Elders of the 21st century living now. Prophecies of perspicacious, spirit-bearing Orthodox elders about Russia and the world: war and three great miracles - Wanderer
The book contains Interesting Facts from the life of Orthodox ascetics, when through the hidden gift of the elder’s foresight the Providence of God miraculously manifested itself in the fate of a particular person. These are those moments when you especially clearly feel the caring presence of God, when God reveals His will to us and shows concern for our salvation, speaks to us through their lips, when through the loving heart of an elder the Lord inconspicuously touches the hearts of many who are near Him.
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The given introductory fragment of the book Holy Seers. The hidden gift of clairvoyance, prediction and prophecy of the saints of God (A. V. Fomin, 2013) provided by our book partner - the company liters.
Elders of our time
Through the gaps
“The higher the ascetic stands on spiritual
stairs, the more difficult it is to write about him..."
The Optina fathers are humble. They preserve Optina monastic traditions. Praising a monk is the same as tripping a runner. While they are alive, everyone strives, but we judge a person’s holiness after his death. I read a good statement about this from the holy fathers: “Just before the harvest, hail can destroy the grapes, and a righteous person [can] sin before death. Therefore, do not rush to praise anyone.” I read and imagine large and fragrant bunches of grapes filled with juice. But there may be hail or snow...
This is probably why the Optina tale is passed on from mouth to mouth. They asked the elder, Father Elijah: “Father, is it true that all the Optina fathers are seers and miracle workers?” To which the elder replied with a smile: “I don’t know about seers, but definitely everyone is a miracle worker.”
Does this joke mean that there are no more elders in the monasteries? Thank God we didn’t die out! The Lord comforts His people, but these miracles are hidden, given out of need. In line for confession, a resident of Kozelsk, Elena, tells me how her neighbor recently stood in this line. I came to Abbot N with my grief: my son was missing. After listening to his sobbing mother, he went to the altar, prayed for a long time, and when he returned, he said: “Don’t cry, he’ll be back in a couple of days.” And indeed, on the second day the son appeared.
At obedience in the hotel, the servant of God Nadezhda told me about the same priest, how he persuaded one no longer very young woman to stay in the monastery. She did not listen to the persuasion, and the priest said: “What are you going to do there in the world, you will suffer, and even with a child.” It was completely unclear about the child, but it became clear when the woman was seduced and abandoned with the child by a visiting fellow, and she really suffered a lot.
The recognized elder of the Optina Hermitage is Father Eli (in the world Alexei Afanasyevich Nozdrin). When a person is still ascetic, it is better not to talk about his exploits and spiritual growth. But Father Iliy is an all-Russian elder, everyone knows about his insight. Therefore, his children and simple pilgrims share their experiences and experiences of meeting with the elder openly - they do not hide the lamp under a bushel...
The first story about the Optina elder Elijah was told to me at a joint obedience in the fraternal refectory of the Optina Hermitage by pilgrim Olga: “I wanted to ask the elder whether God’s will for my monasticism was, but I just couldn’t talk to him. And here I was standing after the service, suddenly the people began to move, pouring in after the elder who had come out. Someone wants to ask a question, someone wants to ask for prayers, someone just wants to be blessed. Well, I think I shouldn’t approach the old man.
And suddenly the people push me right behind the priest. Without thinking twice, I ask loudly: “Father, Father Eli! Will I be a nun? And the priest, without looking back, answers: “Yes, you will be a nun. You will definitely be a nun!” And he leaves, accompanied by the people. And I stay and feel how mistrust covers me, followed by despondency. The old man didn’t even look at me. I might as well have asked if I would be an astronaut.
In despondency I trudge towards the fraternal refectory. I stand and cry. There are still pilgrims standing nearby. Someone is waiting for their spiritual father. Someone is waiting for the elder. I stand without any hope. And suddenly Father Eli appears. Hands with notes immediately reach out to him, people vying with each other to ask questions. But the priest comes right up to me. He looks at me carefully and asks: “Well, have you already chosen a monastery where you want to live?”
At this point the narrator’s eyes become moistened - the priest consoled her! Although he did not look when asked, he sees a lot with spiritual vision. Hotel Elena shares with me: “How true is the proverb: “What we have, we don’t keep; when we lose, we cry”! Here was our Optina elder Father Elijah nearby - we did not fully appreciate this. If you come up sometimes, you will be blessed. And sometimes you look: how many people surrounded the priest - and you pass by, you think: you need to take care of the elder, not to annoy him again. And now he has gone far away - he is the confessor of the Patriarch himself - so how can you wait for his arrival! Like a red sun!”
We just grieved that the elder doesn’t come to Optina very often anymore, so he came. And they were blessed and gave the notes. I climb the stairs of the pilgrimage hotel, and Schema-Abbot Ily comes down to meet me. Two more sisters are standing on the stairs - like me, they are almost jumping for joy.
Father blessed us, talked a little with each of us, and in his hands he had spiritual books - just three. He gave it to one sister, another, and I’m next. And I stand and think: “I already have such a book.” Only yesterday Archdeacon Father Iliodor gave it to me.” Father Eli looked at me carefully, smiled... and did not give me the book. And from below a new pilgrim is already rising. He gave it to her.
Well, I think the priest sees everything! How I want to know more about him! If only someone else would tell about him!
The next day I go to Kaluga on business, return late and miss the bus. I called my spiritual father and explained that I was late. He answers me that there is an Optina car in Kaluga. Now he’ll go back to the monastery and they’ll capture me.
And here I am sitting next to the driver Sergei, still a young boy. Despite his youth, he has been working at the monastery for several years, now as a foreman at one of the monastery’s many construction sites. And it turns out that he is the child of Father Elijah.
- Brother, tell me at least a little about the old man! - I ask.
He agrees. And he tells me about his meetings with the elder.
At first, Seryozha did not always turn to the elder for a blessing. So I passed my license and started driving – without a blessing. “Why,” he thinks, “worry the old man about trifles, you never know how many worries he has! If you don’t report everything, they say you’ve become a driver!”
And Father Eli came from Greece and gives icons to everyone. And everyone is different. He will look at the person and go through the icons and take out one.
Sergei blessed the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Seryozha stepped aside and grumbled: “I have Nikolai Ugodnik at home! It would be better if Father gave me some other icon!” Flips the icon, and on back side– driver’s prayer!
And standing next to him is an older man, it’s clear that this is his first time in Optina. He holds an icon of the healer Panteleimon in his hands and asks Sergei: “I just recently started going to church. Do you know what this icon is?” And Seryozha asks: “Are you, excuse me, in good health?” "Yes you! I'm seriously ill. To be honest, my illness brought me to church.” Sergei explained to him that people turn to the holy healer Panteleimon when they are sick.
And here’s what’s interesting: while Sergei kept the icon his father gave him in his car, the traffic police never stopped him.
And then I decided to take the icon home so that it would not fade in the sun. As soon as he took it away, his license was taken away for four months for violation. I didn’t understand how I violated it like that. Now he only drives with an icon - the priest’s blessing.
After this incident, he began to make all serious decisions only with the blessing of the elder - his spiritual father. I wanted to buy an old KamAZ. I saved money for a long time and got into debt. I also found a suitable KamAZ. I checked it – it’s still a good car! I went to the elder to be blessed. But the elder does not bless - without explanation. Well, what should I do, Sergey listened, and didn’t buy. Even though I was upset. But it turns out that he was upset in vain. It turns out there were some unnoticeable but serious problems with the car. And a week later the KamAZ broke down, in Seryozha’s words, “into the trash.”
And one day Sergei came to his spiritual father, and he said to him: “Well, my traveler, are you traveling?” “No,” Sergei replies, “there’s nowhere to go from the monastery.” The old man just smiled. Seryozha returns to Optina, and he is immediately sent to Voronezh, to Tikhon Zadonsky, the Voronezh miracle worker. I just recently returned. And I went to Kaluga. This is where we met him.
“Tell me something else,” I ask.
Sergei thinks for a moment:
- Well, I was going to get married several years ago. My fiancee announced that she wants to learn to act. He will go, they say, to deliver documents. You need to pay money. Well, I helped her with money. Conducted. I am waiting. And I was just starting to work for my father at a construction site. It was necessary to go load sand. And we were chosen in such a way that all the guys were healthy, tall, and I was the youngest, the shortest and thinnest.
And so Father Eli gave his blessing so that they could send me to load this sand. I still grumbled in my heart: well, I think my father has found someone to choose! But I went, of course. And so I’m driving - and I see my girlfriend with someone else. We had an explanation, after which we parted. Which I don’t regret at all now. She married this other man and is expecting a child. But I work in a monastery. Maybe I’ll move here completely. But I wanted to get married...
Well, we'll be there soon. Do you see how they passed the road unnoticed while talking? What else can I tell you - finally?
Just imagine, a recent incident: I’m working at a construction site, the concrete mixer is roaring with all its might. Father Eli arrives. Father never drives his car through the gate.
- Why doesn’t he move in?
- Well, how? He is very humble. He doesn't want to be like a boss. He always gets out of the car and starts opening the gate himself. He will greet everyone and bow to everyone. So this time he gets out of the car and approaches the gate. I opened one leaf of the heavy iron gate, and he began to open the second. And then he blessed me and asked: “Do you hear how they knock on the cross - knock-knock?”
I answer: “What are they knocking on, father, on what cross!” I can hardly hear your voice!” He smiled and walked away. And what do you think? Five minutes later I’m going to see Father John for some construction work, who’s not far away, about twenty meters away. And he beats a copper cross into his cell. And knocks - knock-knock. How it could be heard at such a distance, under the roar of a concrete mixer, I can’t imagine. Well, yes, the old man has a different hearing, not the same as you and I. Understand?
...I returned to Optina and the next day, after my obedience, I went into a bookstore. I see an interesting book by Archimandrite Rafail Karelin, “On the Path from Time to Eternity.” I bought this book, came to my cell, opened it to the first page I came across and read: “The higher an ascetic stands on the spiritual ladder, the more difficult it is to write about him... Because the spiritual sees the spiritual, but the spiritual does not see the spiritual. Only through some gaps can a person come into contact with inner world ascetic as with a revelation of grace..."
Yes, only through some gaps...
