna in Christ the holy fool Diveevskaya, without whose advice nothing was done in the monastery.
While all members of the Church are obliged to obey church authority, senile authority is not compulsory for anyone. The elder never imposes on anyone, obedience to him is always voluntary, but having found a true, gracious elder and submitting to him, the disciple must already unquestioningly obey the elder in everything, since through the latter the will of God is revealed directly. ... The same is not necessary for anyone to ask the elder, but after asking for advice, or an instruction, one must certainly follow it, because any deviation from the explicit instruction of God through the elder entails punishment. "
The word "elder" has several meanings, and therefore it is important to distinguish between the meaning that is put into it in a given situation, by this or that person.
“In the work of prof. Malinin "Elder Philotheus" we find a number of examples of the use of the word "elder" in various meanings from written records of the 15th and 16th centuries.
So the word "elder" meant:
1) generally an aged monk, regardless of his hierarchical position among the brotherhood of the monastery, as opposed to a secular person (letter of 1543 by Arch. Feodosius in the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, as well as in acts).
2) sometimes by "elder" is meant a monk who does not have any degree of priesthood, and in this case "elder" is opposed to the hegumen, priest and deacon (letter from VK Vasily John of 1533).
3) in some populous monasteries, over time, “cathedral elders” were allocated, who took part in managing the affairs of the monastery together with the abbot, cellar and treasurer (charter of the Solovetsky monastic from 1548, etc.)
4) "Elder" is the one who is entrusted with the spiritual leadership of a new or fallen monk (letter from 1543 by architect Theodosius).
5) these elders-leaders were usually chosen from persons of high moral life, sometimes called “spiritual elders”. They enjoyed great honor and were considered candidates not only for monastic positions, but even for metropolitans. Of course, the former social position of the monk in the world also mattered. Defending the monastic property, Joseph Volotsky wrote: “If there will be no villages near the monasteries, how an honest and prudent person can get their hair cut, and if there are no honest elders, take a secession to the metropolis, or archbishop, or bishop. And if there are no "honest elders" and noble ones, then there will be a shaking of faith. "
6) in the sense of a mentor, leader, the abbot of the monastery is also an elder. Here, for example, is the ancient triode of the Volokolamsk monastery with the inscription: "The Lenten Triode, a letter from our father, the Reverend Elder Joseph the Wonderworker."
Finally, let us add from ourselves, the word "elder", both before and now, can be attributed to any monk. Every monk, as such, is ίερόν or καΛούγερας, that is, an "elder." The Slavs used this name literally: "kaluger" or translated: "elder".
But all these concepts, invested in the word "elder", do not correspond to the concept of a charismatic elder, which is the subject of our research. Likewise, Elder Philotheus himself does not belong to the latter type - he is an ordinary teachable old man, not gifted with special charisma "( THEM. Kontsevich).
2. The Spiritual Foundation of Elderly
Seniors' leadership existed in all ancient monasteries. In order for the novice monk to stand on the right way spiritual life and firmly walk along it, he needs to surrender himself to the guidance of an experienced mentor - an elder. The God-enlightened elder, guided by the Holy Spirit, communicated the will of God in everything to his spiritual son. The novice, for his part, voluntarily and completely surrendered himself to obedience to the elder.
The ancient elders, having experienced the difficult path of ascetic deed, were able to identify the root of sin and plant the gospel virtues in the hearts of their children. Under the leadership of the elders, the ancient monks grew spiritually very quickly.
The high ministry of the elders is based on the holiness of the elder, on the fact that in a long selfless deed he acquired spiritual experience and dispassion and became the temple of God, and God who dwells in him reveals his will to him and gives him knowledge, discerning of spirits, reasoning, understanding, insight. and other gifts of the Holy Spirit necessary for his ministry.
St. Theophan the Recluse writes about the saints who have achieved dispassion:
“He who has been vouchsafed to be in this dispensation, he is still here, clothed with perishable flesh, is the temple of the living God, who guides and instructs him in all words, deeds and thoughts, and because of his inner enlightenment, he knows the will of the Lord, as if hearing a voice ". “And finally, there is communion with God and the Divine population, the last goal of the search for the human spirit, when it is in God and God is in it. Finally, the grace of the Lord and His prayer are fulfilled, so that, as He is in the Father and the Father in Him, so every believer is one with Him (John 17:21) ... This is the essence of the temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16) and The Spirit of God lives in them (Rom. 8: 9). "
“Those who have attained perfection hear the voice of God clearly in their souls. They begin to fulfill the word of the Lord: “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). And the Apostle John also writes: “The anointing (of the Spirit) abides in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you; but as this anointing itself teaches you everything, and it is true and false, that which it taught you, abide in that (1 John 2:27). "
"Those who have achieved this are the mysteries of God, and their condition is the same as the condition of the apostles."
“Theophany is the source of many other blessed gifts, and above all - fiery love, by which they boldly certify: who will separate us from God? (Rom. VIII, 35).
"And love is the giver of prophecy, the cause of miracles, the abyss of enlightenment, the source of the Divine fire."
“Since such a state is the fruit of silence, when they pass it with reason, not all silencers are left in silence forever. Those who attain dispassion through silence and through this are rewarded with sincere communion with God and the Divine Universe, are expelled from there to serve those seeking salvation, enlightening, guiding, and working miracles. And to Anthony the Great, like John in the wilderness, the voice was in silence, leading him to the labors of leading others along the path of salvation, and everyone knows the fruits of his labors. It was the same with many others. "
St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov):
This [revelation of thoughts] image of the struggle with demonic thoughts and dreams was common to all new-born monks during the flourishing times of monasticism. The new-beginners, who were constantly with their elders, at all times confessed their thoughts, as can be seen from the life of the Monk Dositheus, and the new-beginners, who came to their elder at a certain time, confessed their thoughts once a day, in the evening, as can be seen from the Ladder and other Fatherland books. The ancient monks recognized the confession of their thoughts and the guidance of the spirit-bearing elder as a necessity, without which it is impossible to be saved. The Monk Abba Dorotheos says: “I know of no other fall for a monk, except when he believes his heart. Some say: from this a man falls or from that; and, as I said, I know of no other fall than this, when a person follows himself. Have you seen who is fallen? know that he followed himself. There is nothing more dangerous, nothing more destructive than this. God saved me, and I was always afraid of this calamity. " The teachings of the spirit-bearing elder constantly lead the new-born monk along the path of the Gospel commandments, and nothing separates him from sin and the beginning of sin - the demon - like a constant and intensified confession of sin in its very beginnings. Such a confession sets up irreconcilable enmity between man and demon, saving man. Such a confession, destroying double-mindedness, or the oscillation between love for God and love for sin, gives an extraordinary strength to good will, and then extraordinary speed to the success of the monk ...
THEM. Kontsevich:
“… The elder is the leader of his disciple in a difficult and extremely complex“ spiritual warfare ”, the purpose of which is to achieve dispassion. To lead others, the elder himself must be in this state. "
... The elder, as a personal experience, went through the school of sobriety and intelligent-heartfelt prayer and has learned through this to perfection the spiritual psychic laws, as having already personally attained dispassion, becomes able to guide the novice monk in his "invisible battle" on the path to dispassion. He must be able to penetrate to the very depths of the human soul, see in it the very origin of evil, as well as the reasons for this origin, establish an accurate diagnosis of the disease and indicate the exact method of treatment. The elder is a skilled spiritual doctor. He must clearly see the "dispensation" of his disciple, i.e. the character of his soul and the degree of spiritual development and possess the gift of reasoning and "discerning of spirits", because he has to deal with evil all the time, striving to be transformed into an angel of light. But, as one who has achieved dispassion, the elder usually possesses other spiritual gifts: clairvoyance, miracles, prophecy ...
… Let us now consider the question of eldership based on the materials that we find in prof. Smirnova in his work - "Confession and Repentance in the Ancient Monasteries of the East."
“According to ancient monastic ideas, the elder is a being chosen by God and given to God. Every elder certainly possesses some kind of spiritual gifts. First of all, the gift of discerning spirits [χάρισμα δι, σκρίσεως τών πνευμάτων] about which Ap. Paul (1 Cor. XII, 10). The gift of discerning spirits is essential for a monk. Anthony the Great also prescribes to pray to receive the gift of discerning of spirits, so that not every spirit may believe (1 John IV, 1). The gift of discernment is obtained through exploit and with the help of old prayers. Barsanuphius the Great declares: “Without heart disease, no one receives the gift of discerning thoughts. I pray to God to grant it to you, but let your heart be a little sick, and God will give you this gift ... When God, through the prayers of the saints and for the pain of your heart, gives you this gift, you will always be able to discern thoughts by His Spirit. "
It is not so easy to distinguish the suggestions in the human soul from the side of the Holy Spirit and Angels and from the side of the spirits of evil, because they are not different, like light and theme. The action of grace is found in peace and joy, in a blissful mood, but sin is also sweet and a sweet affliction of passion, especially spiritual passion, it is not difficult to mix with spiritual bliss. "Sin is transformed into a bright angel and becomes almost like grace" - says Macarius the Great and indicate the signs of both (R. p. 65). Suggestions in the human soul are found in the form of subtle and sometimes complex thoughts [Λογισμός] in the “heart of those who are born” or “creeping into judgment”, bursting “from somewhere outside” (St. Diadochus, 68–84 pp.). In order to incline to a good suggestion and fulfill it, in order to suppress a bad thought and make it powerless, you need to open the source of each suggestion or thought. But only a person who has reached the highest measure of spiritual age, the inner eye of which has been purified, is able to do this. “If a person has not reached this measure, then he cannot discern thoughts, but he will be mocked by demons and will fall into deception, believing them: because they change things as they want, especially for those who do not know their intrigues” (Bars. P. p. 44).
