Read the lives of Dmitry of Rostov, a brief description of the saints. Lives of Saints Saint Dmitry of Rostov - Chetya Menaion

The first exploits of Saint Demetrius

In the aisles of Kiev, in the small town of Makarov, the future Saint Demetrius (in the world Daniel) was born in December 1651 from not famous, but pious parents: the centurion Savva Grigorievich Tuntala and his wife Maria. He himself depicted in his notes, which he kept throughout almost his entire life, the blessed death of his mother, and the praise of such a son is the best evidence of her virtue. His father, from ordinary Cossacks, having risen to the rank of centurion under Hetman Doroshenko, under the troubled circumstances of that time, in his later years cheerfully bore the burden of military service and died over a hundred years old in Kiev, where he moved with his family. He devoted his last days to serving the Church in the position of ktitor of the Cyril Monastery, where his son later took monastic vows and where he himself lay down in eternal rest next to his wife. Nothing more is known about them; but this glory is enough for this pious couple that in the midst of their poverty they could raise such a lamp for the Church, accustoming him, even in home life, to deeds of virtue.

Taught to read and write in his parents' home, the youth Daniel entered for higher education the Brotherhood School at the Epiphany Church in Kiev, which is now converted into an Academic monastery; this was the only hotbed of spiritual education for youth, planted or, better said, expanded by the zealous Metropolitan Peter Mogila to counteract Latin intrigues: the youth’s excellent abilities drew the attention of his mentors to him, and he showed rapid success above all his peers, but was even more distinguished by his piety and modest disposition, which removed him from any amusements characteristic of his age. However, no further than the age of eighteen he could benefit from the beneficial teachings of the Brotherhood; in the midst of the disastrous circumstances of that time, during the bloody war between Russia and the Trans-Dnieper Cossacks, Kyiv passed from hand to hand, and the school itself was closed when the Polish state temporarily prevailed in the cradle of our faith; It remained in such desolation for eight years. Then the young man Daniel followed the early inclination of his heart and, three years after leaving school, imbued with reading the books of his fathers, he became a monk at the kindred monastery of Kirillovskaya; he took the name of Demetrius, which he glorified in the Russian land. It is clear that he chose this monastery, for here the elder his father was the ktitor, and the former rector of the Brotherhood School, the enlightened Meletius Dzik, was the rector.

From here, although still in his youth, a series of exploits of the Dimitrievs began in the field of church and theology, in which he shone as one of the ancient teachers of the Universal Church, reminding us of the bright face of the Vasilievs, Grigorievs and Chrysostoms. Despite his youth, for the sake of high virtue and a hard-working life, Abbot Meletius asked the named Metropolitan of Kiev, Joseph of Tukalsky (who, not being allowed into his diocese, had a stay in Kanev), to ordain the new monk as a hierodeacon. Six years later, Demetrius became known to the real guardian of the Kiev Metropolis, Lazar Baranovich, Archbishop of Chernigov, a man of high virtue and learning, who himself was a student and rector of the Kiev Academy and was revered as a great pillar of the Church and a zealot of Orthodoxy in Little Russia. The archbishop summoned Demetrius, who had only reached the age of twenty-five, to the Gustynsky Trinity Monastery, where he himself was on the occasion of the consecration of the temple, and there he ordained him as a hieromonk; this was in 1675. Having learned more closely the inner dignity of the newly ordained one, he took him with him to the diocese, where he had a need for preachers of the word of God and competitors with the Latins, who were trying to suppress Orthodoxy in southern Russia.