Olga Rozhneva
Stories about Elder Elijah
Schema-Archimandrite Iliy (Alexey Afanasyevich Nozdrin) was born in 1932 in the village of Stanovoy Kolodez, Oryol region Oryol region. He studied at the Serpukhov Mechanical College. He began his spiritual education at the Saratov Seminary, and after its closure he transferred to St. Petersburg. There he accepted the monastic rank. He was a resident of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery and served on Mount Athos. At the end of the 80s he returned to Russia, where he became the confessor of Optina Pustyn. Now he is the confessor of Patriarch Kirill and is in Peredelkino, at the courtyard of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra.
To Father Elijah in Optina
For the first time I heard the name of the Optina Elder Elijah in the Vysotsky Monastery in the city of Serpukhov. Here is how it was. I went to confession to the abbot of the monastery, Father Kirill, who listened to my words for a long time and carefully, and then said: “A spirit-bearing elder would answer you best. I'm afraid of hurting. I don't have that kind of spiritual experience. There is an old man - Father Eli in Optina Pustyn, go to him. I don’t know if you can get through: a lot of people are flocking to him.”
No sooner said than done. Here I am in Optina - standing in the Kazan Cathedral, standing in awe, listening to the sonorous sounds of two monastic choirs standing on the left and right choirs. Some of the singing fraternity have such a strong and thick bass that inside me, where the soul is supposed to be, something begins to tremble. One pilgrim pointed, at my request, to Father Elijah. I imagined him completely differently. A hero, like Ilya Muromets, and he has a similar name. And here? “There is no appearance or greatness in him.” Short, frail, long gray beard. The service is over. Father Elijah was surrounded by such a dense crowd of people that one could only wonder how he was not knocked down and trampled.
Then for me, just going to the temple, it was a wonder - ugh, how uncultured, how unpolite, what fanaticism - to attack an elderly person like that! At that time, I did not really understand the difference between an old man and an old man of prayer - a hero of the Spirit.
Stay nearby and listen to what the pilgrims are saying and asking the elder. So much grief - you'll go crazy!
An overweight aunt with a blackened face from the misfortune that has befallen her clings to Elijah’s father: “Father, the son of a man killed. There will be a trial soon. Pray! I do not know what to do!" An old woman with tear-stained eyes, faded from pain, cries out: “Father, my daughter-in-law has cancer, the lump on her head is as big as a fist, three small children will be left without a mother, pray for us, dear, we are dying!” From all sides it sounds like a groan: “Father! Father! Father!
After everything I had heard, my questions with which I came to Father Elijah seemed insignificant to me and somehow cleared up in my head by themselves.
The second time I saw Father Elijah was when I arrived in Optina among the same new Christians as me. We were brought one by one to the priest for a blessing. I don’t know what he said to my predecessors, but his word hit me not in the forehead, but right in the eye. I ran up to the priest, cupped my palms and bravely, as if on a general’s parade ground, barked: “Servant of God so and so.” Father Eli looked at me tiredly and said in a weak voice: “Yes... We know the Russian language...”
Blood rushed to my face - I realized with particular clarity the meaning of the familiar Russian words that we use many times a day. “Really, well, what kind of servant of God are you? You are a slave of sin and vice,” as if from the outside I thought about myself in the second person.
Father immediately denounced me: he told me, in secret, the sad truth about me. He took pity on me, said it in an inoffensive manner, with bitterness, as if internally lamenting that I was such a good-for-nothing.
The third meeting with Father Elijah took place in the fraternal building, for closed doors. There were three of us pilgrims, and each of us could talk relatively calmly with the priest. I had prepared in advance words in my mind about my internal troubles and everyday troubles, which at that period of my life particularly overwhelmed me, giving rise to icy despondency and indifference to everything in my soul. I wanted to ask the priest for his holy prayers (after all, the prayer of a strong man can do a lot) and find out how to live further. When my turn came, I, embarrassed by my physical superiority, knelt before Father Elijah and unexpectedly said to myself: “Father, increase my faith!”
“Faith?” – the priest intoned. I was surprised. Then he smiled well, so affectionately that he immediately warmed my heart. Words and time have lost their meaning. Everything, except one, has lost its meaning - this is how you would stand on your knees next to your father for the rest of your life, and bask in his rays - on Greek his name means Sun. How long did it last? Maybe ten minutes, maybe an eternity. From that day on, I began to more vividly understand the words of the Apostle - “cover with love,” having experienced the warmth of true love.
Father Eli! Please pray to God for us sinners!
Grishin, M. Russian Bulletin from 09/04/2003.
“Where can I find the old man?”
Father Vladimir is a Moscow deacon, a spiritual friend of Father Iliodor, a child of the elder, schema-abbot Elijah. For five years he was an Optina novice. According to him, it was a good school that gave him an inner core for the rest of his life.
I ask you to tell me about the elder, and a familiar melody already sounds inside, and I know that I will hear something interesting. And Father Vladimir, indeed, tells me stories about the elder, which, with his permission, I pass on.
This story happened quite a long time ago. Father Vladimir was not yet a deacon at that time. And he was far from the church. And he was a young businessman. He was engaged in the construction business. And so his affairs began to go worse and worse. All sorts of sorrows and trials came. It became so difficult that he didn’t even know how to survive such difficult and confusing life circumstances. And then one of my believing friends advised: “You need to turn to the elder. If you follow his advice, your whole life will improve. And the old man will also pray for you. Everything will be fine with you, you will live better than before.”
Volodya had no idea how this was better than before. Will business be better? Will competitors disappear? Will there be any problems?
Now Father Deacon is sitting behind the wheel, and the main thing for him is spiritual life, life according to the commandments. And then he did not know how to get out of the impasse in life. But the words about the old man sank deeply into my soul. Vladimir had no idea where to look for this old man. The sorrows continued, and from time to time he sighed: “It’s completely unbearable... Eh, if only I could find the old man...”
One evening Volodya was driving a car through the city, and suddenly his soul became so heavy that he pulled up to the side of the road, put his head on the steering wheel and remained sitting there. Suddenly he hears someone knocking on the window. He raises his head and sees a priest in a cassock with a cross on his chest and asks him for a ride.
Volodya perked up:
- Father!
- Yes! I am he!
- Father, I’ll give you a lift, of course! But I have problems. I'm looking for an old man...
- An old man? Well, then you need to go to Optina. Now please give me a lift to Yasenevo. There is the Optina Compound. And tomorrow, if you want, we’ll go together to Optina. Want?
And it turns out it was Father Simon. Now he is already an abbot, but then he was a young Optina hieromonk. The next day they left.
They arrived in Optina, and Volodya found himself in the monastery for the first time. We arrived late at night. They came to the monastery and entered a large cell. And there are two-tier bunks. There are a lot of people. Some pray, some sleep and snore. “Fathers of light, where did I end up?” - Volodya thinks. I was very tired from the road. He asked his neighbors to wake him up early - and passed out.
He wakes up, opens his eyes and cannot understand where he is. It's already light. There are empty bunks around, and no one. He looks at his watch – it’s eleven. And I was late for work! I was very upset. I slept through everything...
Volodya walked along the well-trodden path to the monastery. Walks without raising his head. He hears the snow creaking under his feet - someone is coming towards him. I raised my despondent head with difficulty - and this was some old monk walking with a stick. He stopped and said to Volodya: “Happy holiday!” Happy Sunday! Why are you sad?
And Volodya is so depressed that he answers with difficulty:
- Hello, father. Do you know where I can find the elder?
- An old man? No, I do not know. What happened to you?
Volodya perked up a little. I was glad that at least someone was interested in his problems. He thinks: “How good it is that I met an old monk! Although he is not an old man, he has seen life. Maybe the Lord sent it to me. Maybe he can advise me on something..."
He began to talk. And the monk listens, and so attentively. He nods his head. So, you know, he listens well. Not everyone knows how to listen. Sometimes you tell a story and realize that the person is only pretending to listen to you out of politeness. But he doesn’t need your problems, he has enough of his own. Or, sometimes, he listens and just waits for you to close your mouth so that he can tell you his smart thoughts. And this old monk listened as if Volodya were his own son. And all his troubles are pain for him too. This old monk just wanted to tell everything that lay like a stone in his soul. I explained everything to him. All the problems. So, they say, and so, father, it’s completely unbearable, I don’t know how to continue to live. And the monk listened carefully and said:
-Have you even eaten today?
- What kind of food did you eat there, father! They didn't wake me up! I was late for work too. And I didn’t meet the old man! You see, there are no elders anywhere!
“I understand, there are no elders, only old men.” Let's go to the refectory together.
And let's go. Volodya only feels that his mood has changed dramatically. He raised his head and looked around - beautiful! It's snowing! The snowdrifts are white, the snow is snow-white, this doesn’t happen in Moscow. Sparkles in the sun. The air is clean, the frost is light. The sun is in the blue sky. Fine! Somewhere the bells are ringing, and there is such grace in the air that it is impossible not to enjoy life, that it is time to tumble in the snow. An old monk walks with him with his wand, smiling to himself. Before they had time to walk fifty meters, a crowd of people met them. Volodya looks - they all run to the old monk to be blessed. So joyful. “Father, father!” - they babble. Volodya has already been pushed aside. Everyone wants to ask the monk something. Volodya looked and looked, and then asked one elderly pilgrim:
- Excuse me, but are all the old monks greeted here with such a crowd?
- Why are you saying that there? What kind of old monks? Do you know who this old monk is? But this is an old man!
- How is the old man?!
- Yes, I’m telling you that this is the famous elder of Optina, schema-abbot Iliy.
Why are you so stupid!
Volodya even sat down:
- How so, old man?! And he said that there are no elders, only old men! And I didn’t even ask him my questions. There was an opportunity - and I missed it!
Here, from the crowd of pilgrims, the same monk, who turned out to be an old man, gets out and waves his hand at Volodya - calling him to follow him. Everyone immediately paid attention to him and began pushing him in the back:
- Go quickly, Father is calling!
They came with the elder to the refectory. Volodya and the novices were imprisoned. But he can’t really eat, he’s worried. Moreover, I reached into my jacket and into my breast pocket for my phone, but the usual bag that contained my driver’s license was not there.
Have you really lost it?!
After the meal, one novice comes up to Volodya and says:
- Father Eli is calling you.