… The manifestation in monasticism of the extraordinary gift of discerning of spirits has been encountered since its first time. St. Athanasius informs about St. Anthony the Great, that he “had the gift of discerning spirits” [χάρισμα διαχρίσεως πνευμάτων εχων]. Abba Evagrius, a famous ascetic writer, among other blessed gifts possessed the gift of discerning spirits and cleansing thoughts. ... He acquired this gift from life, from his own spiritual experience and, most important of all, with the help of the grace of God ... the life of the soul, to heal the offended, to teach healing medicine, the word flowing from the Spirit [χάρισμα] ”.
“We are at a loss to say,” says prof. Smirnov, “in what relation to the gift of discerning spirits is the gift of insight, which, by the way, is expressed in the ability to penetrate directly into the moral state of another person, to read in the souls of other people. Whether there is clairvoyance, an independent spiritual gift, or a special kind of prophetic gift of discerning spirits, more specifically - to feel the presence of spirits of evil or angels, we do not know. Only this gift is more rare than the discerning of spirits. However, examples of the possession of this gift also come from the early days of monasticism. Pachomius the Great and Theodore the Sanctified had the gift of clairvoyance. Everyone recognized the sins of the brethren either by the Spirit of God, “who was on him,” or by revelation from an angel. The devotees use this gift in the interests of correcting people. Rev. Gehlen settled in one monastery “to some of the brethren, he revealed secret thoughts and advice of the heart: one was carried away by the spirit of adultery, the other by the spirit of anger, in others meekness, righteousness, patience appeared ... And those whom he denounced themselves had to admit that he was, as it were, reads in their souls, and they were distressed in heart (Lavsaik). Rev. The behavior of each (monk) in neighboring monasteries was revealed to John, and he wrote to the fathers that such and such indulge in negligence, do not fulfill the rules laid down in the fear of God, while others succeeded in faith and spiritual perfection. He also wrote to the brethren ... Acts and the very reasons for them, exploits and negligence, he portrayed in such a way that the monks, realizing the truth of what was written about them, came to a broken conscience ”(Lavsaik). Rev. Stephen Savvait also possessed this gift in abundance - he knew how to “see with the spirit”. He himself said: "I am awarded from God the gift of perspicacity and I understand by one sight and sight the thoughts and secret passions of the soul from everything that we see, or what we are asked about, or who comes across to us, I recognize spiritual and mental needs."
3. Obligation to fulfill the words of the elder
Since the spiritual gifts of an elder have a source of God Himself, “the will of God is revealed directly through the elder,” and that is why, after asking the elder's advice, “one must certainly follow it, because any deviation from the explicit direction of God through the elder entails punishment” ( THEM. Kontsevich).
Rev. Barsanuphius the Great and John the Prophet reveal all the depth and spiritual meaning of obedience to the elder:
« 620 ... The brother sinned in a certain matter and, having repeatedly heard from the Abba: “Just say: forgive me,” being hardened, he did not say this. Abba, having said a prayer with three bows to the ground, barely convinced him to say: "Forgive me." When this brother was leaving for his cell, the abba said to him: "Brother, being alone in his cell, try your own heart and you will find out why such bitterness happened to you." When that brother did this, he came, prostrated himself before Abba, confessing his guilt, and asked to announce this matter to the great elder Barsanuphius and ask him to pray for him.
Varsonuphius's answer... Brother! Pay attention to yourself. You wanted me to sow in your field; no one forced you to do that; see, do not allow the devil to sow tares between your wheat - food for fire. I tell you: you asked me about your thoughts. The fathers say that whoever asks the elders, he must also keep their advice until his death, and whoever does not keep them, it will serve him in ruin. Evil and fierce thoughts are hidden in your heart. Why are you carried away with deadly thoughts about something that does not exist at all? The devil presents to you light with darkness and darkness with light; bitter shows you sweet and sweet bitter (see Isaiah 5, 20). You see life as death and death as life, for the enemy "walks like a roaring lion, seeking ... to devour" (1 Pet. 5, 8) you alive, but you do not understand that. If the hand of God and the prayers of the saints had not covered you, you would have fallen into his deception and destruction. Your Abba speaks to you divine words for the benefit and salvation of your soul - you reject them, and therefore you will never come to the knowledge of life. Abba works for you like oh own soul his own, asking the saints to pray for you, so that you get rid of the snares of the devil and death and be saved to the abode of the Lord. And if he works so hard for you, shouldn't you also keep his word more than your own soul? ... you ... should have prayed ... and carefully obey his commands with great fear and trembling, so that through him the blessing of God would descend on you, and you would get rid of the deception of the enemy. May the word of the Scripture not be fulfilled on you: “And [Jacob ate, and] ... grew fat, grew fat and grew fat; and he left God ”(Deut. 32, 15). And then it will be fulfilled over you: “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! for if in Tire and in Sidon the powers were manifested in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes ”(Matthew 11:21). May you not hear: “You hate My instruction and cast My words for you” (Psalm 49, 17).
Why do you repeatedly tempt yourself ... Who, by doing this, received salvation? First Cain did so, and he was cursed by the Lord; after him the giants - and they drowned in the water of the flood. Ham and Esau were rejected from the holy blessing. Pharaoh became hardened, and the waters of the Red Sea drowned him and those with him. Dathan and his accomplices opposed Moses, and the earth swallowed them up and their houses. And if, according to the testimony of the Scriptures, the reluctant priest was swallowed up by the earth, then how dare you resist the one who commanded you to say: "Forgive me" - and did not say this, and removed yourself from the humility of God and from the words of the Fathers, who say: in any case, you must have humility , so that in every deed and word to say: "forgive." You have heard the convictions of this many times and have not said this; but what you said afterwards was untrue, because you said it forcibly, and not with repentance and tenderness. How long will you be a hard-headed man “with an uncircumcised heart and ears” (Acts 7, 51)? Consider that no one is cruel to you. Why do you give the devil your hand and strength to destroy your soul? Sober ahead, my brother, stay awake and wake up from the darkest sleep and rapture without wine, which possesses you. Where is humility? Where is obedience? Where is the cutting off of one's will in everything? If in one you cut off your will, and in the other you do not, then it is obvious that in that in which you cut it off, you had another, your own will. For he who obeys obeys in all things; and such does not care about his salvation, because the other is responsible for him - the one to whom he surrendered himself into obedience and entrusted himself.
So, if you want to be saved and be alive in heaven and on earth, then keep this, and I will answer for you, brother; if you are negligent, then see for yourself. Do not lose hope, for this is the joy of the devil. I convinced the Abba to take you into his bowels, as it happened. He did not want to do this for your disobedience, but I convinced him to accept you with the fear of God, as his own son, and not as "illegitimate." And you commit yourself to him in everything with the fear of God. And the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are my witness that I take upon myself all the care of you before Him, and God will require your blood from me, if you do not break my words. Start, then, from this day, preserve yourself and do not heed the reckless and useless words. May the Lord give you reason and strength to hear and fulfill. And if in time you still wish to question me, I will not be too lazy to answer you that God will put in my mouth to certify your heart to tell you about Christ Jesus for the salvation of your soul. Amen".
Rev. Barsanuphius the Great:
155. The same (brother), not fulfilling the advice given to him by the elder regarding food, asked about the same a second time. The elder answered him like this:
Brother! ... He who questions and disobeys (the fathers) irritates God; the question will be followed by the envy of the enemy, and we still have not learned the tricks of the demonic. The Apostle preaches ceaselessly, saying: We do not understand for his intentions (2 Cor. 2:11).
Rev. John the Prophet:
“Question 820. …Answer. The Lord said: “If someone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and, moreover, his life itself, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26). And to hate life means to be in asceticism and at the same time to cut off your desires; and such a person no longer pays attention either to human words or to man's pleasing, but to godly questions and to the answers emanating from the lips of the saints. The one who inquires must believe that God puts (the word) after his heart into the mouth of the questioned person, for it is said: “Let (the Lord) give you according to your heart” (Psalm 19: 5). So it turned out that we are human beings and cannot tolerate reproaches and insults from others; if anyone desires to edify everyone, he cannot (do this), because not everyone wants the same thing. You asked me about perfection, about leaving everything to God, that is, choosing whomever He pleases; but when we heard the decision, we could not bear it, and we do not know that people do not see things as God sees them. People judge only about the obvious, mixing their own will with the same; But God knows the innermost and the depths of the heart and sees the future as the present. We were greatly benefited by the knowledge that humanity still dwells in us. Let us realize our measure, where we are, and humble ourselves in order to receive the grace of the humble ... "
Question 365, the same. What should a person who inquires of the fathers do: does he really have to do everything he asks about?
John's Answer... Not everything, but only what is said to him as a commandment; for the other is simple advice according to God, and the other is a commandment. Advice is not compulsory instruction, (but only) showing a person the right way of life; the commandment contains a binding force (for the one who received it).
Question 366, the same. You, my father, told me the difference between the commandment and the advice given by God. Tell me and their signs, by what they are recognized, and what is the strength of both?
