Read priests' stories online. “The priests are joking” - a selection of funny and touching stories

Psychiatry has a difficult relationship with religion. On the one hand, psychiatry as a scientific discipline should not take anything on faith, therefore the revelations of the prophets are considered only as material for familiarization and with the aim of improving the general educational level. Many assumptions have been made regarding the prophets and messiahs themselves, especially regarding psychopathology. On the other hand, the object that is the object of attention of psychiatrists is itself not measurable and cannot be submitted to the same careful examination and dissection as the mortal human body. Therefore, to many questions the answer “God knows” remains predominant.

Now a kind of unspoken truce has been established between psychiatry and the Russian Orthodox Church. Psychiatrists do not narrow their eyes at patients’ statements that they fast and attend liturgies, and priests convince parishioners among our patients that the Lord approves not only fervent, heartfelt prayer, but also regular medication from the local psychiatrist . Moreover, at our day hospital, the Church of St. Panteleimon is open.

I had to communicate with different priests, I even had the opportunity to treat one. Most of all, I remember a conversation with one priest. The entire appearance of this priest can be described by the word “thoroughbred”: the priest is tall, stately, tightly built, the cross deviates from the vertical by the proper solid degree, his beard is thick and thick, but most importantly, his gaze. So kind and kind. And with a sly sparkle. And bass. It’s not like you can crush glasses or cast iron pots like that! And sedate, economical movements. He crossed himself - he darned his soul. If he doesn't walk, he walks. It’s immediately obvious that he’s a man of God. You wouldn’t want someone like that in confession, but tell him with whom, when and how many times, not counting the size of the bribe given or taken the other day.

In our conversation we talked about what, from the point of view of the church in general and the priest in particular, is the cause of mental disorders.

Well, my son, with neurasthenia everything is more or less clear. This suffering is the punishment of the soul for the sin of pride. A person did not appreciate the true reserve of his spiritual strength, he imagined himself to be more than what he really was - so he wasted too much. So much for your suffering, and your soul has clenched in a lump behind your sternum, and your limbs are shaking, and your heart is beating tremulously, and any sound or glare makes you tremble like a hare under a bush.

What about obsessive-phobic phenomena?

This, my child, is an obsession. Demonic thoughts.

The holy father's eyebrows knitted slightly, and I felt a slight discomfort. If I were in the place of demonic thoughts, I would hasten to get away into the fiery Gehenna, away from the punishing right hand.

What about hysterical neurosis, father?

Hysterical neurosis, as well as hysteria, are an unbridled revelry of base passions, licentiousness and a lack of innermost strictness towards oneself. Oh, the trouble with such parishioners! You don’t know what to expect from someone else - either she will bruise her forehead while saying a prayer, or she will crawl under your cassock - they say, is her father imbued with her shameful beauty, ugh, Lord, forgive me!

What about hypochondriacs? What does the Holy Church think about this?

The Church, my son, knows. It is you, secular people, who think that this is the destiny of your blind soul, to grope towards the truth, like blind, unintelligent kittens. Hypochondria, that is, the creation of an idol from one’s precious health. Do you remember, child, the words that the body is a temple? So, a temple is a temple, but only as a mansion for the soul, nothing more. But the word of God did not reach someone; Well, what can you do, apparently, while the Lord bestowed wisdom, these idiots were doing European-quality renovations in their mansion. Or they installed an imported toilet.

Father, you and I talked all about neuroses. What is psychosis? With delusions, hallucinations...

But this, my son, is from the evil one. Both we and you will have to fight this. For us - prayer and fasting, for you - haloperidol.

That is, with prayer alone - no way? - I decided to egg my father on. He looked at me very patiently and understandingly - he said, otherwise he would have gotten me for less, but what can you, a dialectical materialist, take from you, besides analyzing stool for helminths...

Child, if God wanted to create miracles left and right, and ride around on reindeer, and give everyone a present under the Christmas tree, he would have done so. But his wisdom is great, and the Savior senses that the people’s passion for freebies is very great. Give you a break, you are not like God, you will forget how to walk and get your daily bread, and you will only beg for favors and complain to lawyers - they say, here the grace did not descend according to the list, and there the oil with manna from heaven was not delivered on time. Pipes! Only sweat and blood, daily labor and great gratitude for our daily bread. Amen.

I even crossed myself, which earned me a sedate tilt of my head and an approving look. Father left, leaving involuntary admiration and white envy in his soul: there are people!

Author Alexander Avdyugin

The stories of Archpriest Alexander Avdyugin are written in the genre of priestly prose. They are varied in form and content: there are meetings with unusual people, and sketches from the everyday life of a rural parish, and reflections about oneself and people. Outwardly simple and artless, but full of deep wisdom and good humor, these stories fascinatingly and truthfully convey the life of ordinary people with its miracles, sorrows and joys. At the same time, they force the reader to think seriously about eternal truths: good and evil, life and death, sin and virtue; and also to audit your own soul, cleanse it of spiritual debris in order to become at least a little better, a little closer to salvation.

Alexander Avdyugin

BATYUSHKOVSKY STORIES

Copy and Brynza

It all started simpler and more ordinary than usual. At the church, the phone on duty rang and a priest was invited. A woman’s voice explained that there was an elderly man who needed to be confessed, but it was impossible to take him to the temple, he was too weak, and they were afraid that he would not survive the journey.

When asked if grandfather went to church and whether he needed to receive communion in addition to confession, they answered that he had never gone anywhere before, but he believed in God all his life and that he didn’t need anything else other than confession.

“No, no, but I still need to confess,” I thought, and prepared to discuss: when to go, where they are and how to get there, but upon hearing my agreement, they immediately hung up...

Before I had time to figure out what kind of oddities these were, the temple went dark, and the entire doorway was blocked by two powerful figures.

Remember the end of the last century and the appearance of the so-called “new Russians”? Dense, wide, short-haired with expressionless faces and with thick gold chains separating their heads from their bodies, since the concept of “neck” is practically absent among them. It was they who stood in the doorway, peering into the darkened emptiness of the temple. This composition, from the time of distribution of property, was completed by reddish jackets covering powerful torsos. Jeans and sneakers with a jumping puma were also present.

I must note that, to this day, I still cannot distinguish these two messengers from each other. The only difference between them was that one of them addressed me: “you, holy father,” and the other: “you, dad.” Everything else has no significant differences, and there are no special signs.

Get ready, dad,” one said.

Don’t forget anything, Holy Father, the bummer will come back.

While I was packing the required suitcase, I was asked a question that visitors always ask:

Holy Father, where should we put candles about health?

Write a note with a name so you know who to pray for.

What kind of note, dad, write yourself, for Brynza’s health.

Whom? - I didn’t understand.

Well, you give it, Holy Father. You will go with us to Brynza now, he said that we should light candles. The biggest.

So there is no such name - “Brynza”, how was he baptized, what name?

Have you ever seen how reflections of thought and shadows of thoughtfulness appear in these square faces? Interesting moments; but a smile of understanding still pleases, regardless of the level of education, facial beauty and lifestyle.

His name is Vladimir,” they finally realized that envoys were required of them.

The duty officer wrote down the synodik, and then stared at the fifty-dollar bill. Five candles, although the most expensive, were not worth that much.

This is so much,” he said in embarrassment, handing the money back.

“Save it for the temple, boy,” one of the arrivals chuckled over his shoulder, who, apparently, having completed the task of candles, had already managed to forget about it.

I have never left my native church like this before. The accompaniment was akin to a movie gangster series. Thank God they didn’t at least keep their hands under their jackets. The grannies sitting on a bench near the church fervently crossed themselves, became agitated, and whispered, but when they saw my good-natured nod, they seemed to calm down, although they looked after me warily.

I don’t know much about cars, but since this one was big and tall, with a wheel stuck to the back, it means it’s a “jeep.” I climbed into the back seat, as they indicated, my newly minted bodyguards sat in on the right and left and... we drove off.

Dad, why are you hanging on to your case so much? He's not going anywhere.