The zealous shepherd tried to arouse enlightened people to counteract the machinations of Rome; for this he summoned from Lithuania the former rector of the Kiev Academy Ioannikiy Golyatovsky and patronized the learned foreigner Adam Zernikav, who, being a Protestant, turned to Orthodoxy solely by the power of truth; This Zernikav wrote an extensive book about the procession of the Holy Spirit from the one Father, in which, contrary to the opinions of the Latins, all possible evidence of the ancient teachers of the Church was collected. With such learned people Demetrius entered the community, supplementing their knowledge with the lack of his own, since the circumstances of the time did not allow him to graduate full course theological sciences at the Bratsk School. For two years he held the position of preacher at the Chernigov pulpit and tried as much to edify with eloquent words as with his good example. A significant dream he saw around this time and recorded in his diary shows to what extent the church preacher was strict with himself: “One day in Great Lent, in 1676, on the week of the Worship of the Cross, having left the matins and preparing for service in the cathedral (for the Right Reverend himself wanted to serve), I dozed off into a somewhat subtle sleep. In a dream, it seemed to me as if I was standing in the altar in front of the throne: His Eminence the Bishop was sitting in chairs, and we were all near the throne, preparing for the service, reading something. Suddenly Vladyka became angry with me and began to reprimand me strongly; his words (I remember them well) were as follows: “Didn’t I choose you, didn’t I give you a name? left brother Paul the deacon and others who came, but chose you?” In his anger, he uttered other words that were useful to me, which, however, I don’t remember; I remember none of these well. I bowed low to the Eminence and, promising to correct myself (which, however, I still do not do), asked for forgiveness - and was awarded it. Having forgiven me, he allowed me to kiss his hand and began to speak tenderly and at length, ordering me to prepare for service. Then I stood in my place again, unfolded the missal, but in it I immediately found the same words with which the Right Reverend reprimanded me, written in capital letters: “Didn’t I choose you?” and so on, as previously said. With great horror and surprise I read these words at that time, and to this day I remember them firmly. Waking up from sleep, I was much surprised at what I saw, and until now, when I remember it, I am surprised and think that in that vision, through the person of the Most Reverend Archbishop, my Creator himself admonished me. At the same time, I also asked about Paul: was there ever such a deacon? I couldn’t find him anywhere, neither in Chernigov, nor in Kiev, nor in other monasteries, and to this day I don’t know whether Paul was or is now a deacon anywhere in my fatherland? God knows what Paul the deacon means? Oh my God! arrange a thing for me according to Your good and merciful will for the salvation of my sinful soul.”

Rumors about the new development of the church spread throughout Little Russia and Lithuania; various monasteries, one after another, tried to take advantage of his spiritual edification, which attracted crowds of people to them and confirmed Orthodoxy, which was wavering in those parts. Moved by pious zeal, Demetrius first of all went from Chernigov to the Novodvorsky Monastery, subordinate to the Vilna Holy Spirit, within Lithuania, to venerate the miraculous icon of the Mother of God, painted by St. Peter the Metropolitan. He was warmly received there by the vicar of the metropolis, Bishop Theodosius of Belarus, and the rector of the Holy Spirit Monastery, Clement of the Trinity. The latter invited him for a short time to his monastery of Vilna, and Bishop Theodosius - to Slutsk, where he appointed his Transfiguration Monastery as his residence; there, taking advantage of the special favor of the brotherhood and the monastic ktitor, the beneficent citizen Skochkevich, Demetrius preached the word of God for more than a year, until the death of his benefactors, the bishop and ktitor; but during this time he also wandered around the surrounding monasteries to worship the shrine; We are left with his description of the miracles of the Elias Icon of the Mother of God in Chernigov, under the name “Rune of the Irrigated One.”

Meanwhile, Kyiv and Chernigov demanded the return of the preacher held in Slutsk, because they were so fond of him common love. The abbot of the Kirillovsky Monastery, Meletius, transferred to the Mikhailovsky-Golden-Domed Monastery, invited his student and tonsure to come to him; Hetman of Little Russia Samoilovich offered him a position as a preacher in Baturino.

The vow of monastic obedience prompted Demetrius to go to the call of the elder abbot, but the Slutsk brethren did not let him go, promising to take full responsibility upon themselves, and Miletius agreed for a while, even sending from himself as a blessing to the preacher a particle of the relics of the Holy Great Martyr Barbara. When, however, after the death of his benefactors, the demands from Kiev and Baturin became urgent, Dimitri had to obey and preferred the hetman's city, because Kiev was then under fear of a Tatar invasion: the former hetman Yuri Khmelnitsky called the Turks to his homeland, and the entire Trans-Dnieper Ukraine trembled at its devastation; even the rector of the Pechersk Lavra asked to temporarily move with the brethren to another, safer place. Dimitri was graciously received by Hetman Samoilovich, who himself, coming from a spiritual rank, was distinguished by his piety; he indicated for him to live the St. Nicholas Monastery near Baturin, where at that time the scientist Feodosius Gugurevich was rector, who later took the position of rector at the Kyiv Academy.