He brings Volodya to the elder. All the questions Volodya had prepared flew out of his head with excitement. I could only mumble:
- Father, how will I get home?!
And he fell silent. He doesn’t know what to say about his license: lost it, dropped it? Maybe they are lying on the bunks in the cell? And schema-abbot Ily says to him:
– Are you talking about rights, or what? It's okay, you'll find it. You left them at home, they are in your pocket in another suit. And you really may not get home. Take your car to a workshop and let them take a good look at it. And further. Then you need to return to Optina, live here - work, pray. Now let me bless you on the way. Guardian Angel!
Volodya came out of the refectory. The soul is so light! And the questions all seemed so small and unnecessary. And most importantly, I really wanted to live in Optina!
When the car was looked at in the workshop, it turned out that there was indeed a serious problem. And there could even be an accident.
Volodya is driving home without documents; halfway there is a traffic police post. I slowed down. The road is deserted, and he looks: a traffic cop is coming towards him, twirling his baton. He looks at Volodya so cheerfully, he almost winks. Volodya starts to slow down and thinks: “Okay, that’s it.” As soon as the traffic cop began to raise his baton, his cell phone rang in his pocket. He immediately turned in the other direction, took out his phone and stood talking. Volodya drove on.
And he got there so quickly, as if the Angels had carried the car along with the driver. And at home, as the elder said, I found the documents. They were in the pocket of another suit.
And Volodya’s problems resolved themselves. Well, not themselves, of course. Although the elder did not say anything special to him, he did not read morals, but he helped. He simply prayed for Volodya. "The prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much..."
Vladimir's life became completely different. Five years of obedience in Optina, and now he serves as a deacon. Apparently, with God's help, will soon be ordained as a priest.
This is how Volodin’s search for the elder ended.
Father Vladimir knows many of the children of his spiritual father, schema-abbot Elijah. In particular, I knew one businessman and his driver, about whom we will talk further.
This businessman was not doing well. And then one day he managed, apparently by the grace of God, to turn to Optina, to the elder, for help. Through the prayers of Father Elijah, things began to improve. The growth of material well-being was obvious. To celebrate, the businessman comes to the priest:
- Father, things are going well! I want to thank the Lord! I want to do charity work! What good thing could I do? Father, Father Eli, maybe I can donate something to you?
- I do not need anything. And if you want to do a good deed, to thank the Lord, then help one church in need. True, he’s not in Optina, but I’ll give you the address.
– What are we talking about, dear father?! Of course I'll help! Give me the address and I’ll donate tomorrow!
A month passes, then another, and he either has no time, or is reluctant to go somewhere, and then he seems to already feel sorry for the money. And everything is drawn to Optina. He will stand at the liturgy, confess, and receive communion. His heart will light up again. Things are going well. Approach the elder for blessing:
- Father, I want to donate something, do a good deed! Who should I help?
- Well, if you want to do a good deed, help the shelter. They really need it.
- Yes, I’ll go to this shelter tomorrow! Yes, I will help them like that! I can buy spiritual books! Toys! Fruits! Otherwise I’ll donate the icons!
A month passes, another - I forgot about the shelter. And the address was lost somewhere.
This happened more than once. And one day the elder answered him in a strange way. He told the priest:
- What good deed can I do? I’ll donate the icons to someone! Tomorrow!
Lots of icons!
And schema-abbot Iliy, instead of, as usual, giving some address:
- Yes, now you can buy at least one icon and donate it.
- Why just one?! Yes, tomorrow I will buy and donate a lot of icons!
- No, now you should at least have time for one.
A businessman came out of the temple, got into the car and said to the driver:
- Some priest is strange today. I tell him that I want to buy and donate a lot of icons. And he answers me about one icon. They say so that I have time to donate at least one. Very strange. Okay, let's buy one. Should I buy it now? Okay, go go to the store and buy one icon.
And the driver, a believer, was usually always meek. And then suddenly he didn’t agree:
“I won’t go, the elder blessed you to buy it, you can buy it yourself.”
- Well, what nonsense! Why are you all conspiring today, or what, to argue with me?
He got out of the car, went out, bought an icon, and drove home. They pass by a temple. It is clear that the temple is in need of renovation.
- It’s immediately obvious that the temple is poor. So I’ll donate to him.
The businessman took the icon from the car and took it to the temple. Returned. They move on. We just haven’t driven a kilometer when he says to the driver:
– I’m somehow tired today. Stop the car, I'll rest a little.
He got out of the car and lay down on the grass. And he died.
...I'm listening to this one short story and remain silent. Then I say: “Still, the elder did not abandon him, did not turn away. I probably prayed for him. So he did a good deed before his death. The robber, too, only had time to say: remember me, Lord, when you come into Your kingdom.” Father Deacon nods his head and answers sadly: “Yes, it is so, of course. The judgments of God are a vast abyss. But we must always remember: everyone is promised forgiveness of confessed sins. But none of us are promised tomorrow.”
Olga Rozhneva
"Don't go to Moscow"
It is believed that the prayer of Elder Elijah has special power. They say that one day an intelligence officer who was mortally wounded in Chechnya and spent five months unconscious in various hospitals was brought to his monastery. Schema-abbot Iliy prayed over the officer - and he opened his eyes, consciousness returned to him. After this, recovery began.
Governor of the Volgograd Region Anatoly Brovko: “Elder Eli is endowed with the gift of clairvoyance. About a year ago I visited him, and the conversation turned to where to live and work. Iliy told me not to leave for Moscow or anywhere else from Volgograd, adding that he would come to us next year, after a significant event in the life of the region, in my life.” According to Anatoly Brovko, these words became a kind of prophecy. He assumed the post of head of the region in January next year. And Elder Elijah indeed later visited the Volgograd region.
Notes about Elder Nikolai Guryanov from Zalit Island
On August 24, 2002, at the age of 93, the famous elder, mitred Archpriest Nikolai Guryanov, died.
Nikolai Alekseevich Guryanov was born in 1909 into a merchant family in the village of Chudskie Zahody, Gdov district, St. Petersburg province. Since childhood he served at the altar. In 1926 he graduated from the Gatchina Pedagogical College, in 1929 from the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute. In 1929–1931 he taught mathematics, physics and biology at school and served as a psalm-reader in Tosno, Leningrad region. In 1929 he was secretly ordained a priest. In 1931, when the persecution of the Church began, he was arrested. He was imprisoned in the Kresty prison in Leningrad, in a camp near Kiev and in exile in Syktyvkar. In 1942 he was released, after which he served in parishes in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. In 1958 he was transferred to the Pskov diocese and appointed rector of the Church of St. Nicholas on the island of Zalita.
Elder Nicholas was granted many gifts of the Holy Spirit, among them the gifts of clairvoyance, healing, and miracles. From all over Russia, believers came to the elder to the island of Zalita, in need of spiritual advice and the elder’s prayerful help.
Stories about the old man
I first visited Father Nicholas in 1971, the day after the memory of the apostles Peter and Paul, whose church stood on the island next to Zalita.
There were six of us (by today all of them had already died). We were just going to a holiday, not knowing anything at that time either about the eldership of Father Nikolai or about his foresight. We spent the first day in Samolva, and then boarded a “rocket” and sailed to the island. There were priests among us. When we arrived on the island of Zalita, the priest greeted us properly. The priests immediately came up for the blessing, and Father Nikolai invited everyone to festive table. We ate and talked about something.
Every now and then I was distracted and looked around, fortunately, from my place I could see Father Nikolai, but he could not see me. On the wall I saw a portrait of a man very similar to him. I sit, look at it and think: “Aha, that means this is the priest in his youth.” And Father Nikolai at this time was talking to the priests on a completely different topic. And suddenly he turns to me and says: “And this is my brother!”
I immediately realized that with Father Nikolai I couldn’t think about anything idle: everything would be heard, even the most secret thoughts. From that moment on, I began to perceive Father as a very great, insightful priest.
Later there was a long break, I didn’t go to see him for a long time: I was embarrassed that suddenly the priest would reveal all my sins and expose him...
But then big troubles befell me, big troubles came one after another. And then I went to Father Nikolai, although I was afraid to even approach him. Father received me very graciously and resolved literally all the issues because of which I suffered so much.
And later, when a complex, intractable question arose, I immediately went to the island: in the summer on a boat, and in the winter on ice.
There was such kindness coming from the priest that tears involuntarily flowed from my eyes. He would say, it used to be: “Darling, what have you got there?” You tell him, and he will always reassure: “All glory to God! Everything will be fine. The Lord will help..."
The power of Father Nikolai's prayers was greatly appreciated by us. Until his death, we turned to him on all issues, asking for advice and prayers. Now I have a big gap in this. After all, many problems arise, the resolution of which there is no one to consult with. And there was no need to even ask the priest about anything: he already knew everything about everyone.
One woman told me how stunned she was when the priest immediately upon meeting her said: “How did you come in such a carriage, having bought such expensive gasoline?” It turned out that, indeed, they were driving to Nikolai’s father in their own very expensive minibus and refueling with expensive gasoline. And what he said to her next – it all came together absolutely.
I myself am from Estonia, from Tartu. Somehow, when the children grew up, I decided to return to my mother, who lived alone. I kept these thoughts to myself, slowly mulling them over. One day I had to go to Father Nikolai with other questions. I approach him with a piece of paper on which the problems are outlined, and the priest suddenly immediately says: “Don’t go anywhere. Pskov is a good city, the people here are good.” But I didn’t even think about this departure at that moment. Father himself resolved my old thoughts.
When my daddy, priest Vasily Borin, died, I came to Father Nikolai with this grief. And the priest sang “Eternal Memory,” and then said that my daddy could have lived longer if he hadn’t gotten sick. I didn’t tell my father anything about his illness...
One day my son became seriously ill. He had third degree scoliosis, and he was facing a very difficult operation, the outcome of which was unknown. Of course, I went to Father Nikolai for a blessing, especially since my fifteen-year-old son said that he would not lie down on the operating table until I went to see my father. When I arrived, the priest firmly said: “It is imperative to have an operation. Everything will be fine". And indeed, the operation was successful and safe. (But at the same time, the same operation was performed on one girl, and she died.)