And indeed, only now did I notice my hand, white from tension, on the handle of my suitcase, and I noticed that my thoughts were far from the upcoming confession.

Actually, fears are fears, but looking at the fully equipped expensive car, the security representatives and the driver, you involuntarily begin to build in your mind an image of the mansion to which they take me.

It didn't build. The house turned out to be small, built in the sixties, though with a television dish above the roof and a babbling brook along the path from the gate to the porch. With the Donbass water shortage, not everyone could build something like this for themselves, and even decorate it in the Japanese style with outlandish stones and unusual shrubs. The rest of the territory was occupied by an ordinary garden, with a gazebo and a well.

A young girl met me on the porch.

Granddaughter, probably,” I assumed, and I was not mistaken.

Come in, father, grandfather is waiting for you.

In the hall, that is, in the central and brightest room of the house, in an armchair, sat an old man, thin as a pole, wearing a light sports T-shirt and neat summer loose trousers and modern, expensive, beautiful shoes, which attracted my attention throughout the entire future communication.

These shoes did not fit well with the outer clothing and the tattoo that covered everything visible from under the T-shirt, the grandfather’s chest and arms. I’m not good at prisoner symbolism, but the three-domed cathedral on my left forearm and a set of various blue “rings” on my fingers spoke of the great Zonov epic of my confessor. And the grandfather himself, from his fashionable shoes to his gray, pointed head, resembled something prison-like, sharp and uncompromising.

I shouldn’t call you “Brynza”, but “an awl” or a “nail,” I thought.

In conversation and confession, the grandfather was indeed prickly and specific. He spoke quietly, clearly separating word from word, and it was clear that he was thinking through his conversation carefully and in advance.

I’ve lived to be in my nineties, father, although I’ve been called death since I was fifteen. “Yes, God obviously protected me,” my confessor began without preliminary preparation.

Of course I did,” I assented.

Shut up, father. You listen. I have a lot to tell you, but I don’t have the strength to talk for long.

The zone is coming out of the lungs and out of the bronchi, asthma is tormenting me, so I get tired of talking for a long time, so listen, and then you will have your say if you have something to say.

And I listened.

Grandfather Vladimir, known in his world as “Brynza”, told me that he spent 28 years in prisons and camps for thieves, was crowned “thieves in law” in one of the Rostov zones, fed mosquitoes in Mordovia and in logging camps in Siberia, and he has so many sins that the rest of his life is not enough to count.

Let’s pray,” I said, opening the Breviary, and then the Lord will help me remember the most necessary things.

They say that a priest should not remember other people’s confessions, even for himself, much less keep them in his memory. It’s difficult for me to do this, because before me, through the mouth of the “raven in law,” a different world has opened up, with its own relationships, laws, and way of thinking. In that world there is no simple joy, just as there is no simple evil, the concepts and principles that we use have been changed there, but there is also pain and there is love. A lot of things were a revelation for me...

The old man spoke for more than three hours.

No one bothered us, not even a sound could be heard from the garden through the open windows. “Brynza” was specific, he spoke only about the evil that he caused to others. And even though the concept of “evil” in his interpretation differed significantly from the generally accepted one, he never once set out to justify himself. He went through the days of freedom and the years of the zone, remembering those long gone and those still alive. His speech, decently diluted with thieves' jargon, was clear, consistent and adhered to some kind of elusive logic, where every action has a previous reason, and every action has a specific conclusion.

I didn't even need to ask any leading questions. Only at the end, when the word “passion” slipped through my grandfather’s mind, I asked:

Do you have or have you had a passion for something?

There is such a sin, father. I always wanted to have leggings, expensive and chic.

What to have, I didn’t understand.

Leggings. The shoes are stylish. Now I have, when my legs can hardly walk, my grandfather moved his shoes.

And I asked one more question. He asked why he believes in God.

The friars don’t have faith, but today’s youngsters, like the ones who were transporting you,” “Brynza” waved him off. - A serious person cannot live without faith, although everyone has their own, but everyone wants justice.

I had nothing to answer. I simply read the prayer of permission and got ready to leave...

Wait, father. I was reading your book here,” and the grandfather pointed to the volume of Slobodsky lying on the bedside table under the icon and lamp, “it says there that you need to take communion.” Is it possible at home?

You can, and you should.

I told “Brynza” how to prepare for the Sacrament and decided to take my bows.

The old man stopped again.

Wait a minute. I read that you need a spear there in the service, then the buddies from the “nine” got involved and made it for the church. Take it.

The old man, somehow unexpectedly, from somewhere on the side took out a copy, amazingly beautiful and skillfully executed, but a little different from how we are usually used to seeing it...

With that we said goodbye. A day later I gave communion to Brynza-Vladimir, and a week later he went to the Lord.

There is now a copy of Zonov’s on the altar. I use it, although some of my colleagues are confused by its appearance...

Father Stefan

Father Stefan is young. And he is also celibate. There is such a rank in the Orthodox priesthood. He refused to tie the knot, but either he didn’t have the strength to become a monk, or he left it for “later,” but how...

(Here, in the stories, everything is - Faith, biography and personal life of Alexander Dyachenko,
priest (priest) of the Most High God )

To talk about God, Faith and salvation in such a way that one may never even mention Him,
and everything becomes clear to readers, listeners and viewers, and this brings joy to the soul...
I once wanted to save the world, then my diocese, then my village...
And now I remember the words of St. Seraphimushka:
“Save yourself, and thousands around you will be saved”!
So simple, and so unattainable...

Father Alexander Dyachenko(b. 1960) - in the photo below,
Russian man, married, simple, no military

And I answered the Lord my God that I would go to the Goal through suffering...

Priest Alexander Dyachenko,
photo from the deanonymization meeting of a network blogger

Contents of the storybook "Crying angel". Read online!

Miracles ( Miracles #1: Healing cancer patients) (with the addition of the story "Sacrifice")
Present (butt trainer)
New Year ( with added stories: Wake , Image and Eternal Music)
My universities (10 years on hardware No. 1)
(with added story)
Crying angel (with added story)
Best Love Song (A German found himself married to a Russian - he found Love and Death)
Kuzmich ( with added story)
Shreds (full version, including the story of Tamara's meeting with I.V.Stalin )
Dedication (To God, Ordination-1)
Intersections (with added story)
Miracles (Miracles #2: The Smell of the Abyss and a Talking Cat)
The flesh is one ( Wife priest - how to become a mother? With addition:)

Outside the collection of short stories "Weeping Angel": 50 thousand dollars
Joke
Be like children (with added story)
In the circle of light (with added story)
Valya, Valentina, what’s wrong with you now...
Crown (Father Paul-3)
love thy neighbour
Climbing
Time doesn't wait (Bogolyubovsky Procession + Grodno-4) (with additional story “I love Grodno” - Grodno-6)
Time has passed!
The all-conquering power of Love
Meeting(with Sergei Fudel) ( with the addition of the story "The Makropoulos Remedy")
Every breath... (with added story)
Heroes and exploits
Gehazi's curse (with added story)
Father Frost (with added micro-story)
Deja vu
Children's prayer (Ordination-3, with added story)
Good deeds
Soulkeeper (O. Victor, special forces father, story No. 1)
For a life
Boomerang Law ( with added story)
Hollywood star
Icon
And the eternal battle... (with added story)
(10 years on hardware No. 2)
From the experience of railway theology
Mason (with added story)
Quasimodo
Princes ( with added story)
Lullaby (Gypsies-3)
Foundation stone(Grodno-1) ( with added story - Grodno-2)
Red poppies of Issyk-Kul
You can't see face to face...
Small man