From Slutsk Demetrius was invited to various monasteries to preach the Word of God; from Baturin - for their one-time management. The brethren of the Kirillov monastery sent a messenger to ask their former monk to become their abbot, but to no avail: either he himself refused out of humility or the hetman did not let him go. The invitation from the Maksakov monastery, near the city of Borzna, was more successful; Dmitry went with the hetman's letter to Chernigov for a blessing from Archbishop Lazar and was received very graciously, as he himself describes in his diary. Without yet reading the letter, the bishop said: “May the Lord God bless you for your abbess; but by the name of Demetrius I wish us a miter, may Demetrius receive a miter.” On the same day after the dedication, being invited to the table, I heard even more significant speeches from my Master: “Today the Lord God has vouchsafed you the abbess in the monastery where the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord is, like Moses on Tabor. He who spoke His ways to Moses, let him also tell you in this Tabor his ways to eternal Tabor.” “These words,” adds Demetrius, “I, a sinner, took for a good omen and noticed for myself; God grant that the archpastoral prophecy may come true! He let me go like the father of his own son: give him, Lord, everything good in your heart.”

However, Saint Demetrius did not serve as abbot for long at the Maksakovskaya monastery; the next year, at the request of the hetman, he was transferred to the Baturinsky monastery in place of Theodosius, who was taken to Kyiv, but soon abandoned this position out of his love for his studies as a scientist. Recalling on the occasion of the death of one of his brothers Kirillovsky, who died in Chernigov, about his own wanderings from monastery to monastery, Dimitri noted in his diary: “God knows where I am destined to lay my head!” Could he ever have expected that from his native Little Russia he would be called to the hierarchical see of the North, which was alien to him? On the day of his angel, the humble Demetrius laid down the burden of abbot, remaining, however, in the monastery, for he was not afraid to submit to someone else’s will out of his love for obedience. Meanwhile, Archimandrite of the Pechersk Lavra Innocent Gisel died, and the no less enlightened Varlaam Yasinsky was put in his place; he invited the former abbot to move to the monastery for scientific studies, and this move constituted an era in his life, for the providence of God was pleased to call Demetrius to the task of twenty years of labor, for which he provided an unforgettable service to the entire Russian Church.