My sister went to see him for three years and was dying of illness. And the priest supported her and sometimes suggested something with subtle hints. Shortly before my sister’s death, the priest showed her a jasmine bush and said: “Angelinushka! But the jasmine is fading...” She did not understand the hidden prediction then. She arrived a month later and saw the priest running to the pier, his cassock fluttering, running and shouting: “Angelinushka, I came to meet you.” Three months later she died...
And before that, the following also happened. We had one perspicacious old woman, Anastasia. She always predicted everything through some symbolism, allegorically, so you wouldn’t understand it right away. I remember that she, for example, called the road a towel. And somehow this Nastenka sang “Holy God” in our family. But we already knew that this meant someone’s death, and we were wary. Later they asked the priest if our mother was going to die? “You can’t even kill her with a stake,” answered the priest. My mom is still alive.
And the old woman also added a completely mysterious phrase: “Perforation of the head and neck.” This was in 1969 or 1970. We didn't understand anything at all. Everything became clear a year later, when Angelina underwent craniotomy, and literally a month before her death, her goiter was operated on...
One day I came to my father in the bitter cold to resolve my issues. He, of course, decided everything, gave his blessing, and suddenly began to persuade him to leave immediately: “Hurry, go quickly! Hurry, hurry home!” I was even slightly offended that they seemed to be chasing me, and it was so cold outside, almost forty degrees. But what can you do, I went. And now I’m already going down to the lake to wander on foot across the ice to the mainland blackening on the horizon, when suddenly a car stops next to me: “Get in!” I say: “I don’t have that kind of money.” - “Sit down, we’ll take you there.” - “Okay, at least take me to Tolba.” - “Sit down, we are going to Pskov and we will take you there!” It was then that I understood why the priest was rushing me...
One day my children and I came to the priest to find out where they should go. I wanted to ask my father’s blessing for my son to go to music school, but Father Nikolai said: “Drawing is better than music.” My son was very happy, but somehow I didn’t believe in such a turn of events. But three years later, my son underwent a complex operation, after which he was only able to enter an art school and began to draw beautifully...
In general, he loved animals very much. One day my late sister came to my father with her friend. They stopped near the fence, as always. They are waiting for Father Nikolai to come out. Finally he appeared and from the door began to loudly ask: “Don’t crush the frogs! Don’t crush the frogs!” My sister and her friend began to look around, and they themselves thought: “Where could there be frogs here? There are none on this island at all.” And on the way back, sailing across the lake in a “rocket,” my sister’s friend admitted: “Father remembered my childhood sin. When we were still kids, we put on hunting boots and crushed frogs mercilessly...”
I would also like to say that Father Nikolai communicated with people simply, sweetly, and was accessible to everyone - both scientists and commoners.
In total, I was received by the priest thirty-six times. I always went with difficult questions. True, lately no one has been allowed in. Having arrived a month before his death, when Father Nikolai was already in bed, we simply stood by the fence, opposite the window, silently prayed, but we still received help, and very, very much.
Rely on the will of God - and everything will be fine
I came to this region in 1991 and since then I have been helping Father Georgy Ushakov here, at his parish near Pskov. A year after my arrival, the priest suggested that I go to one perspicacious elder and at the same time asked: “Aren’t you afraid? He sees right through people." I had never really had to deal with visionary people before, but I answered: “No, I don’t think I’m afraid. I confessed."
We went on September 1, 1992. It was a beautiful sunny day. We arrived at the place safely. At that time there was no big pilgrimage to Father Nikolai, and we found ourselves near his house alone. Hesitantly, we sat down on a bench under a large chestnut tree. And suddenly a curtain moved in the window, a beard flashed, and Father Nikolai looked out. The curtain fell again.
Some time passed - the door opened and the priest came out onto the porch. He hummed a song about Jerusalem, which I later often heard from him. Then, for some reason, Father Nikolai read a poem from a chemistry course about aldehyde. He looked at us like that, without blessing us yet, and said something to me in Estonian, after which Father George laughed: “Aha, I didn’t guess, I didn’t guess!” It’s cold, it’s cold...” Then Father Nikolai looked at me again and said a phrase in German: “Study, study, just don’t work.” We just burst out laughing. It was just spot on! Firstly, my mother is really German, and secondly, my character is such that I prefer to read and study something than to do physical work. In addition, I was once very interested in chemistry, and did various experiments in this area.
That day, the priest took us to the temple, read prayers there, and I was even honored to confess to Father Nikolai. This is certainly a special memory that will last a lifetime.
Later, I began to go to the priest with various important questions and for blessings. We had a girl with hydrocephalus - the late baby Seraphim. We were very afraid that this disease could recur in our other children, and therefore before their birth we went to see Father Nikolai. So, we went when she was still alive, and the priest suddenly unexpectedly advised us to name the next baby Seraphim. We say: “So we already have Seraphim.” Father Nikolai hesitated a little, and then delicately said: “So what! This is Seraphim, and he will be Seraphim.” That's what they called...
Before Ermolai’s birth, the priest ordered him to be baptized immediately: “Then he will live.” We asked the priest to pray so that at the birth of the child the priest would be on site. And so it happened. Three hours later, the newborn baby was baptized, but he really turned out to be sick...
Although we only had a long conversation with him, but on other trips the priest always significantly helped us in all our problems and misunderstandings. Of course, all of us, due to some foolishness of ours, are trying first of all to solve our everyday problems. And it should be noted that the priest never spoke about material topics: about property and so on. He spoke only about spiritual things, solved problems of the soul, but otherwise advised: “Rely on the will of God - and everything will be fine”...
Basically, we asked for his prayers, and perhaps many more years will pass before we fully realize what kind of prayer book we have lost. After all, everything was taken for granted then: that an old man lived nearby, that you could always turn to him and live behind him as if behind a stone wall. It seemed eternal and unshakable, and we, like children, simply accepted this grace without thinking. Only now, with time, do you see how merciful the Lord is, having given us the priceless gift of communicating with such an extraordinary old man - a righteous man and a man of prayer.
Andrey Protsenko, August 2003
The elder attached great importance to prayer for the dead. He was imbued with a very special compassion for them. I think that it was in him the result of an experienced knowledge of what awaits a person beyond the grave. When they asked him whether to hold a funeral service for someone about whom it was unknown whether he had been baptized, the elder answered without hesitation: “Serve the funeral service, perform the funeral service.”
One day my father told me to pray for my deceased, unbaptized father. My father had a difficult, difficult character and a restless soul, constantly looking for something. He left us when my sister and I were in fifth grade. Since then, I have had virtually no relationship with him and even avoided meeting him. His death was tragic and premature; he died at the age of forty-seven. After his death, the question arose before me: should I pray for him or not? And if you pray, then how? This was at the very beginning of my church journey; I had just started going to church regularly. And then I immediately found myself faced with such a difficult life question. After much thought and hesitation, I decided to refrain from praying for him, since I considered myself spiritually weak for such a serious matter. “It’s unknown,” I thought, “what consequences this might have for me. What do I understand about this?
But after some time, an event occurred that made me change my mind. This happened after my father appeared to me at night, in a dream. I saw him sitting with his back to me, so that I could not see his face. His head was hung low. He was silent and cried almost silently about something. I felt that he, abandoned by everyone, was endlessly alone, defenseless, and that without words, without turning his face to me, he was asking me for something. It seemed that his indescribable grief knew no bounds. And the worst thing was that he was not even able to explain anything to me. I had never seen him like this in my life. I still remember how in my sleep I shuddered with inexpressible pity for him. This pity was unlike the ordinary pity one feels for a suffering person. During his lifetime, I never felt anything like this for him, or for anyone else at all. It was a completely unfamiliar feeling.
I woke up in a cold sweat from what I saw and then for a long time I could not forget this short appearance of my dead father. Intellectually, I understood that my father was asking for prayer, at least some kind. But, frankly speaking, I didn’t have the strength to do it. I was so shocked by this dream that for some time I remained in a daze, constrained by what was revealed to me through it. I was aware that through him I not only received news about my father, but also touched the secret of the other world, the reality of hellish torment. From my father's condition, I gained an experienced understanding of what a person experiences when he finds himself below the line. visible world. After such discoveries, the attitude towards life and what happens in it radically changes. Everything that previously seemed important and significant in it loses its meaning and appears in a completely different light. You clearly begin to see that your existence for the most part consists of vain things and in no way determine its innermost essence, that is, your fate in eternity. But before that, I took all these trifles seriously and in the implementation of my insignificant and wretched plans and intentions I believed the only meaning of all my life activities.
So, stunned and depressed by what I saw, I did not pray for my father. I needed time to digest what was revealed to me. But it was somewhat selfish, since my father was waiting for my reaction. And after some time, the dream repeated itself with its original strength and penetration. I’m ashamed to admit, but even after it, without knowing why, I remained inactive. It took a third phenomenon, exactly repeating the previous two, for me to finally begin to ask God for my father in my home prayer.
And then what usually happens in such cases happened. Gradually, the sharpness and depth of what I experienced in the dream was forgotten, erased by the worries of the day, and my prayer grew cold. Ultimately, after several years, I finally abandoned my prayer without even noticing how it happened.
At this very moment of forgetting my prayer duty, the all-knowing and all-penetrating elder overtook me. At the end of the next meeting, he unexpectedly turned to me with the question: “Are you praying for your father?” There was an alarming note in his voice. I immediately vividly remembered all the posthumous events that connected my father and me with special ties. Father asked with such subtext, as if he knew the secret of these meetings of ours. It was as if he was slightly reproaching me for leaving prayer for my parent after everything that had happened. I began to ask specific questions about how to properly commemorate my father. Having given me the necessary instructions on this, the elder sent me away in peace.
The elder's foresight, as demonstrated in the case just described, is an endless topic. A lot has already been said about it, and we can talk about it for a very long time. In order not to overload my story and not overtire the reader's attention, I will cite two typical cases.
Once, when I had just started visiting Father Nikolai, I happened to visit him together with another young man, whose name was Konstantin. He received us at church. Father first talked with me, and then with my traveling companion. The conversations, as always, were short. The elder knew how to say in a nutshell the most important thing, to outline in a few expressions his life program for many years to come. There was no one else there except the two of us. While Father Nikolai was talking in a low voice with Konstantin, I walked around the icons in the temple. Approaching the last image, I accidentally heard the last words spoken by the elder to his interlocutor. The priest blessed him on the monastic path and advised him to go to Optina Hermitage, which had just opened. At the end of the conversation, the elder went to the altar, took out a towel and presented it as parting words to the future monk. I stood nearby and watched with interest as the elder lovingly handed a towel to Konstantin and how he reverently accepted it. Everything was done silently, without words.