Metamorphoses
A world where dreams come true
Mirages
Mishka and Marishka
My first teacher (Father Paul-1)
My friend Vitka
Guys (with added story)
In war as in war (O. Victor, special forces father, story No. 6)
Our dreams (with added story)
Don't bow down, little head...
Scampish notes (Bulgaria)
New Year's story
Nostalgia
About two meetings with Father Alexander “in real life”
(Father Paul-2)
(O. Victor, special forces father, story No. 2)
Turn off mobile phones
Fathers and Sons ( with the addition of the story "Grandfather")
Web
First love
Letter to Zoritsa
Letter from childhood (with the addition of the story "The Jewish Question")
Present (about happiness as a gift)
Bow (Grodno-3) (with the addition of the story “Hercules’ Disease” - Grodno-5)
The provision obliges (with the addition of a story - Victor Island, No. 4 and 8)
Epistle to Philemon
(Wolf Messing)
Offer
Overcoming (with the addition of a story - Father Viktor, special forces father, No. 3 and 7)
About Adam
Road checks (with added story)
Clearance ( Ciurlionis)
Radonitsa
The happiest day
Fairy tale
(10 years on hardware No. 3)
Neighbours (Gypsies-1)
Old things (with added story)
Old nags (with added stories and)
Passion-face (Gypsies-2)
Three meetings
Difficult question
Poor
Lesson (Ordination-2)
Feng Shui, or heart stone disease
Chechen syndrome (O. Victor, special forces father, story No. 5)
What to do? (Old Believers)
These eyes are opposite (with added stories and)
I did not participate in the war...
My tongue... my friend?...

Even if you read stories and essays father of Alexander Dyachenko on the Internet (online), it will be a good thing if you buy the corresponding offline editions (paper books) of Father Alexander and give them to all your friends who don’t read anything online (sequentially, first one, then another). This is a good thing!

A little about simple stories Russian priest Alexander Dyachenko

Father Alexander is a simple Russian priest with the usual biography of a simple Russian man:
- was born, studied, served, married, worked (working on the "iron" for 10 years),... remained a man.

Father Alexander came to the Christian faith as an adult. He was very “hooked” by Christ. And somehow little by little ( siga-siga - as the Greeks say, because they love such a thorough approach), unnoticed, unexpectedly, he turned out to be a Priest, a Servant of the Lord at His Throne.

Just as unexpectedly, he suddenly became a “spontaneous” writer. I just saw so many significant, providential and wonderful things around me that I began to write down the life observations of a simple Russian person in the “akyn” style. And being a wonderful storyteller and a real Russian person with a mysteriously deep and wide Russian soul, which also knew the Light of Christ in His Church, he began to reveal in his stories a Russian and Christian view of our beautiful life in this world, as a place of Love , labor, sorrows and victories, in order to benefit all people from their humble unworthiness.

Here is the summary from the book "Crying angel" Father Alexander Dyachenko about the same:

Bright, modern and unusually deep stories by Father Alexander fascinate readers from the first lines. What is the author's secret? In truth. In the truth of life. He clearly sees what we have learned not to notice - what causes us inconvenience and troubles our conscience. But here, in the shadow of our attention, there is not only pain and suffering. It is here that there is unspeakable joy that leads us to the Light.

A little biography Priest Alexander Dyachenko

“The advantage of a simple worker is a free head!”

At a meeting with readers Father Alexander Dyachenko told us a little about himself, about his path to faith.
- The dream of becoming a military sailor did not come true - Father Alexander graduated from the Agricultural Institute in Belarus. He worked as a train preparer for almost 10 years on the railway and has the highest qualification category. "The main advantage of a simple worker is a free head",” Father Alexander Dyachenko shared his experience. At that time, he was already a believer, and after the “railway stage” of his life he entered the St. Tikhon’s Theological Institute in Moscow, after which he was ordained a priest. Today, Father Alexander Dyachenko already has 11 years of priesthood behind him, a lot of experience in communicating with people, and many stories.

"The truth of life as it is"

Conversation with priest Alexander Dyachenko, blogger and writer

"LiveJournal", LJ alex_the_priest, Father Alexander Dyachenko, who serves in one of the churches in the “distant” Moscow region, is not like ordinary network blogs. Readers in the priest’s notes are attracted and captivated by something that certainly should not be looked for on the Internet - the truth of life as it is, and not as it is presented in the virtual space or political debates.

Father Alexander became a priest only at the age of 40; as a child he dreamed of being a naval sailor, and graduated from the Agricultural Institute in Belarus. For more than ten years he worked on the railroad as a simple worker. Then he went to study at the Orthodox St. Tikhon's University for the Humanities, and was ordained 11 years ago.

The works of Father Alexander - apt life sketches - are popular on the Internet and are also published in the weekly magazine “My Family”. In 2010, the publishers of Nikeya selected 24 essays from the priest’s LJ and published the collection “The Weeping Angel.” A second book is also being prepared - this time the writer himself will choose the stories that will be included in it. Father Alexander told the Pravoslavie.ru portal about his creativity and plans for the future.

- Judging by your stories in LiveJournal, your path to the priesthood was long and difficult. What was your path to writing? Why did you decide to immediately publish everything on the Internet?

By chance. I must admit, I am not a “technical” person at all. But my children somehow decided that I was too behind the times, and showed me that there is a “Live Journal” on the Internet, where you can write down some notes.

But still, nothing happens by chance in life. I recently turned 50 years old and it’s been 10 years since I became a priest. And I felt the need to draw some conclusions, to somehow comprehend my life. Everyone comes to such a turning point in life, for some at 40 years old, for me at 50, when it’s time to decide what you are. And all this gradually resulted in writing: some memories came, at first I wrote small notes, and then whole stories began to appear. And when the same youth taught me to take the text into LJ “under the cut”, then I could not limit my thoughts...

I recently calculated that I've written about 130 stories over the past two years, which means I've been writing more than once a week during that time. This surprised me - I didn’t expect this from myself; Something, apparently, was moving me, and if, despite the usual lack of time for a priest, I still managed to write something, then it was necessary... Now I plan to take a break until Easter - and then we’ll see. I honestly never know if I'll write the next story or not. If I don’t have a need, a need to tell a story, I’ll drop it all at once.

- All your stories are written in the first person. Are they autobiographical?

Priest Alexander Dyachenko: The events that are described are all real. But as for the form of presentation, writing in the first person was somehow closer to me, I probably can’t do it any other way. After all, I am not a writer, but a village priest.

Some stories are truly biographical, but since this did not all happen to me specifically, I am writing under a pseudonym, but on behalf of the priest. For me, every story is very important, even if it didn’t happen to me personally - after all, we also learn from our parishioners, and throughout our lives...

And at the end of the stories I always specifically write a conclusion (the moral of the essay), such that everything is put in its place. It’s still important to show: look, you can’t go to a red light, but you can go to a green light. My stories are, first and foremost, a sermon...

- Why did you choose such a direct form of entertaining everyday stories for preaching?

Priest Alexander Dyachenko: So that anyone who reads the Internet or opens a book still reads it to the end. So that some simple situation, which he is used to not noticing in ordinary life, would excite him, awaken him a little. And maybe next time, having encountered similar events himself, he will look towards the temple...

Many readers later admitted to me that they began to perceive priests and the Church differently. After all, a priest is often like a monument to people. It is impossible to turn to him, it is scary to approach him. And if they see in my story a living preacher who also feels, worries, who tells them about the secret, then maybe it will be easier for them to come to the realization of the need for a confessor in their life...

I don’t see any specific group of people from the flock in front of me... But I have a lot of hope for the young people, so that they can also understand.

Young people perceive the world differently than people of my generation. They have different habits, a different language. Of course, we will not copy their behavior or expressions in the sermons in the temple. But when preaching in the world, I think you can speak a little of their language!

-Have you had a chance to see the fruits of your missionary message?

Priest Alexander Dyachenko: I didn’t suspect, to be honest, that there would be so many readers. But now there are modern means of communication, they write comments to me on the blog, often meaningless, and I also receive letters to the newspaper “My Family”, where my stories are published. It would seem that the newspaper, as they say, is “for housewives,” it is read by ordinary people busy with everyday life, children, household problems - and from them I was especially happy to receive feedback that the stories made me think about what the Church is and what she.