John's answer. If you yourself resort to your spiritual father, asking him about something, not because you want to receive a commandment, but in order to hear from him only an answer according to God, and he will tell you what you should do, you must certainly fulfill this. When you do this and receive sorrow, do not be embarrassed, for this happens to your own benefit. If you do not wish to do it, then although you think, you do not break the commandment, because you did not accept it as a commandment, but nevertheless you wanted to despise what is useful and must condemn yourself for that: for you must believe that everything that comes from the lips of the saints , serves the benefit of the hearers. The same (you must understand) and when (the elder) himself says something to you, moved by a thought according to God, although you did not ask him about anything at all: which happened once. Once one of the brothers wanted to go to the city, and the other elder, on his own (without being asked), told him: "If you go there, you will fall into fornication." He did not obey, went and fell. And when you especially ask about some matter, wanting to receive a commandment, then you must bow and ask for it to be given to you; having received it, bow again so that the one who gave it bless you, and say to him: “My Father! besides that you gave me the commandment, bless me and pray that I will keep it. " Know, brother, that the one who gives the commandment does not simply give it, but helps with prayer and prayers, so that you can keep it. If, forgetting yourself, you do not bow to him in order to receive a blessing, then do not think that the commandment will be abolished through this, for in this case it is still valid; but you didn’t accept it as it should have been, and not in the right way. ...
Level 367... When I ask you to give me (a commandment), and the elder has no intention of fulfilling it, or, on the contrary, when I don’t ask to give a commandment, but he will give me one: is what he said is credited in such a case as a commandment and should it be kept? Since there are church rules and sayings of the fathers, written devotees, are we really obliged to observe them as a commandment?
John's Answer... If the one whom you ask had no intention of giving a commandment, then what he said is not imputed to you as a commandment, even though you yourself asked for it. If he decided to give you a commandment, although you yourself did not ask for it, then what he said is a commandment and you must keep it. And that should be taken as a commandment, which is determined by dogmatic rules, or sayings of the fathers, said in the form of definitions. But confirm this in your thoughts not otherwise than on the question from the fathers: because you yourself cannot correctly understand the power of these sayings. So, ask the fathers and it is better to submit to what they say, and preserve this unbreakable, with the help of a man-loving God, through the prayers of the saints. Amen.
Level 368, the same. If I break the commandment of temptation: what to do then?
John's Answer... Having accepted the commandment from the saints and violating it, do not be embarrassed and do not despair to the point of abandoning it altogether; but remember what was said about the righteous, that he will fall and rise up in the seven days (Proverbs 24, 16), and the Lord's instruction to Peter that he should forgive his brother seventy times in the sevens (Matthew 18:22). If He commanded people to forgive in this way, then all the more he himself will forgive, as one who is rich in mercy and surpassing in generosity everything and everyone, who daily calls through the Prophet: turn to Me, and I will turn to you (Zech. 1, 3). There is mercy (Jer. 3:12). And again: and now, to Israel (Deut. 4: 1), and so on. But hearing that the commandment is not abolished, beware lest you become lazy and become neglected, because this is very dangerous; but even in things that seem small, do not despise the commandments. If you notice their negligence, then try to correct yourself, for from such negligence a person comes into great sins.
Question 369, the same. Thought inspires me not to question the saints in order to understand what is useful, and because of my weakness, despising it, not to sin.
John's Answer... This thought is very harmful; do not listen to him at all. For whoever, understanding (useful), sins, he condemns himself in every way; but whoever sins, not knowing what is useful, never condemns himself, and his passions remain unhealed. That is why the devil inspires him (such a thought) so that his passions remain unhealed. And when a thought inspires you that you cannot fulfill the answer due to weakness, then ask this way: “My Father! I want to do this — tell me what is good for me, although I know that if you tell me, I cannot fulfill and keep what I have said; but only for this I wish to learn, in order to condemn myself for having despised what is useful, this also leads you to humility. May the Lord preserve your heart with the prayers of the saints. Amen".
THEM. Kontsevich gives vivid examples of the foresight of the elders, given by God:
"O. Barsanuphius ... attached great importance to the actions of the priest after he received communion. “You have been with me several times, the elder said, you will celebrate mass, you will commune and then you go to receive the people. Tell you their needs. Another time you immediately find it difficult to answer definitely, you tell me to wait. You will go to your cell, think it over, stop at some decision, and when you come to say this decision, you will say something completely different from what you thought. And this is the real answer and advice, which, if the questioner does not fulfill, will bring on himself the worst trouble. " This is the invisible Grace of God, which is especially clearly manifested in the elders, after the communion of St. Tyne ".
“One of the living examples of old age ministry we find in the life of St. Seraphim. This clearly appears in the story of how the Vladimir merchant and the future governor of the Sergius Lavra, then Abbot Anthony, came to him at the same time. ... From this case it is clear that St. Seraphim was preparing Fr. Anthony to his future ministry and revealed spiritual laws to him. At the request of Fr. Anthony to explain to him how the effect of perspicacity takes place, the monk replied to him the following: “I am a sinful Seraphim and I think that I am a sinful servant of God: what the Lord tells me, I pass on to the one who requires useful ... The first thought that appears in my soul, I consider by the direction of God and I say not knowing what is in my interlocutor's soul, but only believing that this is how the will of God indicates to me for his benefit. And there are times when I am told some circumstance, and I, not believing it to the will of God, submit to my reason, thinking that it is possible, without resorting to God, to decide with my own mind: in such cases, mistakes are always made ”.
The elder concluded this very instructive and explanatory conversation as follows: "As iron forging, so I handed myself and my will to the Lord God: as He pleases, I act, I do not have my will, but what God pleases, I give it."
From this it is clear that the Almighty Lord Himself spoke through the mouth of St. Seraphim. Therefore, without hesitation, he immediately answered with complete certainty, and even said that which did not even come to the thought of his interlocutor, but which the Holy Spirit revealed.
Absolutely the same was said by the Optina elder, Fr. Barsanuphius to his spiritual son Vasily Shustin: “Serve mass, join and then go to receive the people. Tell you their needs. You will go to your cell, think it over, stop at some decision, and when you come to say this decision, you will say something completely different from what you thought. And this is what it is a valid answer and advice, which, if not followed by the questioner, will incur the worst trouble... This is the invisible grace of God, which is especially clearly manifested in the elders after the communion of the Holy Mysteries. "
In other words, this is advice given not through the human mind, but through an influx from above, the so-called "heart message" in asceticism. This happens in relation to external ones, but between the elder and his disciple, when the relationship is already more intimate, the elder is revealed much more about the disciple: the same Fr. Barsanuphius reveals this secret to his beloved spiritual son: “Then he pondered, apparently feeling the imminent approach of death ... And he began to talk about the grace of elders ... -“ We are called seers, indicating that we can see the future; yes, great grace is given to the elders - it is the gift of reasoning. This is the greatest gift God gives to man. In addition to physical eyes, we also have spiritual eyes, before which the human soul opens up, before a person thinks, before a thought arises in him, we see it with spiritual eyes, we even see the reason for the emergence of such a thought. And nothing is hidden from us. You live in Petersburg and think that I do not see you. Whenever I want, I will see everything that you do and think. There is no space and time for us ... ”. ...
From the properties of the elder follows his boundless power.
... The penance imposed by the elder, no one, except him, can cancel. In support of this Theodore Studite cites the story:
“One old man more than once ordered his disciple to do a certain task, but he put it off. Dissatisfied with this, in indignation, the elder imposed on the disciple a prohibition not to eat bread until he completed the task entrusted to him. When the disciple set out to carry out the assigned command, the elder died. After his death, the student wished to obtain permission from the prohibition imposed on him. But there was no one in the desert area who would dare to resolve this bewilderment. Finally, the disciple made a request to Patriarch German of Constantinople, who gathered other bishops to consider this matter. But neither the patriarch, nor the council (it is clear that the matter is here about the so-called "Εύνοδος ένδυμοΰτα" - this is a council of bishops who are accidentally staying on business at a given moment in the capital, convened by the patriarch in case of need) found it possible to resolve the penance of the elder, oh which is not even known whether he held a priesthood degree. Therefore, the disciple to death was forced to eat food from only vegetables. "
Prof. Smirnov makes the following conclusions:
“… Senile penance has full canonical force. She is a manifestation of the apostolic right to "knit and decide", and no personal deeds of the bound person, even martyrdom for Christ, will free him from her bondage. "
We find such a view of the power of an elder not only in ancient times. He has not changed in our time.
Here is a 30-year-old novice Vasily (the future elder Hierom. Barnabas) in the Gethsemane skete of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra is in obedience to the elder Gregory.
“Once, during the dying illness of elder Gregory, Vasily went to visit the sick man and for a long time that time remained at his bed, for the last time quenching his thirst for spiritual life with the wise instructions of the elder. It was at this time that the feat of eldership was entrusted to him, which he took upon himself after the death of his mentors. Giving Basil a covenant to accept all those who come with love and not refuse anyone advice and guidance, Elder Gregory gave him two prosphora and said: "Feed the hungry here with word and bread, this is how God wants it." At the end of all, he added, revealing to him the will of God, that they should be built a women's monastery in a remote area and completely infected with schism. At the same time, the elder looked at his disciple with love and pity, not hiding from him that he would have to endure a lot and suffer sorrows and troubles.