Nothing special seemed to happen. However, there was something mysterious about all this. There is silence all around, only the saints look at us from the icons, and in this silence there are the silent movements of the elder, sending his child on a monastic feat. Behind all this simplicity it was impossible not to sense the solemnity and responsibility of the moment being experienced.
Indulging in the contemplation of this deeply edifying and meaningful picture, I completely forgot about myself. And suddenly the priest turned in my direction and said: “And Vladislav wants it too.” I must admit, having heard these words and coming out of my contemplative state, I was even a little offended by the elder. I thought that at such a high moment he suspected in me envy of Konstantin and slight annoyance that, unlike him, I was leaving without a gift. But there was no shadow of this feeling in me. Therefore, I began, as best I could, to dissuade Father Nikolai from this. However, the elder, not paying attention to my protest, went to the altar a second time and came out with a new towel in his hands. A few moments later it was in my hands. I had no choice but to accept it and thank the priest for the attention he showed me.
I didn’t attach much importance to all this at the time. I naively believed that the elder’s action was explained by his delicacy and reluctance to offend me. Maybe I would have completely forgotten about this episode if it weren’t for the towel that I have kept with me ever since. And only twenty years later, when I myself, with the blessing of the priest, was tonsured a monk, I again remembered all the smallest details of that memorable meeting. And only after this the true, undisguised meaning of the gift made then was revealed to me: the elder was not being delicate with them, as it seemed to me then, for he was generally alien to secularism in behavior, but was expressing his attitude towards my monastic future.
Remembering all this now, I am amazed not only that the elder, even when I was not even thinking about the priesthood, saw me in monastic guise. What is also surprising is the form in which he put his prediction. He did not tell me about this directly then, so as not to embarrass me, a married man, and not to deprive me of the joys of family life. He expressed this so that later, when the time came, without any doubts and hesitations, which did not leave me even when he spoke quite definitely about tonsure, I perceived my new path as the will of God.
The second incident that I remember was of a completely different kind. Not only the whole life of a person was revealed to the priest, but also his inner state at the moment of his arrival on the island. And if it was necessary, he knew how to make appropriate “adjustments” to it and improve the spiritual well-being of the Christian who came to him.
I remember that on one of my visits to Zalit, I arrived there in a state of acute apocalyptic psychopathy, which arose in me, as it seemed to me, under the influence of the moral degradation of the world around me that I observed. This psychopathy, being a form of mental illness, has nothing in common with a truly Christian expectation of the end of human history. There is no doubt that Christian activity among individual ascetics will not lose its value and significance, its spiritual power, even with general retreat and the approach of the end. For the spiritual balance in a person, which makes him capable of inner creation, in general is determined only by the extent to which he abides in God. In this regard, the example of St. John the Theologian, who contemplated the terrible pictures of the last days of humanity and never tired of repeating: “Children, love one another.” Therefore, a decline in spiritual strength occurs in a Christian not at all because he has acquired a penetrating view of the surrounding reality. It is evidence of a person’s spiritual insecurity, the lack of grace-filled support from above.
It was in such an apocalyptic depression that I once came to the elder. Moreover, this condition did not seem to me like something that should be gotten rid of as an illness. It seemed to me that at present this depression, to one degree or another, is inherent in everyone and that it could not be otherwise. It never occurred to me to ask the elder a question on this topic. Everything here seemed so clear and understandable to me.
After the conversation, I heard the priest’s unexpected question: “Do you know how old I am?” And, without waiting for my answer, he said: “I’m ninety without one, and then I want another forty.” Guessing what topic the elder touched on, I expressed my bewilderment: “But this is a lot.” “No,” objected Father Nikolai, “not much, that’s what I want.”
I can’t say that these words made a special impression on me then. I just took them, as they say, into consideration. But then the following happened: more and more often they began to emerge in my consciousness and began to gradually lead me out of the captivity of that very latent depression, with whom I came to the island. I clearly felt their healing power. In a short time, my natural inspiration and efficiency were restored, and soon there was no trace left of the illness that had gripped me. And subsequently, a clear understanding of the spiritual causes of this common disease in our time came. This is how the elder reacted to the internal state of those who turned to him.
Father attached great importance to the Jesus Prayer in his spiritual life. Without a doubt, he himself was the secret doer of it, and therefore he experienced the great benefits of it. Many confessors do not recommend doing it, because they believe that it is unsafe to do it without spiritual guidance and outside supervision, and that otherwise this activity can result in serious consequences for a person. And since at present there are no such leaders left, then, consequently, in their opinion, it is better not to expose oneself to risk and to adhere to commonly used prayer sequences: canons, akathists, psalms, etc.
Father Nikolai never openly condemned this opinion, not because he agreed with it. Father generally avoided in every possible way what gave rise to disagreements and strife, since the spirit of argument was deeply alien to him. Father believed that disagreements and divisions in church society are not always eliminated by openly declaring one’s views, and are not always healed by directly declaring one’s position. He saw that such methods often do not extinguish, but only add fuel to the fire, only fan the fire of the resulting discord. Therefore, being a practitioner of the unceasing Jesus Prayer, he never imposed his spiritual experience on anyone.
The fact that the elder considered this prayer in modern conditions to be almost the only means that unerringly puts and keeps a person on the path of salvation became an obvious truth to me after one of my visits to the island. That time, going to the elder, I thought that, guided by the fear of taking the wrong step and straying from the path destined for me, I was constantly asking him about my earthly path. Of course it's very important point in spiritual life, which is its necessary condition. But it seemed to me that at the same time I somehow cared little, or rather, did not care at all, about keeping my soul in the right order at the same time. Therefore, when I found myself on the island and discussed the questions I had prepared with the elder, at the end of the meeting with him I asked him what kind of work best puts a person on the path of salvation.
I remember well the priest’s reaction to my question. After listening to me, he became very serious. Turning his face to the altar, the elder slowly crossed himself three times and bowed. Then, turning to me, he firmly said: “Say the Jesus Prayer.”
The meaning of these words was clear to me. The Jesus Prayer cannot be taught theoretically; it must be taught through experience and action, and then the Lord Himself will give the prayer to the one praying. In this regard, Father Nikolai completely trusted the leadership of God and believed that the one who does it in simplicity and humility of heart is out of spiritual danger. The main thing is not to make it a spiritual “exercise” for the acquisition of certain grace-filled gifts, but to look for in it, first of all, a contrite and repentant beginning. This is precisely the direct and immediate meaning of the words of this prayer. And without it, the ascetic is unlikely to be able to resist all the wiles of the devil and acquire the necessary purity of mind and heart. Only through her Orthodox Christian enters into blissful union with Christ, and it is from her that the longed-for spirit of salvation is born in him.
Father Nikolai considered the Jesus Prayer to be the first and main tool in spiritual life, given by the Church for all times, and for our time in particular. It came to my mind how one of my parishioners asked the elder through me for a blessing to study at a music school for her seven-year-old daughter. The priest’s answer left us all in amazement. “Tell her,” he said, “let her better say the Jesus Prayer.” He sent such a blessing to a foolish girl in a village where no one had any idea what it was.
“Say the Jesus Prayer”—with these words, said firmly and immutably in response to my question, it seems to me that the elder left his spiritual testament to all those who are zealous for their salvation and seeking spiritual perfection in the modern world.
Of all the amazing and unusual gifts of grace for our time with which the Lord adorned His faithful servant - the Zalitsky recluse and ascetic - two of them are perhaps the most amazing. This is his love and humility.
“I blessed you, and now you bless me,” I once heard a command from the priest after the usual blessing received on the threshold of his cell. I looked at him with considerable surprise. “Perhaps in this way he accuses me of being too edifying?” - flashed through my mind. With an impenetrable face, the elder stood at the door of the house and with his immobility made it clear to me that he would not let me pass the threshold of the cell until I did what I was told. I was completely confused and bewildered. What was to be done? Bless the elder? It would be easier for me if my hand withered away than to decide on this. Persist? This means being left without an invitation to enter the house and without subsequent conversation. After hesitating indecision, I gathered up my courage and, like a person who is about to enter icy water, hastily made a blessing movement with my hand. And only after that we entered the senets.
Then I puzzled for a long time about what all this meant, until I found the answer in one patristic book. It said: “If you hear that some elder honors his neighbor above himself, then know that he has already achieved great perfection, for this is what perfection consists of: to prefer one’s neighbor to oneself.” After these words, I realized that the priest’s unusual act was both an expression of his humility and a teaching of a spiritual lesson to his child. In a word, this was a kind of imitation of Christ, who washed the feet of His disciples.
As for the father’s love, everyone who came to his island felt it. Everything here was permeated with it. For the elder lived here according to his own special laws, like a blessed baby, as if the reality around him was powerless to change anything in his attitude towards God and man.
She really couldn’t do anything about the love that was firmly established in his soul. Despite the fact that today's world brings nothing into the human soul except embitterment and bitterness, and selfishness becomes the rule and norm of existence, the elder tirelessly instilled in his children that in their relations with their neighbors they should be guided only by love, only mercy, only compassion. He even taught to treat his enemies in a Christian way.
Not only the world, but also the current church reality is also becoming poorer in love, and the further it goes, the more and more it is conquered by the worldly spirit. These processes, which the Savior warned about through His conversation with the apostles, give rise even in sincerely believing people to isolation from each other, alienation, isolation and, as a defensive reaction to everything that happens around them, the desire to live only in their own interests. One way or another, I, a priest, and now a monk, constantly caught myself in the fact that, moving around in the world, I, a sinner, was captured by this spirit and, imperceptibly for myself, was losing the norms of the Gospel life. And so, getting to the island, every time I found myself in an atmosphere of love, where I was faced with a completely different attitude towards a person, where I heard a voice that returned me to what I had fallen away from and what a Christian should never lose. Here, next to the elder, I was filled with his love for people and at least short time came alive in soul and heart for God and man.