- However, on the Internet, no matter what you write about, you can get comments that are not very favorable...
Father Alexander: Still, the response is important to me. Otherwise I wouldn't be interested in writing...
—Have you ever heard gratitude from your regular parishioners in the church for your writing?
Father Alexander: They, I hope, don’t know that I also write stories - after all, in many ways, the everyday stories I hear from them make me write something down again!

- What if we run out of interesting stories from life experiences?

Priest Alexander Dyachenko: Some quite ordinary situations can be very insightful - and then I write them down. I don't write, my main task is priestly. While this is in line with my activities as a priest, I write. I don’t know whether I’ll write another story tomorrow.

It's like an honest conversation with your interlocutor. Often, at a parish after the Liturgy, the community gathers, and over the meal everyone tells something in turn, shares problems, or impressions, or joy - this is the result of sermon after sermon.

- Do you yourself confess to the reader? Does writing strengthen you spiritually?

Priest Alexander Dyachenko: Yes, it turns out that you are opening yourself. If you write while hiding, no one will believe you. Each story carries within itself the presence of a person on whose behalf the story is told. If it’s funny, then the author himself laughs, if it’s sad, then he cries.

For me, my notes are an analysis of myself, an opportunity to sum up some conclusions and tell myself: here you are right, and here you were wrong. Somewhere this is an opportunity to ask for forgiveness from those whom you have offended, but in reality it is no longer possible to ask for forgiveness. Maybe the reader will see how bitter it is later, and will not repeat some of the mistakes that we make every day, or at least think about it. Even if not right away, let him remember years later - and go to church. Although in life it happens differently, because so many people still gather and never come to the temple. And my stories are addressed to them too.

Priest Alexander Dyachenko: Holy Bible. If we don't read it daily, we will end as Christians right away. If we live by our own mind and do not feed ourselves on the Holy Scripture like bread, then all our other books will lose their meaning!

If it’s difficult to read, let him not be too lazy to come to church for classes and conversations about the Holy Scriptures, which, I hope, every parish conducts... If the Reverend Seraphim of Sarov I read every day Gospel, even though I knew it by heart, what should we say?

All that we, priests, write - all this should push such a person to begin reading the Holy Scriptures. This is the main task of all near-church fiction and journalism.

Priest Alexander Dyachenko: Well, firstly, at the church we are collecting our parish library, in which everyone who applies can get something they need and something modern that is not only useful, but interesting to read. So for advice, including about literature, do not hesitate to turn to a priest.

In general, there is no need to be afraid of having a confessor: you definitely need to choose a specific person, even if he is often busy and will sometimes “brush off” you, but it is better if you still go to the same priest - and gradually a personal contact with him.

father Konstantin Parkhomenko,

father of Alexander Avdyugin,

Priest Alexander Dyachenko: It's hard to choose just one. In general, as I grew older, I began to read less fiction; you begin to appreciate reading spiritual books. But recently, for example, I opened it again Remark “Love your neighbor”- and I saw that this was the same Gospel, only presented in everyday terms...

With priest Alexander Dyachenko
talked Antonina Maga- February 23, 2011 - pravoslavie.ru/guest/44912.htm

The first book, a collection of stories, by priest Alexander Dyachenko "Crying angel" published by the Nikeya publishing house, Moscow, 2011, 256 pp., printed paper, pocket format.
Father Alexander Dyachenko has a hospitable LJ blog- alex-the-priest.livejournal.com on the Internet.

Approved for distribution by the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church IS R15-501-0056

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What a “quiet haven” it is! Here there can only be a human creator who desires to find the incorruptible fundamental principle within himself. Here is “invisible warfare” and the military work of spiritual feat.

F. Udelov. Monastery and world

I don’t know from which of the holy fathers Archimandrite Zinon took these instructions as a lesson to one of the too careless, freedom-loving novices, not like a monastery, but I took care of the piece of paper written in an emphatically old spelling so that, when crossing the threshold of the monastery, I would not bring “street” passions there . Behind these walls it is not our ambitious codes or our vigorous virtues that reign.

“A monk is one who, being clothed in a material and perishable body, imitates the life and state of the incorporeal.”

“The monk is the everlasting compulsion of nature and the unflagging preservation of feelings.”

“A monk is one who, while grieving and suffering in soul, always remembers and reflects on death, both in sleep and in vigil.”

Even without knowing these rules, we cross the threshold of the monastery with inexplicable confusion and, despite all the shamelessness of many years of atheistic propaganda, especially cruel to monasteries, before the first living encounter with a monastic monastery we feel the demanding, reproaching otherness of this life, its unearthly severity.

It seemed that we were already forever cut off from this world. One could read Leskov or Dostoevsky (monastic chapters of “Karamazov” or “Demons”), Chekhov’s “The Bishop” or Tolstoy’s “Father Sergius”, but for recent Soviet ears this was only “literature”, only an endless past like serfdom. And even if we remember the first impressions of visiting the monastery by people of my generation, who returned to the Church after the millennium of the Baptism of Rus', then for many months they too will be alarmingly uncertain and exciting, like falling out of time. I think that this feeling of confusion and uncertainty is not much different for beginners and now. Unless later, years later, when you truly enter the Church not as a contemplative, but as a gradually come to your senses and gradually become stronger Orthodox (thank God, who has not lost your ancestral memory), you begin to visit the monastery more often, enter into the order of its long services, then little by little, as if you would guess by itself that the present time in all its fullness, in all the spiritual heights of this concept is felt right here. Here you are a contemporary not of a vain day, but of everyone who stood here before you and will stand after you, which immediately gives strength to the soul and light to the mind.

And then, as if by themselves, living, necessary books will begin to converge, which, it seems, were just waiting for your spiritual progress. And when a nation begins to see the light, they come not only to you, but also to the general modern culture. And now, not only in monasteries, you can read Zaitsev’s memoirs about Athos and Valaam, and marvelous ones that have no similarity in our literature, nor the continuation of I. Shmelev’s book - his “Phytis”, his “Summer of the Lord”, his “Old Valaam” " And then, you see, it will come to Konstantin Leontiev’s book about the Optina days of Clement (Zederholm) and to Sergei Nilus’s ingenuous, wonderfully heartfelt book “On the Bank of God’s River,” where Optina will appear in all the fullness of its outwardly poor, but spiritually inexhaustible life. All who have read them remember the holy air of their kindness, their pure clarity, their reverence.

Bitter, accustomed by the treachery of the state to accept every word with caution, and every neighbor only as a workmate, social ally or enemy, having forgotten the ancient Russian addresses to strangers “mother”, “brother”, “sister”, we are still ashamed of brotherly love for a long time these books, their prayerful, sometimes touching speech. And no, no, it will still seem that the heroes of the same Shmelev books are simple-minded and even as if they are cut off from real life, what is the benefit of these unconditional, unquestioning obediences? Meanwhile, these “unwise” novices gathered spiritual Russia, and I cannot resist quoting a page from Shmelev’s “Old Valaam”, where years later he learns how two fleeting monastic acquaintances of his were later sent to obedience in the Ussuri region and founded there was not only a strong monastery, but also a good publishing house, whose holy books reached their native Valaam: “Russian peasant boys, they went from Valaam to a distant and wild land and carried the Light of Christ. How many hardships and hardships they endured, they gave their lives to the Light, they became historical Russian ascetics, continuers of the work of the Russian Saints. And in these exploits and sufferings they preserved the sacred, in the midst of the abomination of spiritual devastation, what an example and restraint for those around them, encouragement and hope for those hungry and thirsty for the Truth. This is how Russia is and will be alive.”

She will continue to be such people alive. How many monks today carry out obedience in distant Pskov parishes, away from the roads, working tirelessly to preserve these parishes in depopulated villages and protect the temple as the last support, so that the land is not completely orphaned. Sometimes there are more household worries on their shoulders than priestly ones, and they involuntarily turn to God, as the Pechersk elder Archimandrite John Krestyankin joked, “with one wing, but with every feather.” And it is they who raise the Ascension Monastery in Velikiye Luki, and the Krypetsky Monastery near Pskov, starting again from an empty and well, if not dishonored place, relying only on tireless hands and prayer.