Academic studies of St. Demetrius

We have long felt the need to collect for the edification of believers the lives of saints who glorified the Lord with their exploits; Metropolitan Makarin of All Russia undertook this soul-searching work, combining in his great Chetya-Menaia all the lives that he could only find in our prologues and patericon, and supplemented them with his own biographies. The enlightened Metropolitan of Kiev Peter Mohyla, prompted by such a good example, had the intention of publishing the lives in the more accessible Slavic Russian language and ordered the Greek books of Simeon Metaphrastus, who worked most on the lives of the saints in the 10th century, for a new translation from Mount Athos; but his early death prevented the zealous shepherd of Kyiv from carrying out his good intention and the difficult time that followed for Kyiv delayed it for a long time. However, his successor, Archimandrite of the Pechersk Lavra Innokenty Gisel, asked the Patriarch of Moscow Joachim for the same purpose for the great Chetyi-Menaia of Metropolitan Macarius and also died without touching the matter. Varlaam Yasinsky decided to continue what he started and looked for a solitary person who was capable of performing varied work. He could not choose anyone better than Abbot Baturinsky, from the general council of the Pechersk brethren, and a few weeks after his move to the Lavra, in June 1684, Demetrius began to describe the lives of the saints; from then on, this became a constant work of his entire life, which he diligently continued in the monastic cell, and in the rank of abbot, and in the cathedral department, for his soul passionately loved the saints of God, whose memory he wanted to glorify. They themselves revealed themselves to him in mysterious dreams, testifying there to his own closeness to the spiritual world, since his thought was filled with images of the saints he described; this encouraged him even more to continue the work he had begun. This is how he himself describes in his diary two comforting dreams that he received over the course of three months. “On the tenth of August 1685, on Monday I heard the good news for Matins, but, due to my usual laziness, having fallen asleep, I was not in time for the beginning, but slept even before the reading of the psalter. At this time I saw the following vision: it seemed as if I had been entrusted with looking into a certain cave in which the holy relics had spent the night. While examining the coffins of the saints with a candle, I saw the Holy Great Martyr Barbara supposedly spending the night there. Having approached her coffin, I saw her lying sideways and her coffin showing some rottenness. Wanting to cleanse it, he took her relics out of the shrine and placed it in another place. Having cleansed the reliquary, he proceeded to her relics and took them with his hands to put them in the reliquary, but suddenly he saw Saint Barbara alive. Who tells me to her: “Holy Virgin Varvaro, my benefactress! Pray to God for my sins!” The saint answered, if she had any doubt: “I don’t know,” she said, “I beg you, for you pray in Roman.” (I think that this was told to me because I am very lazy in prayer, and in this case I became like the Romans, who have a very short prayer book, since I have a short and rare prayer). Having heard these words from the saint, I began to grieve and supposedly despair, but after a little time she looked at me with a cheerful and grinning face and said: “Don’t be afraid,” and uttered some other comforting words, which I don’t even remember. Then, placing it in the shrine, he kissed her hands and feet; the body seemed to be alive and very white, but the hand was wretched and dilapidated. Regretting that I dared to touch the holy relics with unclean and foul hands and lips and that I did not see a good reliquary, I thought about how to decorate this coffin? And he began to look for a new, rich reliquary into which to transfer the holy relics: but at that very moment he woke up. Regretting my awakening, my heart felt some joy.” Concluding this story, Saint Demetrius humbly notes: “God knows what this dream signifies and what other event will follow! Oh, if only through the prayers of Saint Barbara God would give me the correction of my evil and cursed life!” And a few years later, Saint Demetrius had the consolation of actually giving honor to the relics of the holy Great Martyr. Being at that time the abbot of Baturinsky, he learned that part of these relics was kept in the hetman’s treasury among other treasures, as if hidden and unknown to few people. She was here for the following reasons: back in 1651, Lithuanian Hetman Janusz Radzivil, after the capture of Kyiv, asked for two parts of the relics of the Great Martyr, resting in the St. Michael's Monastery. He sent one of these parts, from the ribs of St. Barbara, as a gift to Bishop George Tishkevich of Vilna, the other, from her breasts, he gave to his wife Mary, after whose death it went to Metropolitan Joseph of Tukalsky of Kiev and was placed by him in the city of Kanev, his usual residence. From here, after the death of Tukalsky, she was taken to the Baturinsky treasury chamber. With his strong requests, Saint Demetrius received permission from the hetman to transfer this shrine to his Baturinsky monastery and with a solemn move moved it to January 15, 1691, on Tuesday, and on the commemoration of the transfer he established every Tuesday in his monastery to perform a prayer service for the Great Martyr.

Another dream was even more amazing. “In 1685,” writes Demetrius, “on the Fast of Philippi, having ended in one night with a letter the suffering of the holy martyr Orestes, whose memory is honored on November 10, an hour or less before matins, I lay down to rest without undressing and in a sleepy vision I saw the holy martyr Orestes, with a cheerful face hanging towards me with these words: “I suffered more torment for Christ than you wrote.” This river, he opened his breasts to me and showed me a great wound in his left side, going right through to his insides, saying: “This was burned through me with iron.” Then he opened his right arm up to the elbow, showing the wound on the very opposite of the elbow, and said: “This has been cut for me”; and the cut veins were visible. He also opened his left hand, in the same place, pointing out the same wound, saying: “And that was cut for me.” Then, bending down, he opened his leg and showed the wound in the bend of his knee and also the other leg, opening it up to the knee, and showed the same wound in the same place: “And my side was cut with a scythe.” And standing up straight, looking me in the face, he said, “Do you see? I suffered more for Christ than you wrote.” I dared to say nothing against this, remained silent and thought to myself: “Who is this Orestes, is he not one of the five (December 13)?” To this thought of mine the holy martyr replied: “I am not that Orestes, like those of the fifth, but the one whose life you wrote today.” I also saw another important person standing behind him, and it also seemed to me that there was a certain martyr, but he said nothing. At that very time, the good news for Matins woke me up, and I regretted that this very pleasant vision would soon end. And that this vision, - adds Saint Demetrius, - having written it down more than three years later, I, unworthy and sinful, truly saw and that I saw exactly as I wrote, and not otherwise, I confess this under my priestly oath: for everything is different, Just as I completely remembered then, I remember now.”