Wonderful, unforgettable island! How much light, goodness and genuine love of Christ you brought into the darkness of the surrounding reality! Yes, he was, perhaps, that small island in the ocean of human lies and untruths, which meekly, humbly and invariably radiated the light and warmth of Divine Truth into the world.
Hieromonk Nestor, www.zalit.ru
About Elder Jonah
Many Orthodox believers and not only believers know about the elder hieromonk Father Jonah, a disciple of the holy Venerable Kuksha of Odessa. Father Jonah is an amazing old man who was known to everyone for a long time as one of the monks and confessor of the Odessa Assumption Monastery.
Many people came to Odessa from all over the world to meet him, receive his blessing, ask for advice and ask for prayer.
Memories of the Servant of God Elena
Once upon a time, when it was possible to approach the priest freely, I had a conflict at work with management. And they pressed me so hard that I decided to complain to my superiors. On the way to work I stopped at a monastery. Father met me on the threshold of the temple with the words: “Where do you want the reward? Here on earth, or in the Kingdom of Heaven? I was taken aback. And Father Jonah told me to immediately go to work, not to complain to anyone, and as a boss, the higher management would give me a dressing down and he would blame me for everything, without making excuses, to ask for forgiveness. So I did. It was hard. I got sick. And during the illness, the boss was removed. It was loud and smelled very bad. Yes, the priest is very simple and has no theological education, but the Lord reveals to him many secrets...
One day I doubted whether I should turn to my father for help? So he came out of the altar and said: “Decide for yourself whether you need my help or not.”
My Guardian Angel brought me to him
Life brought me closer to God at the very moment when, as it seemed to me, it ceased to have meaning for me.
At that time I lived in Odessa and heard about the amazing old man, how he helps people in all their sorrows and sorrows, and also that he has the gift of expelling the demon that has entered a person. Before this, I had never seen Father Jonah before, and perhaps I never would have, because I still believe that my Guardian Angel led me to him.
I remember this day clearly. I wanted to leave, I was overcome by fear, but some force was able to hold me. For the first time in my life, I approached Father Jonah and stood about three meters from him, and it was then that I felt the spirit of holiness for the first time. There were many people who cried, who screamed, who struggled from his father's embrace, who prayed. I stood silently in one place and waited for my turn to come, for Father Jonah to touch me with his hand. Something began to change, my fear subsided, the feelings raging in my soul calmed down. And my turn came. Father pressed me close to him and whispered something very quietly. In just a short moment, my whole life flashed before me and a feeling of deep peace came. Father let me go and baptized me, but I didn’t want to leave. Tears flowed from my eyes, and as if an epiphany had come, I realized that I really wanted to live.
Soon I was already standing at confession to begin Holy Communion. Life began to take on a different meaning, filled with happiness and joy. Thank God I'm alive! For me it was a miracle, a second birth. Thank God that there are such prayer books among people on earth as Father Jonah. Every time we come to the service, we wait with bated breath for Father Jonah to come out of the altar, so that we can even look at him or touch him, and we believe that his prayers are miraculous.
Parishioner of the Holy Dormition monastery, Irina.
What should I do, Father Jonah?
I have often witnessed people’s conversations with Father Jonah, when they ask him for advice in a difficult situation, for hints... And this has happened to me more than once while communicating with him.
For example, a woman comes and asks for advice: “What should we do, Father Jonah? This is such a difficult situation, there is a conflict in the family, they can’t divide the inheritance, and the relatives will all quarrel very soon...” and describes in every detail what even Not every good lawyer can work with a psychologist to figure things out.
Jonah will listen, look attentively, bless, say that he needs to pray... And then it seems completely out of place to tell all sorts of stories: how he got tired on a tractor when he was young, the pedal was broken and his leg hurt badly after work, and that one righteous old woman told yesterday how she dreamed of Angels, so white and beautiful, and the Most Holy Theotokos smiling next to them...
Those who communicated with Father Jonah for the first time were a little lost in such cases, since they usually expected clear answers and point-by-point recommendations, and not these stories mixed with a call to give up everything and only think about God... But at the same time, they listened anyway listened to him and suddenly began to understand what to do. Moreover, clearly understand in all details what the right thing to do is. Sometimes you could even see how they were already eager to immediately run and do what they understood, and it was already difficult for them to listen to what Jonah was telling...
I have seen such cases more than once. Next to the old man, when you are nearby, it is somehow light, easy... I don’t even know how to describe this state. And at such moments of communication with him, all the confused thoughts are unraveled and the exciting problems suddenly cease to be problems...
Advice from Father John Peasantkin
It was as if from his very birth Father John Krestyankin was sent from above to become a preacher of God.
He was born in the Oryol province into a simple family and already at the age of six he wanted to become a priest, and after 30 years he became one. At the end of the 1950s in Moscow, in the Izmailovo Church of the Nativity of Christ, he baptized 50 people a day, and for this, as well as for his faith and way of thinking, he was sentenced to several years in the camps. There he continued to instruct people. Even the guards respected the priest: they allowed him not to have his hair cut and did not take away the only thing he had - the Bible.
After his release from the camps, Father John Krestyankin served in the Pskov and Ryazan dioceses, in 1966 he took monastic vows and became a monk of the Holy Dormition Pskov-Pechersky Monastery.
Every day pilgrims from all over the country came to him for advice, consolation, and help. Among his spiritual students are famous politicians and actors, but their names are not advertised.
It is known that Boris Yeltsin also visited him. On May 2, 2000, before the first inauguration, Vladimir Putin came to the elder and spoke with Father John in his cell for more than an hour.
Father John sometimes gave advice that seemed strange, but time showed he was right. One day, a woman with a three-year-old child in her arms rushed to Father John: “Father, give your blessing for the operation, the doctors require it urgently, in Moscow.” Father John stopped and firmly told her: “No way. He will die on the operating table. Pray, treat him, but do not perform surgery under any circumstances. He will recover." And he baptized the baby. The child recovered.
Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), a spiritual disciple of Father John, tells about another case. In the 90s, Muscovite Valentina Pavlovna asked Archimandrite Tikhon to ask Father John for a blessing to remove cataracts at the Fedorov Institute. Father John’s answer was surprising: “No, under no circumstances. Just not now, let time pass..."
He wrote about this to her in a letter, adding that she should have the operation a month after the vacation. “If she has an operation now, she will die,” he sadly told Archimandrite Tikhon.
Father Tikhon, on the advice of Father John, went to the woman, persuaded her to go to Crimea on vacation, and ordered a trip. But she did not listen and underwent surgery, during which she suffered a severe stroke and complete paralysis.
– Why don’t you listen to me? – Father John almost cried. – After all, if I insist on something, it means I know!
He ordered Father Tikhon to take the spare Holy Gifts from the church to his cell and, as soon as Valentina came to her senses, immediately confess and give communion. The woman came to her senses. She was confessed and given communion, after which she died.
The wife of the poet Bulat Okudzhava, Olga, recalls that once she, having arrived at the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery to visit Father John, complained in a conversation with the elder that her husband was not baptized and was indifferent to the faith. Father said: “You will baptize him yourself.” Surprised, Olga asked the elder how this was possible if he did not want to be baptized, and his name was not Orthodox. To which Father John replied: “You will call him Ivan...”
Fifteen years after that meeting, Bulat Okudzhava, dying in Paris, unexpectedly asked to be baptized. It was already too late to call the priest. Olga herself decided to baptize Bulat (her spiritual mentor, Father Alexy, taught her this ritual). I asked my husband what to call him. He answered: “Ivan.”
Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov told the following incident in the program of the Spas TV channel on 02/03/2009: “One woman turned to me with the following: “Father John told me to tell you that if you find at least one human bone, you need to carry out the order of its burial.” Literally after some time (three or four weeks), my friend, an artist, when I was in his studio, turned to me with a request: “Here I have a skull, I once drew it, now I don’t need it. I don’t know what to do with it, maybe you’ll take it?” And I immediately remembered the words of Father John. I made a box. He took him to the Lyonozovskoe cemetery, read the funeral service in full and buried this man’s head according to all the rules. It turns out that Father John gave me a command within a month. The Lord revealed it to him. And there were many such cases..."
Every day, immediately after the liturgy, Father John began the reception and continued it, with short breaks for meals, until late in the evening, and sometimes even after midnight. He did not walk around the monastery, but almost ran - however, lingering near everyone who sought his attention, and for this they called him with good humor “a fast train with all the stops.” When the priest was in a hurry, not having time to ask questions and talk for a long time, he sometimes immediately began to answer a question that had been prepared but had not yet been asked to him, and thereby involuntarily revealed his amazing insight.
When the uproar arose regarding the introduction of the Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), he, 91 years old, overcoming illness, spoke in front of a television camera with an appeal to the Orthodox not to be afraid of innovations and not to cause panic. Shortly before his death, Father John called Archimandrite Tikhon and said: “Well, I’ll die soon. So work hard, write what you remember and want to say about me. Otherwise, then you will still write and you may come up with something that will happen, like poor Father Nikolai, who “resurrected cats” and other fables. And then I’ll look through everything myself and I’ll be at peace...”
And Archimandrite Tikhon managed to write memoirs about his confessor.
Mother Zipporah
In the world, Daria Nikolaevna Shnyakina (nee Senyakina), was born into a peasant family, in the village of Glukhovo, Gavrilovsky district, Tambov province, on March 19, 1896, old style. Her father, Nikolai Alekseevich, a middle peasant, and her mother, Matrona Gerasimovna, were hardworking, honest, religious people, but illiterate. Of the thirteen children born to them, only three survived: Daria, her brother Vasily and Pavel (the first brother was subsequently killed in the 1914 war, the second during dispossession in the early 30s).
Mother, at the end of her life (and she lived one hundred and one years) recalled: “We lived well with our parents, went to church..., an icon on the gate..., there were monks in my father’s family: one was a monk, and the other lived like a monk, he knew everything …. My mother’s family included three nuns and one monk.” Daria's grandfather, peasant Alexei, traveled a lot to holy places. In 1903 he brought a rosary to his granddaughter. Mother also recalled how the nuns who lived in Glukhov at the Church of the Intercession of the Mother of God in Glukhov taught her the Jesus Prayer: while teaching her how to sew and weave, they said that while working she should say the prayer “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”...