And in the monastery itself there is always no less labor, and it is no easier. And I’m not talking about physical work, although it, for example, for a monastery kitchen, always begins before light, when the cellarer lights a candle at the unquenchable lamp over the founder’s shrine and carries the fire to light the oven for bread and prosphora and thereby pick up the obedience of previous centuries as one thing that is not subject to time, as the Church alone understands the time “forever and ever” - as if the same prosphora, one “bread of Christ” was laid before the first rector and the currently serving priest. And there soon work will begin in the stables, in the forge, in the garage, in the workshops. But the main thing will still be the work of prayer. The Gospel warns us all that “The Kingdom of Heaven requires effort” (Matthew 11:12), is achieved through constant effort that does not allow us to relax with labor, but we know how to ignore this, having too straightforwardly understood the words of the Savior “My burden is light” (Matt. 11:30), - and it is “easy” to the cross on Calvary; and the monk remembers this for himself and for us constantly, along with the thought of death.

And everywhere - with all the severity of obedience, in the cowshed, in the infirmary, in the forge - this is grace-filled work, subtly different from work in the world. Whether the solution is in prayer (and every monastic obedience begins with it), or in constant standing before God, but here every activity is pure and important to the soul, as if the original holiness is returned to work, and every work is not shameful, and everyone is equal before God’s order of the world.

...But I’m starting from the “middle”. It’s as if the book has already been written and one introduction is missing, and yet the journey of this text has been long. There was no book, but at first there was just life. The diary even started as if just gradually, as if it was born by itself (I can’t find its distinct beginning), only when fate brought me together with the hieromonk, abbot, and then archimandrite Father Zinon, his thoughts, his constant tension, which, obviously, came from his very “profession”, his heavenly gift as an icon painter. It’s not for nothing that Evgeny Trubetskoy called the icon “speculation in colors.” The image is prayer and worldview, theology and philosophy, liturgy and art in constant interpenetration. Of course, everything was new to me and it was not enough to hear. I wanted to write it down, hold it, think about it. And then run to the friends and spiritual children of Father Zinon, quickly seat them at the table: “Listen! Father said..." And think together and rejoice that he is among us, and grow in soul together with them.

Perhaps, he wrote more for them - for Valery Ivanovich Ledin, who at one time was the headman of the Trinity Cathedral (at the time when Father Zinon painted the Seraphim iconostasis there) and in whose house we saw Father Zinon. And then we often saw and talked with Father Zinon either in this Seraphim Church itself, where at the end of the day they served vespers, or in the belfry of the cathedral, where Father Zinon lived during this Pskov work. Later Valery Ivanovich became monk John. I also wrote my diary for the museum worker Iraida Gorodetskaya, who will also become a nun in a few years. They followed Father Zinon, over the years comprehending through him the fullness and beauty of the Church. Now both of them are long gone from this world. He wrote for the poet Artemy Tasalov, the architect Sergei Mikhailov, for Mikhail Ivanovich Semenov and Savva Vasilich Yamshchikov.

It was difficult for me to carry this happiness of hearing and understanding every day of a new world alone. Moreover, it’s time - remember! Russia has just celebrated the millennium of Epiphany, having lived for seventy years in the “savagery of mental conscience,” as Father Georgy Florovsky called this state. And the Church itself was just coming to its senses. The sea of books in the temples was still far away. Now go into a church shop and you will be confused: thousands of books offer a thousand ways of salvation - read it and go straight to the Kingdom of Heaven! And then you still had to take it by experience, by looking and listening. Yes, and a monastery! Parish experience is of little help here.

And, of course, first of all, the phenomenon itself! Those who knew and know Father Zinon do not need to explain anything. And whoever didn’t know, I hope, even from my choking notes, will see why I was impatient in my notes.

These entries from the first page are already twenty-five years old. And I really didn’t think about publishing them. But now, when my life is not even progressing, but is flying towards sunset, I suddenly see that this is no longer a private story, not just mine and my friends’ story, but simply the story of our common Russian self-consciousness, which was then rushing about on the threshold of the revival of the Church. And history is alive, because it was written not by an abstract mind, but by living experience. The questions simmering in it today are mostly driven inside, but never resolved. Well, that means it’s not a sin to repeat them again.

You will be confused for a moment: is this dirty laundry? Isn’t this grist for the mill of evil minds who can’t wait for a reason for irony, or even scientific resistance? But the disputes reflected here are evidence not of doubt, and certainly not of destruction, but a reflection of the sincere impatience of the young faith, for which the New Testament will never become the Old, and Christ will come with every new human heart as the same questioner, bringing not peace, but sword into every caring consciousness. After all, “The Way, the Truth and the Life” are not successive stages of finding peace, but always first of all Path and only then is Truth and Life. And as soon as you calmed down, as it seemed that you had “found” it, then expect everything around you to fade and become dead.

And the most alarming thing is that the monastery is here! Famous, known throughout Russia. And the “heroes” for the most part still save themselves there and thereby save us. At first I thought of renaming both the monastery itself and the “heroes” - somehow it would be safer. I’ll call it, say, “Somewhere in Russia” and thereby add “typicality” and shield myself from the inevitable wrath of the church. But it turned out that you can’t take literature here. Immediately it begins to give off like acting, acting. And everything seems to be the same, but not the same. We all see the world in our own way, and each of the “heroes” will say that everything was wrong and will not recognize themselves. But we are all just a system of mirrors, and there are as many of us as there are people who see us. We are all hostages of someone else's view.

These are fragments my mirror, and what was reflected in it was reflected due to my sight and understanding. And these are not portraits of the inhabitants of the monastery, fathers and rulers and my comrades. This is to a certain and even greater extent self-portrait my soul, my understanding of the world, my faith and my unbelief. And history consists of millions of “I’s”, each of which says its part of the world text with a letter, a comma, or the space between lines. With this, I will enter the irrevocable water of the long-ago monastic years. And I’ll take the first entry from my “former life,” when there was no diary yet, and Father Zinon was not in my life, but there was the first real surprise and the first experience of the main monastic holiday. I then came to visit the wonderful Estonian artist Nikolai Ivanovich Kormashov, who lived on a farm near the monastery, to write about him. And since it was on the eve of the Dormition, then, of course, first to the monastery.

There was still a whole year until the millennium of Epiphany.

Izborsk instrumentalists arm their guitars (lights, amplifiers) in the city square - to hold back the youth. Like in our neighborhood near the Trinity Cathedral before Easter: the “October” cinema is certainly open until the morning and strives to show the most “tempting” - some “Queen of Chanticleer”, “Angelique - the Marquise of Angels”, or even “Fantômas” - stop a young stream, which the police cordon will not allow into the cathedral anyway.

This is where they set a musical trap. And the people flow past - towards the monastery. I arrived just during the religious procession, when the image was emerging from the opening of the St. Nicholas Gate towards St. Michael’s Cathedral. Chains of men held back the crowd. Many candles were already burning. The image was installed on the porch between the columns, dividing the monastic and secular choirs. Hundreds of candles in the boxes were replenished, candles flowed over the shoulders for the holiday. There, a strong old man in a washed-out cassock - not a monk's, but a peasant's with a clumsy appearance - took dozens of them, two at a time, and, having knocked the wicks in one direction, burned them, slowly turning them, melted them, so that the wicks would then flare up evenly and without difficulty, and, having thus prepared, extinguished them. and again put it in the box until it was due. Children crowded on the steps and cheerfully looked down, where a river of candles floated in the hands of those praying. Babies slept in arms and in strollers. The tired ones squatted somewhere right on the grass. The spotlights were lit, and the akathist was sung in the middle of the night.