From this you can see how successfully his work progressed, for after a year and a half it was already completed on November 10th. He was favored by complete freedom from extraneous activities, but he could not enjoy it for long due to the special love of the secular and spiritual authorities for him; again placed on him the burden of rule, which he had so recently abandoned. Demetrius, together with Archimandrite Varlaam, went to Baturin to greet the new Metropolitan of Kiev Gideon from the family of princes Svyatopolk-Chetvertinsky, who was returning from Moscow, where he was consecrated by Patriarch Joachim: this was the first subordination of the Metropolis of Kiev to the patriarchal throne of Moscow. The hetman and the metropolitan convinced the holy abbot to again take upon himself the abbot of the Nikolaev monastery, and the lover of obedience obeyed them. Subordination to the Kiev Metropolis also had an impact on his future fate, because, as an active member and experienced theologian of the Little Russian Church, he took an active part in the spiritual issues of that time and, by coincidence, he himself was little by little drawn from his native south to the north. First important question introduced himself: about the time of the transubstantiation of the holy gifts at the liturgy, for some Westerners tried to explain this according to the Latin custom, that is, as if the transubstantiation is accomplished with the words of the Lord Jesus: “Take, eat and drink from it, all of you,” and not by invoking the Holy Spirit on the gifts that are presented and blessing them, after these significant words. Patriarch Joachim, confused by the new rumors and knowing that the annexed Little Russia had long been under Polish influence, considered it necessary to ask Metropolitan Gideon: “How does the Little Russian Church understand the Council of Florence?” He received a satisfactory answer on behalf of the entire clergy of that country, among whom the pious abbot Baturinsky had a hand. Subsequently, the patriarch wrote a lengthy message about the time of transubstantiation and successfully refuted the Latin wisdom, which partially penetrated into Little Russia.

This served as the beginning of direct relations between Saint Demetrius and the Patriarch of Moscow. Having been forced to return, at his request, the great Chetya-Menaia for the three winter months, which were in his hands for comparison with the new ones, he wrote a letter to His Holiness Joachim, filled with the deepest sense of humility. “Before your Holiness, our father and archpastor, and I am the sheep of your gain, even though I am the last, and the most well-known, with this poor writing of mine (I couldn’t do it on my own) I come and fall at the feet of your holy feet and be honored, at my most holy Archpastor, known and proclaimed to be by name... Your Holiness, to their Royal and Most Serene Majesty the pilgrim, and to your Holy Son in the Spirit, His Grace Cyrus Gideon Svyatopolk, Prince of Chetvertinsky, Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and Little Russia, and before Most Rev. Varlaam Archimandrite of Pechersk, deigned to write about those books (Chetih-Minaia for December, January and February). However, those books are neither with him, the Right Reverend Metropolitan, nor with the Venerable Archimandrite, but in the Baturinsky Monastery, in my unworthy hands, they are still held and carefully kept. Having received many benefits from them and having agreed with the Holy Lives written in them, I give these shrines to yours with thanksgiving and inform: as in the holy obedience handed over to me from the Little Russian Church, with God’s help I labored, according to my strength, in the weakness that is accomplished, prescribing from the great blessed Macarius, Metropolitan of Moscow and all Russia, books and from these Christian historians, wrote the lives of the Holy Months for six, starting from September of the first day to February of the last day, consistent with the saints in those great books in all the stories and stories and deeds done by the Saints , in their labors and sufferings. And the lives of the Saints that have already been written are mostly discussed by some noble people, and most of all in the Holy Lavra of Pechersti. Now, at the pleasure and desire of many, I would like, for the spiritual benefit of Christians, to publish in type, to which we most especially excite, frequent writings from the Most Reverend Archimandrite of Pechersk. For such a matter, the Church of God (as I think) is not indecent, I seek your Supreme Archpastoral blessing. May I, guided, instructed and supported by your Archpastoral blessing, be able to do good work for those before me, giving to the church’s reasoning and publishing these six written months; If, with God’s help and your Archpastoral blessing, they are completed and published, then (if the Lord is pleased and we are alive) we will also strive for others, and we will begin to beat your most holy forehead about other holy books.”