... Thus, Fr. Vasily began his eldership and soon began to create the Iversk-Vyksa women's monastery. He did not escape his sorrows. It got to the point that the innocent elder was tried at the Lavra "cathedral". Then the schema-monk, Fr. Alexander. He spoke a wise word, and everyone fell silent after that. “If anyone can,” said Fr. Alexander, “to remove the old covenant from him - to build a monastery and take care of it - then he will become aloof, and if it is impossible for anyone to remove this obedience bequeathed by the elder, then it should not be forbidden to carry it”. Silently, this wise word was listened to, and everyone silently left the meeting, which at the same time put an end to all complaints about the priest "(Life of Fr. Barnabas).
The will of the elder was obligatory not only for his spiritual children, but also for the entire monastery. These are the sad consequences to which violations of the traditions bequeathed by them led.
“There was a rumor that someone from Optina was advising Fr. for the archimandrite to cut down the age-old pines for the sawmill, which is between the skete and the monastery: it doesn't matter, they will rot in the bud from old age.
Our skete friend, Fr. Nectarios (the last Optina elder).
"Have you heard?" I ask.
I talked about hearing.
"This," exclaimed Fr. Nektarios, “not to be, because the great elders made a covenant not to touch forever the forests between the hermitage and the monastery. The bush is not allowed to cut, not like the age-old trees. "
And then he told me the following: “When the elder Fr. Leo then bequeathed to the skete the day of his death to remember the "consolation" of the brethren and to bake pancakes for them that day. After his death, our elders Moses and Macarius were appointed to rule on the same day a conciliar panikhida for him. So this commandment was kept for a long time until the days of Abbot Isaac and the monastic leader Hilarion. With them came such a temptation. - Comes on the eve of the day of remembrance of Fr. Leo to the hegumen the sexton Theodosius with a proposal to cancel the conciliar service.
The hegumen did not agree. And what happened after that? Theodosius sees in a dream: Father Leo grabbed him from the back of his head by the hair, lifted him to the bell tower on the cross and threatened three times: "Do you want me to drop him now?"
And at that time he showed him a terrible abyss under the bell tower. When Theodosius woke up, he felt pain between his shoulders. Then a carbuncle formed. He was ill for more than a month, even in his life he despaired. Since then, they shook themselves, otherwise they wanted to stop ruling conciliarly.
And in the skete that day, the cell attendant Fr. Hilarion, Neil, began to persuade him to abolish the pancakes.
“Father,” says, “how much grain is spent on this, they have to be baked in the working kitchen, the worker must be taken away from the job, and the workers must also be fed up; where can we get some flour? "
And neal bowled the wanderer, - they canceled the pancakes. Then it turned out more serious than Theodosiev carbuncle: from that day Fr. Hilarion even until the end of his days could not perform the Divine service, and the Nile was struck by leprosy, with which he died, becoming powerless during his lifetime to the point that his worker drove in an armchair to the temple of God. Not only that: on the same night when this ill-fated cancellation of the "consolation" took place, a worker in the working kitchen in the skete got mad and died. How many fuss with the police, it was. And there the God-lovers stopped donating flour to the skete ... ”- added Fr. Nectarius to his story, and concluded it with these words:
“As long as the elders are still in Optina, their behests will be fulfilled. Now, when the old people's huts are sealed, locks will be hung on their doors, well, then ... everything can be expected, but now "the time is not coming." The priest was silent for a little, then smiled his bright good-natured smile and said:
"In the meantime, let our beauties - pines flaunt in their places." Indeed - beauties.
“The time is not coming,” said the elder in 1909 ... but alas! - "time to come" ... ( S. A. Nilus ". On the banks of the God's River»)».
The lives of the Optina elders abound with examples of their perspicacity and, in particular, tell about the tragic consequences of disobedience to the elders:
“Let us now give a story about the aforementioned inhabitant of Kozelsk, Kapiton. He had an only son, a grown-up youth, dexterous, handsome. The father decided to give him to the people and brought him to the elder in order to receive a blessing from him for the work he had planned. Both are sitting in the corridor and there are several monks near them. An old man comes out to them. Kapiton, having received a blessing with his son, explains that he wants to give his son to people. The elder approves of the intention and advises his son to go to Kursk. Kapiton begins to dispute the elder: "In Kursk," he says, "we have no acquaintances, but bless me, father, to Moscow." The old man in a joking tone replies: "Moscow kicks off its toes, and beats with boards; let him go to Kursk." But Kapiton still did not listen to the elder and sent his son to Moscow, where he soon entered the a good place... At this time, the owner was building some kind of building, where the young man who had just hired him was. Suddenly, several boards fell from above, which shattered both of his legs. Father was immediately notified of this by telegram. With bitter tears he came to the elder to tell about his grief, but this grief could no longer be helped. The sick son was brought from Moscow. For a long time he was ill, and although the wounds were closed, he remained a cripple for the whole century, incapable of any work. "
“A young man from a merchant family became a widow after 4 years of marriage. They began to woo him a new bride. When native brother he went to Optina Hermitage, he instructed him to ask the elder about. Hilarion's blessings for a second marriage. The elder gave the following answer: "Tell your brother, let him wait another year, so he will come to us, and we will see if he is suitable for us." The young man himself did not find time to go to the elder, he put off everything, and meanwhile they wooed his bride. Without seeing the elder in person, he did not follow his advice in absentia and remarried. But after three and a half weeks, the second wife also died. After that, he was offered to enter into a third marriage. Then he went to the monastery to personally bless himself with the elder. The elder received him with sympathy and said: "What, did you not obey? So much for your marriage!" After spending several days in the monastery, he expressed a desire to enter the monastery instead of getting married to the elder in confession. The elder asked how long ago he had this desire? He replied: "Just a few hours." The elder said: "You must first test yourself for some time." At the end of the confession, he said with a smile: "Well, come, come, we will receive you." Soon he left his family and in 1865 entered the skete, where he now lives as a mantle. "
“Now I’ll tell you about myself. When my sister and I acquired our cell in the Belevsky Monastery, the priest allegorically hinted to us, as later explained, that it, the cell, was not strong; we at that time did not understand the hints, and having received the funds, we asked the priest's blessing to trim it inside, as well as to upholster it with planks and cover it with iron on the outside. Father really did not deign to do this, blessing us to live in it as it is, and only at our repeated request, especially my impatient one, reluctantly agreed to the indicated alterations, moreover, he punished us not to start or make any further amendments ... This insistence on his own will and disobedience shown to St. old man, remained to me, a sinner, for my whole life for self-reproach.
This alteration cost us about 300 rubles. When my sister went to abbess in Tula, we, with the blessing of our elder and our mother abbess, followed her, and sold our cell for the price for which we had bought it ourselves, so that finishing this remained at a loss to us.
At this time we had more funds and, moreover, and hopes for the future. At the present time, when our funds have become more limited, have become scarce, then this deprivation has become more sensitive.
So I also lost because of my carelessness and slowness in fulfilling the will of the elder. Father about. Hilarion blessed my sister and I to transfer one another in case of death, that is, so that my sister would hand over her property to me, and I, out of carelessness, would not remind my sister, put everything off, thinking that we would still have time, when suddenly my sister suddenly fell ill and died.
So, sorting through a lot of your past, you involuntarily come to know the irreversible loss of precious time, which I, a sinner, due to my negligence, did not know how to use. "
4. Elders are asked only once
For the same reason that God Himself reveals His will about man through the elder, it is impossible to ask the elder the same question twice, or to address the same question to two elders. In such behavior there is distrust of God, unbelief, His temptation, and the Lord departs from such a person. Therefore, at the first question, the elder speaks from God, revealing His will, but at the second, his human, rational opinion is mixed in, which may not correspond to the will of God.
Rev. Barsanuphius the Great and John:
« 358 ... The brother asked another elder, saying: tell me, my father, whom should I ask about thoughts? And should the question be asked about the same (thoughts) to another.
John's answer. You need to ask the one to whom you have faith, and you know that he can carry thoughts, and you believe him as God, and asking another about the same thought is a matter of unbelief and inquisitiveness. If you believe that God spoke through His saint, then why is there a test, or what need is there to tempt God by asking another about the same thing?
Level 359... But what if the thought continues to confuse someone and according to the answer received from the fathers?
John's Answer... This means that, having received instruction, he remained idle and did not fulfill exactly what was commanded him diligently; (why) and must correct this error by doing exactly what I heard; for if God speaks in his saints, then there is no lie.
Question 360. Should the same person be asked a second time about the same thing, or not? I know, my father, that I was told not to do a certain thing, but I asked the same person a second time about the same thing and received an answer to do it. What does it mean?