The anointing, as usual, drew the people to the main image, but then the impatient ones went to other icons in different places of the courtyard, kissed each other and were anointed there. And at the miraculous Uspensky's, the monks and parishioners, both strong and sick, walked and walked along the close passage holding hands. The father almost carried his crooked polio son on himself so that he could kiss him, and then carried him back in the same way, and his face was calm, accustomed to torment and misfortune. The possessed woman called Zina in a high-pitched, non-human voice, then screamed indistinctly. They calmed her down and took her away from the image. There was no end to the procession. And someone was already settling down in the thinned-out courtyard to spend the night right on the grassy (the flowers were taken away by the believers) path of the Virgin Mary. I placed the rest of the candle with the others that were burning on the fence of St. Nicholas Church, and went down the “bloody path.” There, hundreds of candles were also burning above Nikola in the Bogorodichny row, and the grandmother, looking after them, kept asking: “Well, where is the photographer? He promised to film me, I’m ready.” From the darkness, the opening was bright and warm, homely and festive. They dispersed under the stars, cheerfully, in anticipation of tomorrow.

A light rain falls a little, but the service at the icon (now it stands next to the cathedral, below) continues continuously. They are waiting for the Bishop in St. Michael's Cathedral. I make my way closer and also wait, worried. Finally, exactly at ten, the doors open, and he, in a metropolitan cloak and skufia, comes out to the thunder of the chorus “I performed these, despot!” After the blessing, the miracle of the vestment begins - take off your traveling dress to the white luminous shirt flowing to the heels, and everything again: grace, strength, calm beauty, the significance of the rite, where everything - the shoulder straps, the belt, the epitrachelion, the gaiter, the miter, even, it seems , large crest – the original hierarchical and metaphysical significance returns. The young subdeacons are light and silent, the bishop’s movements are impeccable, the choir highly and strongly names the symbols and prayer signs of each object. The Bishop serves neatly, appreciating the music of gesture and voice, text and meaning, and the viceroy, Archimandrite Gabriel, is rude and simple, as he commands the porters at the station, but Father John Krestyankin, it seems, does not even serve, but lives willingly, cheerfully, with a heartfelt rustic loving simplicity.

I go out into the yard. The Virgin Mary returns to the Assumption Cathedral. The path is again fresh and decorated with flowers, and people respectfully stand on the sides, but when the icon is taken on the shoulders and it turns to face the path, people cannot stand it and rush onto the path to approach the image. The girls who were preparing the way rush around and ask to get off (“This is not for you, this is for the Virgin Mary”), but no one hears them. Now this is the first thing - to match the image. I stand up with the old women (the monk in front commands: “Fours, four in a row!”) and with vague anxiety I look as the image slowly floats towards me. It’s hard for the men, the crowd is crowding them from the sides and in front, especially since everyone, approaching the image, strives to touch the glass with a raised hand, like the robe of the Virgin Mary, and thereby slows down the progress. It’s cramped, deaf, alarming inside. I also touch the glass and think about Viktor Petrovich and Maria Astafiev (both are sick): “Help, Most Holy Lady.” The image passes and stops at the forged icon of Cornelius. Soon the clergy and worshipers leave the cathedral and also go to the icon, and then move to the Assumption Church, where the service continues. Again the akathist, and the bells thunder cheerfully, harmoniously, all at once, covering the singing of the choir throughout the entire service, again clearly and tenderly, like a prayerful exclamation “Here I am, Lord!”, they flood the monastery, the candles crackle from the fine rainy sowing.

And this is after the celebration of the millennium of Epiphany.

He stayed in the cell of Abbot Zinon. Then they had tea in his wonderful silver samovar, which Semyon Geichenko does not have. Father Zinon showed his cell icons, snatched from the truck by the governor Gabriel - “they were sent to the firewood.” Among them are icons of the 16th–17th centuries, a wonderful camp folding altar, “The Burning Bush”, and the Deesis “Chrysostom and Basil the Great”.

“Gabriel is generally a man for living: he forbade weeding the strawberries so that the brothers wouldn’t go into the beds, he didn’t mow the grass here, and everything went wild, he pruned the apple trees in bloom, and lo and behold, not a single apple.” During the repairs, Kohler composed everything himself. Look there: blue, orange, yellow - they all hit the eyes! I cleared away the darkness from the trees, and those at the well were doomed - I didn’t have time. And the stone is painted green so that pilgrims do not prick for prayer memory - it will be immediately noticeable and can be exposed. They say that the first inhabitants prayed here.

The moon came out, the stars poured out, a satellite floated by, but soon a strong wind blew, and everything was eclipsed. In the fraternal building the choir is singing, blocking the wind. The leaf, pretending to be alive for a moment, darts along the path, captivating your gaze, but as soon as you see it, it is motionless again (the last amusements of the autumn wind).

I slept through early mass in the Assumption Church, and Father Zinon doesn’t advise it either: those possessed by demons won’t let you pray. We went with him to the St. Nicholas Church, and then to the neighboring Cornelius and the Church of the Intercession... It’s still at the beginning: variants of frescoes are being tried right on the walls, here and there the faces of warriors, saints, Archangels - like sketches in the margins or portraits unconsciously drawn by hand on a blank sheet of paper while the mind is occupied with something else—a test of the pen.

There were still more visits, but so far I looked more, and my hand did not reach for the pen. It’s a pity - a real sprout would peck there, and then everything would seem more accurate, but which of us looks into the distance? You live and live. Thank God, then I never parted with the notebook.

I arrived in Pechory at the beginning of one. The door to the workshop is closed. The day was clearing up, sun, wind, spring. Father came. As soon as I got settled, the singers appeared and, like policemen in the paintings of Perov or Makovsky, sang “Christmas” and “The Virgin of the Day.” While they were shouting, the priest hastily rummaged through the table, then put tens each in envelopes and took them out with a blessing. Then I sorted through the books brought by Olesya Nikolaeva - all of Schmemann, Archimandrite Cyprian, Nikolai Afanasyev, Konstantin Leontyev. And while I was watching, everyone was walking around the house, talking, asking...

Soon it will be evening. We sang vespers in the cell with Alyosha and Klikusha, then sat down to dinner “without consolation.” And as soon as we had dinner, “consolation” appeared: Fathers Anastasy (cellarer) and Tavrion (librarian) came with cognac, champagne, caviar and “royal herring” - trout in a jar. Christmas – what would it be like without “consolation”? They talked about Russian drunkenness (what else could we talk about over cognac?), the writers Shaposhnikov, Chestnyakov. Father Tavrion is a Kostroma resident and a former journalist, so we are talking about writers and Kostroma geniuses.

Architect Alexander Semochkin arrived. He will build the Church of All Pechersk Saints on the Holy Mountain. They started arguing about Schmemann. Father Tavrion, it seems, is against Schmemann’s liturgical rules and, smiling, says that the young Kostroma priest, who lives according to Schmemann, decided to put into practice his Eucharistic requirements (communion at every liturgy for all those praying), but it all ended in general quarrels, and the priest himself On the way home from the temple, he fell and almost died. Well, random grandmothers found him barely alive and brought him on a sled.

Father Zinon:

– Don’t be a fool and immediately rush into trouble, especially with our grandmothers.

Novice Alyosha, constantly stumbling upon something interesting (and for now everything is interesting to him - from an unexpected image, a beautiful book, even a bookmark), exclaims:

- Wow! Father, will you give it to me?

- What do you want? What do you want? Shut up! Here, don't ask anymore! - Father Zinon mutters angrily in appearance, but inwardly tenderly.

And Sashka Klikusha – he still wants to be smarter and more efficient than himself. And he laughs when they say a simple thing: “Oh, how did I not guess?” - and, laughing and rejoicing, he talks about Cyprus and America, where as a boy he lived with his parents at the embassy, and then searched for the truth until he was twenty-one, was already a drug addict, and went to Buddhists, but our Church won - such strength was revealed to him in the ritual, even just in the form of Kremlin churches (“this is not Baptist trifle, this is serious”). And for four years in the monastery, he reconciled and married his almost separated parents, who found each other again.