In the third year of the war, Daria's brother Vasily died a heroic death on the battlefield. Soon his father died; at that time he was only forty-five years old. Feeling the approach of death, he lit a candle and, squeezing it in his cold hands, said: “Hold me... I'll die now". Daria turned twenty years old. Her father, while he was alive, did not marry her off, because he knew that she did not want it. She wanted to take monastic vows.
This truly narrow and rocky path was long for Mother Zipporah! The Lord, who created an abode in her heart, did not leave her. She loved the Lord and knew that he is the one who truly loves Him, who fulfills His commandments.
When, after the death of her father, in 1916, a young fellow villager, Dmitry Shnyakin, a believer who had been in Sarov and Diveyevo, wooed her, Daria’s mother blessed this marriage. The girl resignedly obeyed. She joined a large, wealthy family. The father-in-law, the headman of the village temple, had four sons and a daughter and a large farm. He did not allow his children to separate from him after marriage - and so five daughters-in-law, five young women, gathered in the house. Daria became the eldest daughter-in-law, who, according to her rank, was supposed to monitor everything, manage everything - in a word, a housekeeper. Mother recalled that at that time she “had no time to take off her bast shoes, let alone rest.” She coped with everything, and everyone was happy with her. And I wasn’t tired at all. The Lord gave strength, as she constantly remembered Him.
In 1933, my mother suffered a terrible dispossession of kulaks, which was accompanied by the murder of her relatives; her house was dismantled piece by piece. The father-in-law and mother-in-law were exiled to Solovki. Before dispossession, in the period from 1917 to 1928, Daria had four daughters: Alexandra, Paraskeva, Lydia and Julia. Winter came, there was nowhere to live. Daria and her children were received by the poor widow Agafya, who lived on the edge of the village and was unsociable. Even before dispossession, Daria’s husband left for Bolokhovo, in the Tula province, to build a mine in the hope of earning money and moving his family. In Bolokhov, I must say, things didn’t get much easier for the family. The same poverty in everything. They lived for a long time in a walk-through room, six of them slept on the floor, neighbors stepped over them. My father most often got odd jobs: either knocking together shields for snow retention on the railroad, chopping wood at a bakery, or working as a stoker. Alexandra and Paraskeva also worked where they could. Daria’s mother, Matrona Gerasimovna, came here to Bolokhovo, lived for two months and died. In 1937, the family was given a separate room in a communal apartment, which made things at least a little more convenient.
In 1946, after the death of her husband, mother and her daughters moved to a small town in the Tula region, Kireevsk, and, not yet being a nun, left all care for earthly things. Her daughters had grown up and could now take care of her very little needs. Once in Kireevsk, mother was praying alone, and suddenly Angels appeared and began to walk around her, performing some kind of ritual. When they began to dress her in monastic robes, she realized that this was tonsure. Soon Daria moved to the Lavra and here, in confession, she spoke about her wonderful tonsure as a monk. Then she was blessed to be tonsured into the mantle, which was performed here in the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra; on October 20, 1967, she was named Dosithea. This happened so unnoticed that the mother’s daughters did not immediately find out about it. And in December 1989, Bishop Serapion, Metropolitan of Tula and Belevsky, tonsured Mother Dosithea into the schema with the name Zipporah.
End of introductory fragment.
The elders of our time living now in 2019 - should we trust their recommendations, can they help in a difficult life situation?
The two most important elders of Russia, who are considered the most perspicacious and powerful prayer books (even to the point of allegedly healing from AIDS), by “strange coincidence” (or maybe by the providence of God?) are campaigning for Putler in favor of anti-Ukrainian and anti-American policies. Anyone interested can find on the Internet an interview with Father Blasius and the sayings of Elder Elijah. Well, Archimandrite Ephraim, it’s time for him to paint the icon of Vova in full height.
Of course, everyone’s views are different, but Putin just recently was baptized incorrectly, and abandoned his wife, and in general he is an extremely controversial person, and his party " United Russia“More than once she was exposed for embezzlement. Christ doesn’t care what kind of party person he is or what country he was born in. Therefore, these elders are mistaken if they support the president. And since they are mistaken so globally, then you can’t trust them even in small things.
Adding to the humor is the fact that another Athonite elder, Hieroschemamonk Afanasy, anathematized Putin.
List of active elders for 2019:
|
Name and rank |
Place |
|
Father Naum |
Sergiev Posad, Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius |
|
Father Kirill Pavlov |
|
|
Archimandrite German |
|
|
Father Vlasiy |
Borovsky Monastery, Kaluga region |
|
Father Eli |
Optina Pustyn |
|
Father Paisiy |
Dmitrov region, village of Ochevo |
|
Archimandrite Peter |
Nizhny Novgorod region, Lukino village, Pokrovsky Monastery |
|
Archimandrite Ambrose |
City of Ivanovo, Vvedensky Monastery |
|
Archpriest Valerian |
Akulovo village, Odintsovo district |
|
Archimandrite Dionysius |
Church of St. Nicholas of Mirlikiy, Pokrovskoye, Moscow |
|
Father Jerome |
Assumption Monastery, Chuvashia |
|
Father Hilarion |
Mordovia, Klyuchevskaya Pustyn |
|
Schema-Archimandrite John |
Sarans, Ioannovsky Monastery |
|
Father Nikolai |
Intercession-Ennat Monastery, Bashkiria |
|
Father Adrian |
Pskov-Pechersky Monastery |
Perhaps some of the modern elders really helped people. All people are sinners, even a monk may be in delusion, but through him the Lord will help the person. Another thing is that our naive people stand in queues for days for advice... which is not a fact that will benefit their soul.
Freedom has been given to man by God. Not in the sense of drinking and sinning, of course, but in the sense that a number of issues must be decided by the person himself. For example, what is the reason to ask the elder about work? Or about intimate relationships with your husband? Are people really so stupid that they can’t decide for themselves what can harm them and what can’t?
The elder's advice is a win-win situation. A person, having followed the advice, cannot turn back time and live life according to the second or third option. And a whole cult of personality is created around completely ordinary elderly monks and priests. And they are prone to making mistakes.
Here is Vasya from Moscow, a programmer. Full of money, he comes and asks whether he should go to the village to start farming, or stay in the city. The old man says, go to the village. Vasya goes to the village, he does not have enough strength, after 5 years, completely ruined, he gives up this business. Programming is forgotten, 5 years wasted. He, of course, perceives this as God’s providence, as a test, and thanks the elder for helping him understand his pride and arrogance.
Another option is that Vasya was not blessed to go to the village; he remained in Moscow. He earns more and more, bought an expensive car, fell in love with someone else, and almost got divorced. And again, thank you to the elder for revealing weakness, susceptibility to temptation, strong lust.
So the elders of our time who live today should not be trusted so much. In 2019, there are no longer such prayer books as before, plus the supervision of the KGB over 70 years of godlessness was not in vain.
This time we are talking with Metropolitan Longinus of Saratov and Volsk about elders and eldership. We all need the help of spiritually experienced people in our Christian lives. How can you get this help? Is it necessary to look for a “real elder” 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, without paying attention to the opportunities that our church life and visiting the parish church provide?
- Vladyka, what is eldership?— Eldership 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 novice revealing his thoughts to the elder - the confessor, the abbot. This is the only way to learn science from sciences—spiritual work. In general, monasticism is something we learn from each other. And although there are many wonderful books about monasticism that preserve its spirit, they still cannot replace live communication and transmission personal experience struggle with your passions. Actually, this struggle is the goal and basis of monastic feat. That is why tradition is so important in monasticism, which is passed on “acceptably to each other” (there is such a Slavic word): from the elders to the younger, from those who have lived in the monastery for a long time to the newcomers.
Eldership assumes that the elder completely guides the beginner in spiritual life. Ideally, a person should not have any thoughts or wishes hidden from a spiritual mentor. He must trust all his actions to the elder, and do everything he does only with blessing. It is in such self-denial and obedience that the monastic tradition is passed on.
In the 19th century, thanks to the activities of the disciples of the remarkable ascetic, St. Paisius Velichkovsky, monasticism flourished in Russia, and one of the centers of the revival of monastic work became Optina Pustyn, which was later known throughout Russia as a monastery. In modern Romania there is the Neametsky monastery, which also became famous thanks to the works of Elder Paisius and his associates. And up to today In the Romanian language there is a word “elder”, 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 elder.
In the 19th century in Russia, it turned out that lay pilgrims, ranging from simple peasants to famous educated people, began to come to the confessors of Optina Pustyn for confession or for advice on everyday issues. These are the Kireyevsky brothers, and the circle that subsequently formed around the Optina elder Macarius and was engaged in translations of 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 detractor Orthodox Church, nevertheless, he was drawn to the elders. After all, his famous departure from Yasnaya Polyana was not just a departure to Ostapovo station. There his relatives and admirers detained him, because they did not want him to reach his final goal. And he was going precisely to Optina Pustyn... This very listing of names is very famous people, which left a deep mark on the history of Russian culture, literature, and philosophy, suggests that the phenomenon of old age was of interest to the widest circle of society.
And in other Local Churches, eldership developed in a similar way. In the early 1990s, I had the opportunity to visit the confessor Elder Cleopa (Ilie), well-known throughout Romania, a man of unusual depth, an 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 greatest elders.
I came to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra when the well-known Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov), a wonderful confessor, a real old man, was still able to do so. Thanks to the book of Bishop 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 their interactions 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 St. Sergius there is a poetic comparison: “a vessel full of grace and overflowing.” This is probably how you can characterize every elder.
- This is a very beautiful characteristic. But in the philistine consciousness, an elder is, first of all, a perspicacious person. Just now you were talking about your meeting with the amazing Romanian elder Cleopas, 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 had come - students from Russia, he said: “Oh, the metropolitans are coming, let them through.” And two of us are indeed already metropolitans, the third is an archbishop...
But of course I'm joking. 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 insight. Under no circumstances should you strive for this. With this “demand for a miracle,” and a miracle on the go (if they go to the “elder” by bus), we profane everything - we profane faith, eldership as a phenomenon, and Christianity itself in general.