Since there was no direct demand from Moscow for consideration of these newly compiled menias, nor a prohibition to print them, in 1689 the Pechersk Lavra began publishing them, starting with the September quarter. Archimandrite Varlaam allowed himself, together with the cathedral brethren, the final examination of these books and thereby incurred the displeasure of the patriarch, who took this as a clear sign of disobedience. He immediately sent a letter incriminating against him, in which he ardently stood up for his hierarchical rights and proved the need for obedience. A strict guardian of Orthodoxy, he noticed to the Lavra publishers some oversights that had crept into the book because they had not first sent it for archpastoral consideration, and ordered to reprint the erroneous sheets and stop the sale of unsold copies in order to henceforth demand the patriarch's permission for the ongoing publication. However, the pious compiler of the menaion himself was not subjected to holy wrath, and even at that time had the opportunity to personally receive a blessing from Patriarch Joachim and hear from his lips approval for the continuation of such useful work.

The commander-in-chief of the Russian troops, Prince Golitsin, sent Hetman Mazepa to Moscow with a report on the successful completion of his campaign against the Turks; Together with him, two abbots were sent from the Little Russian clergy, probably to clarify the confusion that had arisen: Saint Demetrius and Innokenty of the Monastery of the Cyril Monastery. This happened during the troubled era of the Streltsy revolt and the subsequent fall of Princess Sophia. Saint Demetrius, together with the hetman, presented himself first to Tsar John and his sister in the capital, and then to young Peter in the Trinity Lavra, where he withdrew from the intrigues of the rebels and where he finally overcame them. Little Russian envoys were there as witnesses to the Patriarch's intercession for the pacified princess. Dismissing the abbot, Saint Joachim blessed Demetrius to continue the lives of the saints and, as a sign of his favor, gave him an image of the Blessed Virgin in a rich setting. Did Saint Demetrius think that this was for him not only a farewell message to his homeland, but also, as it were, an ominous call to settle in Russia?

Upon returning to Baturin, he continued to engage in his sacred work with even greater zeal, becoming more careful in such a matter, which was already important for the entire Russian Church. For greater privacy, he even left his abbot’s chambers and built himself a small house near the Church of St. Nicholas, which he called his monastery. In his cell diary around this time, along with the death of the former abbot Feodosius Gugurevich, the return from foreign countries of the monk of the Buturinskaya monastery - Feofan, who went to study philosophy and theology in different lands, was recorded. This was the future famous preacher and theologian Feofan Prokopovich, Archbishop of Novgorod. Soon Patriarch Joachim and Metropolitan Gideon of Kiev died one after another; The new High Hierarch of Moscow, Adrian, installed the former archimandrite of the Lavra, Varlaam Yasinsky, as the metropolis of Kiev, who brought the patriarchal blessed letter to the holy abbot: “God himself, blessed in the life-giving Trinity forever, will reward you, brother, with every kind blessing, writing in books of the eternal life, for your godly labors in writing, correction and type of publication, books of soul-helping lives of the Saints for the first three months, Centemrius, Octovrius and Noemrius. May the same one continue to bless, strengthen and hasten to work for you even for the whole year, and to completely correct other similar lives of the Saints and depict them in the same type in the same stauropegy of our Patriarchal Lavra of Kiev-Pechersk.” Following this, the patriarch adds that he asks both the new metropolitan and the future archimandrite of the Lavra to assist in everything “a skillful, prudent, and benevolent worker” (October 3, 1690).