- No, father, I’m not an ascetic to sleep six hours, I won’t come to Matins, especially after that I have to go to the early liturgy. No, I need eight hours of sleep, no less.

- Completely crazy. Where do you want so much? The rest of your mind will fall asleep. It won't do you any good. Come on, get up and read Compline.

The lamp is burning, it’s long past night, the stars are looking out the window. The light of candles fluctuates on the faces of Emmanuel, the Mother of God, and John the Theologian. I whisper to Syomochkin: “How difficult, Lord!” And he understands what I mean: “Yes, and I feel so good here, I wouldn’t leave anywhere.” Man lives for such days and this peace. And then how?

I slept on the stove and tossed and turned until about four o’clock. Let's get up. Father laid down on the other side of the stove and, it seems, never turned around:

- How did you sleep?

What should I say? The log under my head is not yet according to my exploits; the skimni roaring, scnips and dog flies - that’s all the visions.

- Oh, what grief. Now you won’t even fall asleep - I have a walk-through yard during the day.

Alyosha and Sasha come - we start matins until half past six, and at the end, seeing that I can’t sleep, Father Zinon showers gifts - a record of the Old Believers, a cross by Kirill Sheikman, a marvelous volume “The Art of the 1000th Anniversary”, a lamp cast by George ancient samples. Olesya Nikolaeva arrives at eight, and under their cooing I finally dozed off for an hour. Then we sit with Olesya and Sasha Semochkin. She talks about Paris, about the death of Daniel, about the arrival of Sinyavsky, about the wild severity of Moscow life. He asks Syomochkin: what to do, where to go, what to hope for?

Alexander his: what he wrote to Gorbachev, that a green land with God is more valuable than a dead land with a demon. And then he draws up a program: land for the peasants, cleansing of nature, resettlement from super-cities, people's centers instead of the Disneylands imposed by the Americans. God knows why (is it because the retelling is too harsh?) I think of Russian artistic reservations as akin to Indian ones: they want good, but they look strange.

I'm looking at the library of Abbot Tavrion. He also inclines me from “fiction” to retelling lives, to defending the Pechersk monastery from accusations of collaboration with the Germans:

“After all, our transmitter stood here in the caves, and a scout worked from here, who is still alive, in Moscow, and was here recently.

I read Konstantin Leontyev’s “Father Clement Zederholm” and rejoice at how wonderful it is about Khomyakov: “He talked with an atheist or a non-believer, he was completely Orthodox, but he began to talk with the Orthodox, as soon as he said “yes” to him twice in a row, Khomyakov He was already getting bored and he wanted to say: “No, no, not like that at all.”

What a Russian trait! And something flashes here from the priest.

...It turns out that in the Lenten prayer “Lord and Master of my life,” the Greeks follow: “do not give me the spirit of idleness, curiosity, despondency,” etc. The Greeks point to the source - curiosity; we preferred to point to the result when talking about "covetousness and idle talk."

Father Zinon:

– In fact, there are even more discrepancies in this prayer. Among the Old Believers, in the following psalter, “drive away the spirit of idleness, negligence, idle talk and love of money from me,” and not “do not give it to me,” as with us. Can God give idleness and despondency? I always read "otzheni".

In the evening we sat for tea with Father Zinon and Semochkin. It was nice and especially cozy with the terribly strong wind.

Again I slept poorly and little - everything was awkward, I was afraid to wake up with my fussing. Moreover, the priest said that he didn’t have a headache, he had a cold in his throat, and he’d better lie down now and get up earlier, but so that I wouldn’t get up, but listen to Matins “out of weakness” while lying down, since I didn’t sleep yesterday. I took a nap and got up around two and read. At three we got up for matins. Alyosha sleeps standing up and during kathismas tries to lean on his side until the priest turns around with anger. Alyosha’s tongue becomes tongue-tied during the psalms, and he reads more and more quietly until he says: “It behooves you to blame God!” Father, without turning around:

- Whoa, stump. Stump you are. He sleeps here. I’ll tell the dean to send a sexton, and you go to sleep - why do I need you like that! What a shame.

At the beginning of six they leave to serve the liturgy under the priest's grumbling at the Lazarevsky Church. And I lean on the couch and forget that there is a log under my head until nine o’clock. Then I read Leontyev again (how contemporary he is in his arguments with Father Clement about Catholicism, freedom of faith, and intelligence). The text seemed to be a development of yesterday’s questions from Father Zinon’s red-haired assistant, Vadim, to the priest about the boundaries of Orthodoxy. And about whether it is possible to receive communion from Catholics and Old Believers, and what to do with intelligence. So I shout from behind the stove: “Wa-di-im, do you hear? This is about us!" Vadim laughs: I hear, I hear.

- Every passion must be eradicated, either by free will here, or by ordeal there. God will not punish anyone - we will go the right way ourselves. These are all copybooks. It's boring to hear them. Even priests are already bored with reading the Gospel. They also need something “to scratch the ear,” as it was written in Slavic books. But the Truth still remains only in the inexhaustible Book, and it is comprehended by patience. And we are looking for yoga and Buddhism, so that the fruits will be immediately, bypassing the difficult natural path.

...Rublev is the author of “The Trinity” in the sense that he freed up space before the meal so that each of us could become an interlocutor with the Angels. Therefore, there is no Sarah, no Abraham, no everyday life, but there is Revelation and conversation... This was a high theological insight, and not an artistic decision. Therefore, he could sign the icon.

...The firmament slowly moves in a circle. In the evening, the constellation Ursa, standing in the crown of the oak tree, went to the ravine in the morning, and the Northern Crown settled in the crown. The moon grew noticeably brighter, and the priest once again remembered that he needed to climb into the attic to get a telescope. When the bell rings for Vespers, the first star trembles with the ringing and itself rings cleanly and clearly.

– By the 20th century, the icon was almost dead. Academician Fartusov reigned with his dead pictures. When faith forgets itself, the icon also forgets itself, and even to keen minds the Byzantine school already seems wild and barbaric. False beauty displaces living asceticism. The Greeks surrounded the icon at the service and glorified and magnified it without our current agility. Even now we incense it from four sides, but we no longer remember the meaning - that we are not standing before a picture and a symbol, but God in incomprehensible fullness, we serve the testimony, we bow to the Gospel word.

The old women say: “What are you teaching us? Sixty years ago we prayed, but there were no such icons. It was different in the old days.” And for them, their antiquity is already the only one, and they do not recognize the real one, just as they do not recognize in unison singing an antiquity more venerable than the memories of their childhood.

...Bishops are a serious test for the Church. When their teaching dies and instead of a living hierarchy and intelligent order of prayer in the bishop there is only discipline, only the letter, then the people begin to look for the truth in holy fools, domestic seers - in amateur activity.

I read Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom). What wonderful examples he has from Grigory Skovoroda, that what is needed is not difficult, but what is complex is not necessary. And how wonderfully true is the recommendation of an African priest, funny to our ears, but deeply true to the spirit of the Church, that the Bishop once overheard when he introduced a white missionary to his black community: “Don’t look that he is white as a devil, but his soul is black, like us".

Ninety-year-old Father Nikolai carefully looks at Father Zinon during the canon in the Lazarus Church, tries to grasp the meaning and cannot, and forgets his hand at the beginning of the sign of the cross. Or in the middle of it. Cries in unison - “in the sixth voice.”

Father Anania reports his readiness for service, putting his hand to the skufya - an old warrior. And everyone complains about pain in the stomach: before I drank five bottles of Cahors and nothing happened, but now at eighty years old I drink half a bottle and I’m already suffering. Why did it happen?

They returned to the cell and immediately, as if they were silent, they started talking about everything at once.

- Who will take the housekeeper seriously when he can climb onto a woodpile and tease a bull from there! Children. And Gabriel will return, this poor housekeeper will be in trouble for defecting too quickly to Vladyka Vladimir.