John's answer. Brother! The fate of God is many (Ps. 35: 7). Looking at the heart of the questioner, God puts (word) into the mouth of the one who speaks to him either to testing him (the questioner), or because his heart has changed and he is honored to hear something else; or others participating in the same work have changed, and God speaks differently in His holy. Thus He spoke through Isaiah and King Hezekiah; for after that he said to him: Command thy house, die bo (2 Kings 20: 1), the King's heart changed, and he was grieved. Then God, through the same Isaiah, said to him: Behold, add God to your summer another five and ten years (2 Kings 20: 6). If He had said this through another, then this would have been a temptation that the saints (about the same thing) speak differently. And again, speaking according to the heart of the Ninevites through Jonah, He said: Three days later I will turn hail (Jon. 3, 4). When their hearts changed to repentance, God showed them His great longsuffering and spared the city because it had changed for the better (Jonah 3:10). Therefore, no one should ever change the asked saint, but ask again the same. It may be necessary that God, for some reason, change the answer, and this is done through the same saint, so that otherwise there would be no temptation. "
From V. P. Bykov's book "Quiet Shelters for Resting a Suffering Soul":
“And when I asked him a number of questions concerning the reorganization of my personal life, I felt - at least I had the impression - that the elder penetrated my past with some inner impulses, appreciated my present and, teaching advice for the future, out of a sense of delicacy, and perhaps regret, does not want to touch upon the painful issues of my being. Having taught me his blessing, he invited me to visit Elder Nektarios.
At first I was giving up on it; firstly, for fear not to disturb the impression that I got from this conversation, and secondly, again, by virtue of the above-mentioned explanation of the venerable fathers Barsanuphius the Great and John, that to ask the elders twice about the same and the same, just as one should not pass from one elder to another; for, in the first case, the elder undoubtedly speaks by inspiration from above, and in the second, the work of reason is mixed in. "
5. The history of eldership
Elderhood arose in the 4th century. as an institution of monastic life. Seniors' leadership, "nourishment", presupposed voluntary obedience, submission of the novice to the will of the elder, cutting off his own will. The novice revealed to him all his thoughts and fulfilled his instructions. The elder was a spiritual father for the novice. Gradually, lay people began to resort to such elders, spiritually experienced, spirit-bearing, sagacious ascetics, for spiritual advice and nourishment.
In Russia, the elders existed in all the ancient monasteries, but with the decline of Christianity, the elders gradually weakened. Its revivalist was Schema-Archimandrite Paisiy Velichkovsky. Then his disciples, scattered over many monasteries of the Russian land, gradually introduced seniors' guidance into them. In the second half of the 19th century, Optina and Glinskaya hermitages and some other monasteries were breeding grounds for elders in Russia.
Sacred Vladimir Sokolov writes about the reasons for the emergence of the institution of old age and about the features of old age care that arose at the same time:
“The era of the Apostolic Church is a time of special gifts of grace, manifested both in the pastors and in the flock. Later, with the influx of a huge number of new converts and a natural decline in spiritual and moral requirements for them, there was already a noticeable depletion of these initial gifts. Therefore, the most zealous Christians, thirsty for true spiritual life, began to flee into the wilderness, where they could devote themselves completely to God. Some of the ascetics achieved such perfection that they completely got rid of passions, received, first of all, the gift of love, and along with it - the gift of spiritual understanding and perspicacity. In dispassion, the will of God was revealed to them. Naturally, such vessels of grace attracted the attention of those seeking a way to salvation. Knowing that the Will of God was open to these spirit-bearing ascetics, many asked them for guidance in their spiritual life, deliberately giving up their own will. But this obedience had one very important feature for understanding this phenomenon: it was the obedience of a layman to a layman, because the monks refused to accept dignity for the reason that dignity gives power, and its receipt is incompatible with the monastic life of repentance and obedience. Therefore, the monastic leadership was a leadership in which the exercise of power was avoided in every possible way. And complete and complete obedience to such an elder was insured against abuse of spiritual power.
This is how this practice of complete obedience to the spiritual elder was born. There could be no question of spiritual violence, of lack of freedom, because the elder, with his advice and care, only helped his novice to cultivate a "new man" in himself. This work was similar to that of a gardener tending a garden. It was organic - and gave birth to wonderful spiritual fruits, which were evidence that such obedience is really the fulfillment of the will of God, and not the will of man.
However, over time, such dispassionate mentors became less and less, and the experience of complete obedience, having spread widely, gradually became meaningless, because the main thing disappeared from it: the will of God revealed to the spiritual elder ”.
A brief history of the institute of eldership is given by THEM. Kontsevich:
“Let us now turn to the historical research ... which is being carried out by prof. SI Smirnov in his work "Ancient Russian Confessor". ...
... In the ancient monasteries of the East, confession and repentance are formed into an independent system, different from the contemporary church penitential discipline.
Consider what this monastic practice is; “The spiritual father” - “pneumatikos patir” (elder) usually accepted the confession of a monk for all sins. This term appears already from the 4th century and exists until the middle of the 9th century - it does not mean a priest, not an executor of the episcopal commission, it is "a simple monastic elder, an obligatory monk mentor, independently placed in a monastery and freely chosen by a disciple, who for the most part did not have holy orders." ... "He took the souls of his disciples into his soul, guided them in every step of the spiritual life, and therefore, accepting the confession of their thoughts and deeds, he encouraged and punished."
The moral and everyday relations between the elder and the disciple - the spiritual father and the spiritual son - very soon and early developed externally and internally into a solid and harmonious system, became stronger in the monastic-everyday form ”(Smirnov). The ancient elder, as a later confessor, accepted confession and performed repentance. The elder usually accepted the monk's confession of all sins, starting with a fleeting thought that slightly disturbed the monastic conscience, ending with a mortal sin.
The spread of the influence of the elders in the worldly environment begins very early, probably from the very first years of established monasticism. Laymen go to confession to the elders, bypassing their pastors.
... Over time, the monastic confession throughout the East supplants the church confession, which was performed by the white hierarchy according to the canons and the monastic elders - "spiritual fathers" turn into confessors.
… So, the institution of the “spiritual father” first appears in the form of the monastery eldership. The term "spiritual father" has long been used to refer to the monastery elder. Then this church-everyday form was completely repeated in the later clergy. The monastic-everyday form turned into a church-everyday form and in this form existed in the East almost invariably for a number of centuries (Smirnov).
With the emergence of Christianity in Russia ... Although we received penitential discipline from Greece and Bulgaria, however, in our country, in contrast to them, due to the vast territory of the territory, a separate class of confessors very soon ceased to exist, and every white priest began to receive the right to confess resolution ".
“The gracious eldership is one of the highest achievements of the spiritual life of the Church, this is her color, this is the crown of spiritual deeds, the fruit of silence and contemplation of God.
It is organically connected with the inner monastic deed, which has the goal of achieving dispassion, and therefore arises simultaneously with monasticism at the dawn of Christianity.
But in the run of time, eldership flourishes in places, reaching the apogee of its development, then weakens, falls into decay and is even completely forgotten, so that it may be reborn again, like a wave-like curve, now rising, then falling and again rising. So it was forgotten in Russia by the time of Paisiy Velichkovsky (18th century). He revived the eldership, which began to flourish in our country in many places.
And, although this was a revival of the ancient tradition of the same Russia, for the majority it seemed an obscure innovation.
... the Russian monastic eldership has been little studied and insufficiently appreciated by the Russian society.
The latter had a vague idea of eldership. Even our young theological science did not manage to develop this issue. Thus: “The issue of eldership in ancient Russian monasteries is completely not touched upon in the scientific literature. Judging by the lives, it was widespread, ”says Professor Serebryansky.
Likewise, the church hierarchy often became perplexed before this phenomenon. Hence the frequent persecution to which the elders were subjected: St. Seraphim of Sarov, Fr. Barnabas Gethsemane, Optinskys: Fr. Leonidas, Fr. Ambrose, and in our memory, Fr. Varsonofy.
This last story of the persecution of the outstanding old man, Fr. Varsonuphia is so characteristic that we will dwell on it in more detail. In 1911, on a false denunciation of Gr. Ignatieva, whose religious and political salon in St. Petersburg had weight, as well as on the denunciation of a handful of monks expelled by Fr. Varsonofy together with Fr. Xenophon, the abbot of Optina, from the monastery for rebelliousness, the Holy Synod appointed an investigation. Bp was sent there. Seraphim Chichagov - the author of the famous "Diveevo Chronicle" and later Archbishop of Tver and Metropolitan of St. Petersburg. The latter, without making any investigation, immediately sided with the rebels, brought them back to Optina, replaced his father Barsanuphius and transferred him to the Staro-Golutvensky monastery. Even the question of closing the skete and the destruction of the elders was raised. Shocked by this defeat, the rector of Optina, Fr. Xenophon, and a year later - April 4th. 1912 about. Barsanuphius. ...
Of course, not all hierarchs persecuted the elders. So, for example, he was once patronized by such outstanding saints as Met. Gabriel (1801) or both Filarets - Moscow and Kiev, who themselves were ascetics and ascetics.
The influence of the elders extended far beyond the walls of the monastery. The elders spiritually nourished not only the monks, but also the laity. Possessing the gift of perspicacity, they, as already mentioned above, edified everyone, exhorted and consoled (1 Cor. XIV, 1.3), healed from mental and physical diseases, warned against dangers, showed the way of life, revealing the will of God. "
After the revolution, during the persecution of Orthodoxy, the Russian elders remained, albeit in a semi-hidden form. Christians from all over the country came and wrote to the elders, informal communities were formed around the elders from the children they constantly led, who remained faithful to the Russian Orthodox Church, and at the same time carried out secret spiritual contacts. Such were the elders Lavrenty of Chernigov, Seraphim Vyritsky, the eldress Blessed Matrona (sc. 1952), the schema-nun Macarius (sc. 1993).
6. Pseudo-aging
Falsehood arises from a misunderstanding of the essence of true eldership, when, instead of obeying the sagacious advice of a true elder, which is consistent with the will of God, they foolishly and blindly follow the arbitrary commands of a false elder, demanding unconditional obedience from the laity. This leads to the saddest consequences, up to deep delight, loss of faith, catastrophes in personal and family life, and even suicide.
Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov), warning of spiritual catastrophes that can befall those who have trusted a false elder, warns against blind obedience to the confessor, teaches a sober attitude towards advice and prudence, which must be based on the instructions of the holy fathers and the knowledge of Holy Scripture:
“Newbie! often visit the cell of your confessor or your elder for your spiritual edification and confession of your sins and your sinful thoughts. Blessed are you if you have found a knowledgeable, experienced and well-meaning elder: a satisfactory mentor in our times is the greatest rarity. … If there is no satisfactory mentor in the monastery, then more often confess your sins before your spiritual father, and take instructions from the Gospel and the books written by the holy fathers about asceticism. ...
The fallen angel tries to deceive and draw the monks into destruction, offering them not only sin in its various forms, but also offering them the most exalted virtues that are not characteristic of them. Do not trust, brethren, your thoughts, understandings, dreams, inclinations, even if they seem to you the best, even if they represent to you in a picturesque picture the most holy monastic residence! ...
What has been said about hermitage and seclusion must also say about obedience to the elders in the form in which it was among ancient monasticism: such obedience is not given to our time. The Rev. Cassian the Roman says that the Egyptian Fathers, among whom monasticism flourished especially and bore amazing spiritual fruits, "assert that it is inherent in the wise to govern and be governed well, and determine that this is the greatest gift and grace of the Holy Spirit." A necessary condition for such obedience is a spirit-bearing mentor who, by the will of the Spirit, would mortify the fallen will of the one who obeyed him in the Lord, and in this fallen will he would also mortify all passions. The fallen and corrupted will of man contains in itself the striving for all passions. It is obvious that the mortification of the fallen will, accomplished so majestically and victoriously by the will of the Spirit of God, cannot be accomplished by the fallen will of the mentor, when the mentor himself is still enslaved by the passions. “If you want to renounce the world,” said Saint Simeon the New Theologian to the monks of his day, “and learn the gospel life, then do not surrender (entrust) yourself to an inexperienced or passionate teacher, so as not to learn, instead of the gospel life, the devil’s life, because good teachers and good teachers, but evil - evil; from crafty seeds crafty fruits will certainly grow. Anyone who does not see and promises to instruct others is a deceiver, and he casts those who follow him into the pit of destruction, according to the word of the Lord: “But if the blind man leads the blind, both will fall into the pit” [Matt. 15. 14]. On another occasion, this great saint of God, advising the monk to act at the direction of the spiritual father, adds: “However, let him do this only when he knows that his spiritual father is a partaker of the Spirit, that he will not speak to him contrary to the will of God, but , according to his gift and according to the measure of the obedient, he will praise what is pleasing to God and useful to the soul, so as not to be obedient to man, and not to God. " In this sense, the Apostle also bequeathed: do not wake a servant as a man. He commands the very service of the servants of the masters to be performed spiritually, and not in the character of those pleasing to men, but in the character of the servants of Christ, doing the will of God in external service to men [Eph. 6. 6]. “Now,” says the Apostle, “I quarrel with men, or God? or looking for a man to please? If he still pleased with man, Christ's servant would never have been. ”[Am I now looking for favor with people, or with God? Do I try to please people? If I still please people, I would not be a slave of Christ (Gal. 1:10)]. “Do you not know, as if you imagine slaves in obedience to him” - to a man of fleshly wisdom or to God - "Servant of nature, you will listen to him, or sin" and carnal wisdom "to death, or obedience to righteousness" of God and to salvation [Are you not know that to whom you give yourself up as slaves for obedience, are you also slaves to whom you obey, or slaves of sin to an estimate, or obedience to righteousness? (Rom. 6:16)]. Obedience forms the one who obeys in the image of the one to whom he obeys: “I will conceive a sheep with a rod,” says the Scripture [(Gen. 30. 39)]. Those elders who take on the role ... let us use this unpleasant word that belongs to the pagan world in order to more accurately explain the matter, which in essence is nothing more than soul-destroying acting and the saddest comedy - the elders who take on the role of the ancient holy elders, not having their spiritual gifts, let them know that their very intention, their very thoughts and their notions about the great monastic deed - obedience - are false, that their very way of thinking, their mind, their knowledge are self-deception and demonic charm, which cannot but give appropriate fruit in what they instruct. Their wrong and inadequate mood can only for some time remain unnoticed by the inexperienced novice led by them, if this novice is at all clever and engages in holy reading with the direct intention of salvation. In due time, it must certainly open up and serve as a pretext for the most unpleasant separation, for the most unpleasant relationship between the elder and the student, for the mental breakdown of both. It is a terrible thing to accept, out of self-conceit and willfully, responsibilities that can be performed only at the command of the Holy Spirit and the action of the Spirit; It is a terrible thing to imagine oneself as a vessel of the Holy Spirit, while communion with Satan has not yet been dissolved, and the vessel does not cease to be defiled by the action of Satan! Such hypocrisy and hypocrisy are awful! it is disastrous for oneself and for one's neighbor, criminal before God, blasphemous. In vain will they point out to us the Monk Zechariah, who, being in obedience to the unskilful old man, his father in the flesh, Karion, attained monastic perfection [Alphabetic Paterikon beating his disciple prematurely into the coffin [Ladder. Word 4, ch. 3]. The one and the other were in obedience to insufficient elders, but were guided by the advice of the spirit-bearing fathers, also the most instructive examples, which were in abundance before their eyes: for this reason alone, they could remain in outward obedience to their elders. These cases are outside the general order and rule. “The mode of action of the Providence of God,” said Saint Isaac of Syria, “is completely different from the general human order. You keep the general order. " They will object: the faith of a novice can replace the lack of an elder. Not true: faith in the truth saves, faith in lies and in demonic delusion destroys, according to the teachings of the Apostle. “Love doesn’t accept truth,” he says of those who perish arbitrarily, “in the hedgehog they will be saved. And for this, for the sake of this, God will (allow) them the act of flattery, in the hedgehog of believing them a lie, but they will receive judgment for those who disbelieve the truth, but who delighted in unrighteousness "[... did not accept the love of truth for their salvation. And for this, God will send them an action of error, so that they will believe a lie, so that all who did not believe the truth, but loved unrighteousness, be condemned (2 Thess. 2. 10-12)]. "According to your faith, wake you up" [... according to your faith be it unto you (Matthew 9:29)], said the Lord, Self-Truth, to two blind men and healed them from blindness: he has no right to repeat the words of Self-Truth, a lie and hypocrisy to justify their criminal behavior, by which they destroy their neighbors.
… As the guide of our behavior, God Himself has given us the Law of God, that is, the Holy Scriptures and the scriptures of the fathers. The Apostle Paul decisively says: “We command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be excommunicated from every brother who walks without reason, and not according to tradition, taking him from us” [We command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ , to move away from every brother who walks disorderly, and not according to tradition, which was received from us (2 Thess. 3. 6)]. Tradition is here called the moral tradition of the Church. It is set forth in the Holy Scriptures and in the writings of the holy fathers. The Monk Pimen the Great gave orders to immediately be separated from the elder, cohabitation with whom turns out to be insane [Alphabetic patericon], apparently due to the violation of the moral tradition of the Church by this elder. It is a different matter when there is no mental harm, but thoughts only confuse: embarrassing thoughts are obviously demonic; we do not need to obey them as acting exactly where we receive the spiritual benefit that they want to steal from us. Monastic obedience, in the form and character that it took place in the midst of ancient monasticism, is a high spiritual sacrament. The comprehension of him and the complete imitation of him have become impossible for us: perhaps one reverent prudent consideration of him, perhaps the assimilation of his spirit. Then we will embark on the path of correct judgment and soul-saving prudence, when, reading the experiences and rules of doing the ancient fathers - their obedience, equally wondrous in both leaders and guided, we see in modern times the general decline of Christianity, we confess that we are not able to inherit doing fathers in his fullness and in all his abundance.