The elder is precisely a spiritual mentor. But any spiritual father must still know the person and be close to him for some time. A remarkable example of an elder of our time is, of course, the Monk Paisius the Svyatogorets, who spiritually cared for the convent in Suroti, now one of the best, most comfortable monasteries in Greece.
Therefore, when someone from the outside comes to an elder - real or simply known as such - and demands an immediate miracle and insights: “Come on, tell me my whole life, and what should I do next,” this is actually blasphemy. Not a single spiritually experienced person will succumb to such requests or claims and, most likely, will quietly and peacefully let such a visitor go home, telling him a few words of consolation. Where such sentiments begin to play along, there is no real spiritual life, no true eldership, and there never has been.
-Are there any elders at all these days?
- I think yes. Even today there are spiritually experienced people in monasteries and parishes. Without them it would be very difficult for the Church. But here you need to be very careful, do everything carefully and with reasoning. And we must be very careful of the type of relationship that is now widespread, including with God, which is expressed in the words: “You are for me, I am for you.”
“Nevertheless, many look for elders precisely in order to receive some special advice, guidance...
- There is a wonderful passage in “The Soulful Teachings of Abba Dorotheus.” Abba Dorotheos cites the words of Scripture: “Salvation is in much counsel,” but emphasizes: not in “council with many,” but “in much counsel” with an experienced person. But here, unfortunately, they like to do this: “Well, I was with such and such an elder, now let’s go to another elder, then to another one.” This is, of course, completely wrong. If we saw a spiritually experienced person and were able to stay near him, this is sometimes more important than long speeches. From the lives of many saints, we know that people, even just watching 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 God’s commandments and has been granted 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 wrong to me to go and look for the elder. At best, it will not bring any benefit. And, of course, an absolutely monstrous practice - when they pack buses for a “trip to the elder.” It's just business.
- As a rule, such trips are still made without blessing...
- No one can prohibit anyone from doing anything. We are free people, we live in a free country - I sat down and went wherever I wanted. Therefore, we - bishops, clergy - do not so much as “forbid” or “not bless,” but we try 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: “I visited 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 “bind and decide.”
- Vladyka, you reminded us of Elder Paisius the Holy Mountain. I think that he still ministers to people through his books. Perhaps this is how modern man should seek spiritual guidance?
“I think a modern person needs to go to church, participate in the sacraments, read spiritual literature, including books by those people who were spiritually experienced and enjoyed the favor of their flock during their lifetime. And the Lord will send in due time everything that is necessary—a good confessor, a good church community. And if this is necessary for a person, he will take him to some monastery. And there he will meet a monk, perhaps not a famous one, not one of those to whom “spiritual tourists” go in busloads, but one who can give advice - which this particular person needs, and precisely at this time. And if a person hears this advice and implements it, he will receive the greatest benefit that can be obtained.
Newspaper " Orthodox faith» No. 12 (608)
Sometimes a person feels literally driven into a corner and does not know how to live further. A spiritually experienced elder, endowed by God with the gift of clairvoyance, can come to his aid.
Who are they?
Elders are ordinary people, just like us. Only by virtue of their exploits for the sake of the Lord did they receive various gifts from Him - miracles, clairvoyance, healing. Elders. That's what the Orthodox call them. They can see the future as the present, and you can turn to them for advice in a difficult situation.
The very definition of old age is ambiguous. This can be used to designate the entire clergy of the Church, since from Greek “presbyter” (priest) is translated as “elder”, “elder”. An elder is a person with spiritual authority, a person who has received from God the gift of special spiritual guidance for Christians.
Among the miracle workers of the last days, our contemporaries, Father John (Krestyankin) and Father Nikolai (Guryanov) stand out.
Father John
Archimandrite John (Krestyankin) was the confessor of the Holy Dormition Pskov-Pechersky Monastery. Born in 1910 into a family of Oryol townspeople, he served in the church from childhood. After school I received professional education in accounting courses. He worked in his specialty, first in Orel, then in Moscow, while visiting the temple.
In 1945, while celibate, he was ordained to the rank of deacon, then to the priesthood. For his gift of preaching and fatherly care, he enjoyed the love of parishioners. His candidate's work (at the end of the Moscow Theological Seminary and Academy) on Saint Seraphim of Sarov remained unfinished - in 1950 he was arrested for seven years for “anti-Soviet agitation” and sent to Kargopol Lag in the Arkhangelsk region. His fellow prisoners recalled: “When he spoke to you, his eyes, his whole face radiated love and kindness. And in what he said there was attention and participation; there could also be a fatherly instruction, brightened up with gentle humor.”
After his release in 1955, Father John continued his ministry in various churches in Pskov and Ryazan region, and then in the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery. Almost immediately after Father John settled in the monastery, rumors about him spread throughout the Soviet Union. Thousands of people came to him for advice and blessings.
Fast train with all stops
At the monastery, Father John was sometimes jokingly called “an express train with all the stops.” He did not walk, but glided like a light ray, elusively, smoothly and quickly. If he was in a hurry to perform some obedience, he would run past the hands stretched out to him for a blessing. But, having run, he often returned just as quickly and quickly asked: “Well, what have you got there?” And he immediately began to answer the still unasked question, revealing his innermost knowledge about a person’s life. Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) recalls that once, while still a novice in Pechory, he witnessed the following picture: Father John, surrounded by pilgrims, was hurrying through the monastery courtyard to the church. Suddenly a tearful woman rushed to him with a three-year-old child in her arms: “Father, bless him for the operation, the doctors require it urgently, in Moscow.” Father John stopped and firmly told the woman: “No way. He will die on the operating table. Pray, treat him, but do not perform surgery under any circumstances. He will recover." And he baptized the baby.
Then they, the novices, were horrified by reflection, wondering: what if Father John was mistaken? What if the child dies? What will his mother do to him if this happens? One cannot suspect the elder of vulgar opposition to medicine: there are many known cases when Father John both blessed and insisted on an operation. Among his spiritual children there were many doctors. What will be next? Will the grief-stricken mother come to the monastery and start a monstrous scandal, or will nothing like that happen, will the child recover, as Father John predicted?
But Father John still continued to “ply” between the temple and his cell, surrounded by pilgrims filled with hope and gratitude, which indicated a positive outcome of the matter.
Father John did not like being called an elder. He said: “Don’t confuse the elder and the old man. And there are different old people, some are 80 years old, some are 70, like me, who are 60, there are old people and young people. But the elders are God’s blessing to people. And we no longer have elders. An old man is running around the monastery, and we are following him.” Humility was one of his many spiritual qualities.
Archimandrite John (Krestyankin) died at the age of 95. He was buried in the caves of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery.
“You love vodka, but you don’t love God”
An elder, if he is truly from God, will never impose his opinion, demanding unquestioning fulfillment of all instructions and worship of himself. Archpriest Nikolai Guryanov from Zalit Island, hiding his spiritual gift, said during his lifetime: “Contact first of all not to me, but to the Lord!” Father Nikolai was distinguished by his simplicity in conversation, often sang something folk, and loved proverbs: “Live simply and you will live to be a hundred.” Some choir director arrives, and Father Nikolai from the doorway says, “Si-sol-re-sol” and smiles. Father was most often happy. He literally gave out love to everyone. He easily explained complex life situations, like a ball of tangled threads. And he did this not only with words, but also with actions. To enlighten some, he spoke allegorically. I always asked only for prayers for myself.
One day, an unbeliever came to the island in the morning on his business. Having free time, looked into the church, where Father Nikolai drew attention to him - suddenly he quickly approached him and said: “You love vodka, but you don’t love God.” Then he went to the altar. This man, who really loved to drink, was puzzled by this providence of an unfamiliar priest and defended the entire Liturgy. After the service, Father Nikolai approached him again. But at the same time he already said: “Well, now you love God, but you don’t like vodka.” From that time on, that man completely stopped drinking.
One of Father Nikolai’s spiritual children wrote that in December 1999, she and her future husband went to the priest to ask for blessings for marriage. The situation was not easy, since both were seriously ill before marriage. The elder practically did not accept at that time. There was a notice on the gate: “Do not disturb Father Nikolai!” They decided to deliver the letter through the cell attendant. Unsuccessfully - the cell attendant guards the health and peace of the elder! Gone. My heart is heavy and sad. And suddenly, completely unexpectedly, the cell attendant runs out with the icon of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow” and says: “Father blesses you for your marriage.” But they didn’t even express their request to the elder!
The spiritual gifts of Father Nikolai Guryanov were manifested in many ways: he helped change the lives of people who had lost hope, he could call strangers by name, he warned of possible danger, he begged for the seriously ill. At the same time, regardless of ranks and titles, he could, according to some spiritual vision of his, send the guests home. Behind this was not a desire to offend a person, but a desire to provide an opportunity to comprehend one’s past life and return back with repentant feelings.
Blessed darling
Elder Lyubov Ivanovna Lazareva was born on September 17, 1912 in the village of Kolodezi, Kaluga province. Her family was very religious: her father was the headman of a village temple, her mother raised the children. Left an orphan, the girl was taken in by a close relative. At the age of 18, Lyubushka went to Leningrad to visit her brother, who helped her get a job at the Red Triangle factory. But soon Lyubushka decided to become a wanderer. She visited many monasteries, but the most dear place for her was Vyritsa, where she prayed for hours at the grave of her spiritual father, Hieromonk Seraphim. The small, dry old woman always stood out for her meekness and prayerfulness. Many people noted her insight and gift of miracles.
The blessed one’s spiritual daughter, Valentina, recalled: “One day my grandson George fell ill: pus was oozing, staphylococcus... I went to Lyubushka: “George is dying!” She prayed and said: “He will live.” And everything worked out. Then my daughter fell ill with rubella, and again, through Lyubushka’s prayers, the disease went away.”
The old woman was also known for “building temples,” that is, she begged the Lord for the appearance of new or the revival of destroyed churches. One of them was the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
These were the true elders who help people even after their death. It’s good for those who had such mentors in their spiritual guidance, you say. But what to do if there is no elder nearby?
Pious pilgrims, preparing to visit a particular monastery, try to find out whether there are spiritually experienced mentors there to whom they can open their hearts and seek advice. The Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, Optina Pustyn, the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery have always been a storehouse of true wisdom, passed on from one elder to another, and that is why people flock there seeking spiritual guidance and help.