And he praises, praises his beloved Diogenes of Sinope for the reasonableness of his judgments and for the independence close to his heart. At least for this: when Alexander the Great invited Diogenes to his place, he replied that from Sinop to Macedonia is exactly the same distance as from Macedonia to Sinop: maybe it would not be difficult for Alexander himself to come, if there was a need. Clever Alexander had the sense to say that if he had not been Alexander, he would have been Diogenes.

"HELP ME, HOLY MAN!"

We usually call priests serving in churches, especially abbots, “angels.” This is a normal phenomenon, especially since there are grounds for this in the Holy Scriptures. And our church is lucky: we have not just one “angel” in my person, but two. And we consider our elder Nina to be the second angel.
Remember this funny film about the adventures of Shurik and the bully Fedya? How at the end of the film Fedya tries hard for all the proposals, comes out to the front and shouts: “I am!” This is about our Nina. You need to be on duty in the temple - “I am!” Sitting at the patient's bedside after surgery - "ME!" Helping organize the funeral of a lonely old man and many other side situations is a constant and unchangeable “I!”
The person is already approaching sixty, but she doesn’t accept days off, she doesn’t need a salary. Once two woodcutters came to us from the Volga, they were cutting down our church house. Such healthy men, sedate, ok. I hear them shouting in fear: “Father! Look where Nina got into.” And she is on one of the small domes, it’s “only” 17 meters, accepting work from the tinsmiths.
But once upon a time she had no thoughts about God. She was always an activist, a member of the trade union committee, and a soloist in an amateur choir. And so on until the Lord one day visited me with a severe illness. When a person hears about such a terrible diagnosis, he perceives it as a death sentence. Nina said that the surgeon, marking the surgical field, said: “It’s a pity to cut such a breast, but there’s no other way.” She remembers the days of postoperative therapy - it was very difficult. One day I lifted my head from the pillow, and all the hair remained on it. She lies all in tears, there is no hope. At this very moment, the head of the department comes into their room and says: “Girls, trust my experience, if you want to live, go to church. Pray, ask God. You need to fight for life.”
Of all those who were then lying with Nina in the ward, she was the only one who heard the doctor’s words and went to the temple. Someone began to receive treatment using unconventional methods, someone went to psychics and sorcerers.....

- “Then I came to our cathedral,” says Nina, “and I don’t know anyone, not a single saint. I look at the frescoes. Who is he praying to? How? Not a single prayer comes to mind. I go to the icon, and it depicts a hermit ". Now I won’t confuse John the Baptist with anyone. But then I saw that he looked painfully emaciated, his legs were very thin. And I said to him: “Holy man, you have such thin legs, you are probably a real saint, pray for me, I want to live. Only now I began to understand what life is and how much I still need it. I looked back at what I had lived, but there was nothing to remember. I will live differently now. I promise you. Help me, holy man." This simple prayer, but the kind one can pray only in the most difficult moments of one’s life, captured her. The woman completely dissolved in it.. She remembers that from standing for a long time, her shoes began to pinch. Then she took them off and stood on barefoot on iron plates without feeling the cold.
Suddenly he hears:
- Vladyka, bless me to ask her to leave?
Only then, having come to her senses, did she look around with eyes full of tears. She didn’t even notice that the service had begun and had been going on for quite some time, that the Bishop was standing almost next to her, and the priests were surrounding her. The saint replied:
- Don’t touch her, you see the man is praying, and that’s why we come here.

Almost on the very first day after returning home from the hospital, Nina came to our church. then he was still completely different. Only recently they cut down the birch trees from the roof and covered the broken floors with wooden patches. She went up to the Crucifixion, knelt before Him and said: “Lord, I will not leave here, just leave me life. I promise You that I will serve You to the end" And literally three months later, Nina, still a very sick person, was chosen as the headman.
It is difficult to restore a temple, especially if it is located in a village. It is difficult to go to offices and constantly ask for help. And when you yourself continue to undergo chemotherapy, it is three times more difficult. Nina says that she came to a construction department and asked a foreman she knew:
- Gena, help. The priest serves, and shards of brick from the ceiling almost fall into the bowl. At least plaster the altar so that we can serve. We will collect money from the services and gradually pay it off.
- The master refused her, even though he was a good friend.
- Nina, my clients are serious, they pay a lot of money, I won’t scatter people over trifles for pennies.
Seven months have passed. She went to the region to see her doctor. Walking along the corridor - a man looks, his face seems familiar, only very emaciated by illness. Gena came up to him!
- My dear, what are you doing here?
We hugged and cried together.

- Nina, I still remember you, how you came to me. And I, a fool, refused. Eh, if I had the opportunity to turn back time, believe me, I would have done everything in the temple with my own hands, I would not have trusted anyone.
It’s only for these words that we remember him, for this repentance at the end of his life. Remember, as John Chrysostom said on Easter: “God kisses intentions too”
Sometimes illness comes suddenly, and it is not at all necessary that it is sent as punishment. No, this could also be an invitation to stop in the flow of vanity and think about the eternal. Illness makes a person realize that he is mortal and may not have much time left. That in the last months or years of life you need to try to catch up with the most important thing for which you came into this world. And then someone gains faith and rushes to the temple, and someone, alas, rushes into all seriousness.
Amazing stories sometimes happen to people who are sent to work with us. Once a team of masons was working with us. Among them was one elderly worker, his name was Victor. When they were already finishing the laying, he unexpectedly refused the money. The master told me about this: so they say, so. a person refuses what he has earned. I talked to him then, don’t be shy, they say, take it, all work must be paid. And he: I won’t take it, period.
Six months later, Victor’s heart failed and he died suddenly. Our elder, knowing the deceased well, could not remember anything from life that could be put into the cup of good deeds on the scales of higher justice. And so the Lord brought a man, shortly before his death, to work in the temple and moved him to act - to sacrifice his salary for Christ. What I find in that is what I judge. Victor obliged us to pray for him, such a “cunning”

We had two tilers working for us, real professionals, a man and a woman, both middle-aged. And now, three months later, the floors were finished. A woman comes up to me in the temple. eyes are full of tears. I look - it’s Galina, the same tiler. She was given a terrible diagnosis and she came to us, although she still did not know how we could help her. If this had happened earlier, she would not have sought support in the church, but she was given the opportunity to work in the church for a whole month, communicate with believers and with the priest. Dozens of people accepted her pain as their own, supported her, reassured her

. The man came to confession for the first time. He began to pray and receive communion. Having stood on the brink between life and death, Galina understood that she could leave in the coming months, but she stopped being afraid of death because she found faith. And faith brought her out of despair and helped her begin to fight for life.
I remember how they brought her to our temple after another chemotherapy. She could not walk on her own; someone always led her. Each time she took communion and, literally, before our eyes, life poured into her again. We prayed for her for almost a year, each of us, every day. During Easter week we saw her joyful and full of strength: “I think I’ll go to work, stop being sick.” You can’t imagine what an Easter gift this was for all of us!
I know of many cases when a person was healed from the most terrible diseases through one single medicine - through faith, which inspires hope.
Sometimes, when inviting me to see a terminally ill person, relatives warn: “Father, he is dying, just, for God’s sake, don’t tell him anything. We don’t want to traumatize him.” Every time I hear these words, everything inside me begins to protest. Why then invite me? How can you not warn a person that he has the last months or even weeks of his life left? What right do we have to remain silent? After all, he must sum it up and make a decision. And if a person still does not know God, then we need to help him decide whether he will go into eternity with Christ or alone. Otherwise, his suffering loses its meaning and life itself turns into meaninglessness.
Nina told me the other day. Every year she goes to the region to see her doctor, the same one who once told her the way to the temple. Nina had already missed the appointed day of her appointment, but still didn’t go. Spun.
“I’m coming,” he says, “almost a month later, I go into the office.” The doctor saw me, jumped out of her chair, ran up to me, hugged me and cried with joy. And he slaps me on the back with his palm, not as hard as a child: “Why haven’t you come for so long? I’ve already changed my mind. After all, of all those who were lying in the room with you then, no one has been gone for a long time. You’re the only one left.” "
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Priest Alexander Dyachenko.
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