About council residency
… The spiritual life provided by the Providence of God for our time. It is based on guidance in the matter of salvation by the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the holy fathers, with advice and edification borrowed from the modern fathers and brethren. … Our modern monastic residence according to the Scriptures and the advice of the fathers and brethren is consecrated by the example of the head of monasticism, the Monk Anthony the Great. He was not in obedience to the elder, but in his new leadership he lived separately and borrowed instructions from Scripture and from different fathers and brethren: from one he learned abstinence, from another meekness, patience, humility, from another strict vigilance over himself, silence, trying to assimilate the virtue of every virtuous monk, showing obedience to everyone whenever possible, humbling himself before everyone and praying to God incessantly. Do you, the new-beginner, in the same way! Show the abbot and other monastic authorities an unhypocritical and inhuman obedience, obedience alien to flattery and caress, obedience for God's sake. Show obedience to all fathers and brethren in their orders that are not contrary to the Law of God, the charter and order of the monastery and the orders of the monastery authorities. But in no way be obedient to evil, if it happened to you to endure some sorrow for your inhuman pleasing and your firmness. Consult with virtuous and sensible fathers and brothers; but assimilate their advice with the utmost care and discretion. Don't get carried away by the advice on its initial effect on you! Because of your passion and blindness, you may like other passionate and harmful advice solely out of your ignorance and inexperience, or because it pleases some secret passion that is unknown to you, living in you. With weeping and heartfelt sighs, pray to God that He would not allow you to deviate from His all-holy will to follow the fallen human will, yours or your neighbor's, your advisor. Both about your thoughts and about the thoughts of your neighbor, about his advice, consult the Gospel. Vanity and conceit love to teach and instruct. They don't care about the dignity of their advice! they do not think that they can inflict an incurable ulcer on their neighbors with absurd advice, which is accepted by an inexperienced novice with imprecise trust, with fleshly and blood heat! they need success, whatever the quality of this success, whatever its beginning! they need to impress the novice and morally subdue him! they need human praise! they need to be branded as saints, intelligent, perspicacious elders, teachers! they need to feed their insatiable vanity, their pride. The Prophet's prayer has always been just, and it is especially true nowadays: “Save me, Lord, as if the monk is scarce: as if the truth is diminishing from the sons of men. A vain verb kiyzhdo to his sincere: mouth flattering in the heart, and an evil verb in the heart ”[(Psalm 11: 2, 3)]. A false and hypocritical word cannot but be an evil and pernicious word. Care must be taken against this sentiment. " Study Divine Scripture, - is talking Simeon the New Theologian, - and the writings of the holy fathers, especially active, so that by comparing the teaching and behavior of your teacher and the elder, you could see them (this teaching and behavior) as in a mirror and understand them; to assimilate for oneself and keep in mind according to the Scripture; but to know and to reject false and evil, so as not to be deceived. Know that in our days there are many deceivers and false teachers ”[Chapter 33. Philanthropy. Part 1]. The Monk Simeon lived in the tenth century after the Nativity of Christ, nine centuries before our time: already when the voice of the righteous in the Holy Church of Christ was heard about the lack of true, spirit-bearing leaders, about the multitude of false teachers. In the course of time, satisfactory teachers of monasticism became more and more scarce: then the holy fathers began to offer more and more guidance in the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the fathers. The Monk Nil Sorsk, referring to the fathers who wrote before him, says: “It is not a small feat, they said, to find an immaculate teacher for this wonderful work (true monastic heartfelt and intelligent prayer). They called immortal the one who has the work and wisdom witnessed by the Divine Scriptures and has acquired spiritual reasoning. And the holy fathers said that even then it was hardly possible to find an immaculate teacher for such subjects; but now, when they have become extremely impoverished, one must seek with the utmost care. If not, then the holy fathers commanded to learn from the Divine Scripture, hearing the Lord Himself, saying: "Test the Scriptures, and in them you will find an eternal life" [(John 5:39]. "In our punishment (instruction) pre-napisasha" [And everything that was written before was written to us for instruction (Rom. 15: 4)]. The Monk Nil lived in the 15th century; he founded a skete not far from Bela-Ozero, where he studied prayer in deep solitude. It is useful to listen to the elders of modern times, with what humility and selflessness St. Nilus responds to the instructions that he taught the brethren. we will not become guilty of a transgression of God's commandment. needing them (demanding, inquiring). It is more correct: it is not we who teach, because we are not worthy of it, but the blessed holy Fathers teach from the Divine Scripture. " Here is an excellent example for modern instruction! He is quite psychoactive to the mentor and instructor; he is the correct expression of moderate prosperity; it is combined with the rejection of conceit, insane arrogance and insolence, into which those who imitate the outward appearance of the great Barsanuphius and other signifying Fathers fall, without the grace of the fathers. What was in those an expression of the abundant presence of the Holy Spirit in them, then in the reckless, hypocritical imitators serves as an expression of abundant ignorance, self-delusion, pride, insolence. Beloved fathers! Let us pronounce the word of God to our brethren with all kinds of humility and reverence, realizing that we are insufficient for this service and protecting ourselves from vanity, which greatly chills passionate people when they teach the brethren. Think that we must give an answer for every idle word [Matt. 12. 36], the more painful is the answer for the word of God, pronounced with vanity and at the prompting of vanity. “The Lord will consume all flattering lips, an eloquent tongue, reksya: our tongue will magnify, our mouth is with us the essence: who is the Lord for us” [(Psalm 11.4, 5)] ... He who acts out of himself acts for vanity, brings himself and those who listen to him as a sacrifice to Satan: the one acting from the Lord acts to the glory of the Lord, accomplishes his own salvation and the salvation of his neighbors by the Lord, the only Savior of men. Let us be afraid of teaching the novice any rash instruction that is not based on the Word of God and on the spiritual understanding of the Word of God. It is better to confess ignorance than to show insanity. Let us be protected from the great calamity - to turn the gullible novice from a servant of God into a servant of man, having drawn him to the creation of the fallen will of man instead of the all-holy will of God. The modest attitude of the counselor to the instructed is completely different from that of the elder to the unconditional novice, the servant in the Lord. The advice does not include a condition to be sure to fulfill it: it can be fulfilled and not fulfilled. The counselor does not bear any responsibility for his advice, if he gave it with the fear of God and humility, not spontaneously, but being asked and forced. Likewise, he who has received advice is not contacted by him; at his discretion and reasoning, it remains to fulfill or not to fulfill the advice received. Obviously, how the path of counseling and following the Holy Scriptures is consistent with our weak times. Note that the fathers forbid giving advice to a neighbor on their own motivation, without asking a neighbor: the unauthorized teaching of advice is a sign of consciousness behind oneself of the knowledge and dignity of the spiritual, in which there is obvious pride and self-deception [Opinion of the Holy Martyr Peter, Metropolitan of Damascus, and other Fathers. Philosophy. Part 3] ".
Saint Theophan the Recluse:
"So this is what is now the best, most reliable way of leadership, or education in Christian life! Life in devotion to the will of God, according to the Divine and paternal Scriptures, with the advice and questioning of like-minded people."
Saint Gregory Palamas reminds of the need for great attention to what they say and what are taught by people who have not yet acquired the Holy Spirit:
“Truly… ungodly reasoning turns out to be so close to pious that the slightest addition or withdrawal easily turns one into another and the meaning of words is reversed; therefore, any false teaching bears the guise of truth for people who are unable to notice this small withdrawal or addition. Here is the cunning trick of the evil one with his great art of deception. After all, a lie, which is not far from the truth, creates a double delusion: since a tiny difference escapes the majority, either a lie is taken for truth, or the truth, in its close proximity to a lie, is a lie, in both cases completely falling away from the truth. "
I. M. Kontsevich analyzes the reasons for the emergence of falsehood and reveals the spiritual harm it brings:
“But if the misunderstanding of the elders caused their persecution, then this misunderstanding was the reason for the opposite phenomenon, when all sorts of crooks, impostors, or self-proclaimed ones, who passed themselves off as elders, but had nothing to do with them, were trustingly accepted.
... Let's note one more phenomenon of pseudo-senility, which we can observe in modern reality: modern clergy ... was born from the ancient monastic eldership and is its secondary form. Due to the kinship of these two phenomena, clergy and eldership, inexperienced priests, who are familiar with ascetic literature only theoretically, can always be tempted to "exceed power" - crossing the border of clergy in order to become old, while they even have no idea what the essence of true old age. This "young-old age" (according to one apt expression) ... is fraught with the danger of causing ... irreparable harm to the soul of the ward. There are even known cases of suicide as a result of such damage. The monks-disciples were required to fully obey the elders, the teachers ...
Those who completely surrender themselves to the guidance of a true elder experience a special feeling of joy and freedom in the Lord. This is personally experienced by the writer of these lines. The elder is the direct conductor of the will of God. Communication with God is always associated with a feeling of spiritual freedom, joy and indescribable peace in the soul. On the contrary, a false old man overshadows God, putting his own will in place of the will of God, which is associated with a feeling of slavery, oppression and, almost always, despondency. Moreover, the full admiration of the student before the false elder corrodes his personality, buries the will, perverts the sense of justice and truth and, thus, weans out his consciousness from responsibility for his actions.
… Falsehood causes hypnosis of ideas. And since the basis is a false idea - this idea causes spiritual blindness. When a false idea obscures reality, then no more arguments are accepted, because they stumble upon an idée fixe, which is considered an unshakable axiom.
The person moves forward like a somnambulist until his forehead hits the wall. He breaks his head for himself and often for those who are associated with him. A similar catastrophe befalls the adherents of false oldism. That is why among them there are so frequent cases of suicide and all kinds of despair. Despair is the first symptom that a person is sick with a spiritual disease, which we call "hypnosis of ideas." Despair is the inevitable result of the collapse of those constructions that are built on false foundations. Despair is tangible proof that a person has fallen into a vicious circle, which he himself created, thanks to incorrect, false premises. The father of lies is the devil.
Such a tragedy befalls the adherents of the false elder. Therefore, false oldness is an anti-Christian phenomenon, leading to the destruction of souls. When true elders, one might say, are absent, people, eager to find spiritual support for themselves, choose some spiritual person for some reason, attractive to them and say: "I treat him like an old man." If the confessor turns out to be sober, spiritually honest, he will sharply remove such an attitude. But how many of those who willingly come across in the nets they set up. For this is "acting" in the words of Bp. Ignatius Brianchaninov, leads the self-appointed elder to spiritual death. He himself is losing ground under his feet and is already walking on crooked paths, having lost everything that he collected and acquired in his entire past life.
The true attitude of an elder to a disciple is called in asceticism a spiritual sacrament, it is under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. All sorts of forgeries and falsifications are the essence of the phenomenon on the left side. If the first leads to life, then the second, if a person does not come to his senses in time, will plunge him into a complete disorder of spiritual life, which has an end to any kind of catastrophe.
“In pseudo-aging, the will of one person is enslaved to the will of another, contrary to the instruction of Apostle. Paul: "You were bought at a dear price; do not become slaves of men" (1 Cor. 7:23) and is associated with a feeling of oppression and depression, despondency, or an unhealthy emotional addiction to the "elder." True grace-filled eldership, although based on complete obedience, does not deprive a person of the feeling of joy and freedom in God, since he obeys not the human will, but through it the will of God and knows empirically that the elder shows him the best way out of the external difficulty that has arisen. or offers the best cure for spiritual sickness.
While the gracious old man is the conductor of the Will of God, the false old man shields God with himself. "
“The attitude of a counselor to the instructed is a different matter than that of an elder toward a novice, a servant in the Lord, for whom the elder bears full responsibility. The counselor does not bear responsibility for his advice, given with the fear of God and humility, not spontaneously, but being asked and forced. And the advice is not required, it can be done or not.
One experienced priest, speaking of spiritual guidance and highlighting the difference between eldership and clergy, put it this way: "The confessor directs on the path of salvation, and the elder leads along this path."
Priest Vladimir Sokolov:
“The temptation of young people has existed at all times. Even the Apostle Paul, instructing Timothy, warned that a candidate for bishop "should not be a convert, lest he become proud and fall under the condemnation of the devil" (1 Tim. 3.6). But the apostle himself, in his farewell conversation with the Ephesian elders, prophetically foreshadows: “I know that after my departure, grievous wolves will enter among you, not sparing the flock; "(Acts 20, 29-30).
... The ancient elders, without exception, possessed personal, not priestly grace (they were almost all simple monks), they had personal moral and spiritual authority - their spiritual leadership was of a charismatic nature, which is why obedience to them was so complete and unquestioning. Moreover, such a complete novice was never imposed by them themselves - it was offered by those who asked for their guidance. Therefore, the clergy of the ancient fathers was fundamentally different from the modern one. When the experience of the ancient fathers, without creative reflection, is transferred to other conditions, extending it to almost any parish priest, this leads to deplorable results.
... the first reason for the emergence of such clergy is the psychology of the flock. Not wanting to change, we want to shift the responsibility for everything that happens to us to the shepherd. Such an escape from freedom and responsibility is sometimes expressed in a willingness to do whatever you want….
But such "obedience" is a form of idolatry, when, through violation of the commandments, betrayal of God occurs: the elder is revered more than God. And it doesn't matter if there is an elder who is able to bless for a crime - the trouble is that we are internally ready for it. The prerequisite for such readiness is the amazing openness and trustfulness of the Russian person, his pliability and compliance, his tendency to maximalism, to sacrificial service. But this maximalist openness is combined with astounding naivety and insecurity. Therefore, such an open, naive and self-sacrificing person can always become a victim of shameless violence.
…... In December 1998, the Holy Synod was forced to adopt a special definition on this issue. “Some clergy,” says it, “who received from God in the sacrament of the priesthood the right to spiritual leadership of the flock, believe that such a right means undivided power over the souls of people. respect and trust, such pastors transfer the purely monastic concept of the novice's unquestioning obedience to the elder to the relationship between the layman and his spiritual father, invade the internal issues of the personal and family life of parishioners, subjugate the flock, forgetting about the God-given freedom to which all Christians are called (Gal. 5, 13). Such unacceptable methods of spiritual leadership in some cases turn into a tragedy for the flock, who transfers his disagreement with the confessor to the Church. Such people leave the Orthodox Church and often become easy prey for sectarians. "
In his report at the Jubilee Bishops' Council, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy said: "Cases of arbitrary imposition of unjustified bans continue, pressure on the will of the flock in those areas of life where the Church presupposes internal freedom. I consider it important to stop this practice and strict control of the ruling bishops over the detailed implementation of the above-mentioned Synodal definition."
The ancient patericon tells of what spiritual harm a false elder can inflict on his neighbor:
“The elder said: someone, having fallen into a grave sin, repenting of it, went to reveal it to one elder. But he did not open the case to him, but said this: if such-and-such a thought comes to someone, can he have salvation? The elder, being inexperienced in reasoning, answered him: you have ruined your soul. Having heard this, the brother said: if I have ruined myself, then I will already go into the world. On the way, he met to go to Abba Silouan and reveal his thoughts to him. And he was great in reasoning. But, having come to him, the brother did not open the case for him either, but again used the same veil as in relation to the other elder. The Father opened his mouth and began to tell him from the Scriptures that those who think are not at all subject to condemnation. Hearing this, the brother found strength and hope in his soul and opened the matter to him. Having listened to the matter, the father, like a good doctor, healed his soul with the words of Holy Scripture, which is repentance for those who turn to God with consciousness. When the abba came to that elder, telling him about this, he said: this brother, who has lost hope and decided to go into the world, is like a star among the brethren. I told this so that we know how dangerous it is to talk with people who are inexperienced in reasoning, whether about thoughts or about deeds. "
“Saint Syncliticia said:… it is dangerous to teach others to a person who has not experienced an active life. For as one who has an old house, if he receives strangers to himself, he can destroy them if the house falls; so also those who themselves had not previously built a solid building, together with themselves destroyed those who came to them. For although with words they called for salvation, but with a bad life they harmed their followers more. "
Rev. John Climacus:
I saw an unsophisticated doctor who dishonored a mournful patient and, all the more, did nothing for him, as soon as he plunged him into despair. I also saw a skilled doctor who cut an arrogant heart with humiliation and extracted from it all the stinking pus.
Abba Moses:
« The answer is about rejecting bashfulness and about the danger of a non-compassionate one.
Abba Moses said: It is useful, as I said, not to hide your thoughts from the fathers; however, it is not necessary to speak to everyone, but to reveal to the spiritual elders, who have prudence, who have not turned gray from time to time. For many, trusting the elder's years and revealing their thoughts, instead of healing, fell into despair due to the inexperience of their confessors. There was one brother, very diligent, but, enduring cruel attacks from the demon of fornication, he came to a certain elder and told him his thoughts. He, being inexperienced, upon hearing this, was indignant at his brother who had such thoughts, calling him cursed and unworthy of the monastic image. The brother, hearing this, despaired of himself and, leaving his cell, returned to the world. But according to God's providence, Abba Apollos, the most experienced of the elders, meets with him; Seeing his confusion and great sorrow, he asked him: My son! what is the reason for this grief? At first he did not answer out of great despondency, but after many admonitions from the elder he told him about his circumstances. Often, he said, thoughts confuse me; I went and opened it to such and such an elder and, according to him, there is no hope of salvation for me; in despair I go into the world. Father Apollos, hearing this, for a long time consoled and admonished his brother, saying: do not be surprised, my son, and do not despair about yourself. I, being so old and gray, endure brutal attacks from these thoughts. So, do not be faint-hearted in such a temptation, which is healed not so much by human diligence as by the love of God. Just listen to me now, return to your cell. The brother did it. Abba Apollos, having parted with him, went to the cell of the elder who had excommunicated his brother, and, standing beside her, with tears prayed to God thus: Lord! sending temptations for our benefit, send your brother's misfortunes against this elder, so that in his old age he will learn from experience what he has not learned in such a long time - he will learn how to sympathize with the defeated devil. After the end of the prayer, he sees an Ethiopian standing near the cell and throwing arrows at the elder. Stung by them, he hesitated as from wine and, unable to bear it, left his cell and went into the world in the same way that his younger brother had gone. Abba Apollos, having learned this, went out to meet him and asked him: where are you going and what is the reason for your embarrassment? The latter, thinking that the saint knew what had happened to him, did not answer in shame. Then Abba Apollos said to him: return to your cell, from here know your weakness and consider yourself either previously unknown to the devil, or despised by him. For you did not deserve to go to war with him. What am I saying - to the war? You couldn't stand his attack for a single day. This happened to you because you, having accepted your younger brother, who waged a war against a common enemy, instead of encouraging him to a heroic deed, plunged him into despair, without thinking what the wise commandment requires: save those taken to death, and will you really give up those doomed to murder? (Proverbs 24, 11); and even about what the parable concerning our Savior speaks: he will not break a broken reed, and he will not quench a smoking flax (Matthew 12, 20). For no one could have resisted the cunning of the enemy and even quenched the fiery movement of nature, if the grace of God did not help human weakness. So, when this saving grace of God has been fulfilled, let us become with common prayers to ask God to take away the scourge that has been extended to you. He strikes, and His hands heal (Job 5:18); kills and revives, brings down to the underworld and raises, humiliates and exalts (1 Samuel 2, 6, 7). Having said this and having prayed, he immediately delivered him from the misfortune that had been brought upon him and advised him to ask God to give the tongue of the wise, so that he could strengthen the weary with a word (Isaiah 50: 4). From all that has been said, we learn that there is no other surefire way to salvation than to open your thoughts to the most reasonable fathers and have them as guides to virtue, and not follow your own thoughts and reasoning. And because of inexperience, inexperience, simplicity of one or several, there is no need to be afraid to open your thoughts to the most experienced fathers. For they, too, not by their own motivation, but by inspiration from God and Divine Scripture, commanded the younger to ask the elders. "