Deeply touched by such saintly mercy, the humble Demetrius answered the patriarch with an eloquent message, in which he poured out all the feelings of gratitude of his soul: “May God be praised and glorified in the saints and glorified by the saints, for he has now given to His holy Church such a shepherd, good and skillful, your Archpastorship , who, at the beginning of his pastorate, were above all concerned and providential for the increase of God and the Saints of His glory, desiring their lives to be published into the world for the benefit of the entire Christian Orthodox Russian family. This glory is to all the saints. Now, even though I am unworthy, I am more zealous than the Lord, hastening upon my mortal and sinful hand that is laid before me, having your holiness in this matter assisting me, strengthening and instructing the blessing, which arouses me greatly, and shakes me off the sleep of laziness, which I am commanded to do carefully. Even though I am not skilled, I do not have enough knowledge and the ability to bring all the good to perfection of the work conceived: both in Jesus who strengthens me, I must wear the yoke imposed by holy obedience, my feebleness is not enough for the one who fulfills Him, from his fulfillment we all accept and “It is still acceptable, but in the future the prayer of your archpastorship, pleasing to God, will continue to help me, with blessing, and I have great hope for it.” Attaching to this his request for the return of the taken Chety-Menya, Demetrius concludes: “If your Archpastorate had deigned, in agreement for the sake of the Holy Lives we are writing, to order the same holy books of the three spoken months to be sent for a time to my unworthiness, I would strive, with the help of God, by squatting with them overnight, they will gain a lot of benefit and publish it into the world.” (November 10, 1690)

Excited by the patriarch’s letter, he decided to leave everything else and exclusively devote himself to the work he had begun in order to complete it more successfully, and for the second time he refused the abbot of the Baturinsky monastery, settling in his secluded monastery. One of his last actions in the monastery, which he ruled for more than six years, was to grant refuge to the learned worker, Adam Zernikav. He met him back in Chernigov under the patronage of the famous Lazar Baranovich, and under the roof of Demetrius himself he ended his hard-working life as a Western theologian, who, having left his homeland, was looking for another homeland within Little Russia, on the way to heaven. In the Dimitriev monastery he completed his wonderful book on the procession of the Holy Spirit from the one Father, contrary to Latin opinions, which he himself previously shared as a Protestant, who borrowed the dogmas of the Roman Church on this subject. Meanwhile, Saint Demetrius prepared for publication the second part of his Chetyi-Menya and himself took them to the Pechersk printing house, but the publication was slowed down by a strict revision of the book by Archimandrite Meletius, who became more careful after the mistakes of his predecessor Varlaam. The writer himself, having received from Danzig an extensive description of the lives of the saints in the Bolandite edition, carefully began comparing them with his own creation and preparing the third part, because he was again awarded a new letter of encouragement from Patriarch Adrian.

No matter how much Saint Demetrius wanted to retire for his spiritual achievement, he was not left alone by those who knew his high dignity in the matter of church governance. The new Archbishop of Chernigov Theodosius of Uglich, who for a short time took the place of Lazar Baranovich during his lifetime, convinced the lover of silence to accept the management of the monastery of the holy supreme apostles Peter and Paul, near Glukhov; but as soon as Archbishop Theodosius died, Metropolitan Varlaam of Kiev, with an imperious hand, transferred the saint to the place of his tonsure, to the Kirillov monastery, where his hundred-year-old father was still a ktitor. He entered there for a six-month period, as if only to repay the last filial debt to his mother, whose death his loving heart responded in this way in his daily notes: “On the Great Friday of the saving passion, my mother reposed at the ninth hour of the day, exactly at that hour when our Savior, who suffered on the cross for our salvation, betrayed His spirit to God the Father in His hand. She was more than seventy years old from her birth... may the Lord remember you in His heavenly kingdom! She died with good disposition, memory and speech. Oh, may the Lord honor me with such a blessed death through prayers! And truly, her death was Christian, for with all Christian rituals and ordinary sacraments, she was fearless, shameless, and peaceful. May I also be worthy, Lord, of a good answer at His Last Judgment, as I have no doubt about God’s mercy and about her salvation, knowing her constant, virtuous and pious life. And even then, for the goodness of her salvation, I have a sign that on the same day and the same hour when Christ the Lord opened heaven to the thief, during his free passion, then he commanded her soul to be separated from her body.” These words contain the best praise both for the pure love of the sons of the strict ascetic and for the piety of the mother; She was buried by her son himself in the Kiev Cyril Monastery in 1689.

Such speeches are touching, which came from a heart overflowing with love, and all the more precious for us because they poured out what was hidden deep in the saint’s chest from the eyes of the world. It was not in vain that Demetrius cried out several years before on the occasion of his frequent transition from monastery to monastery: “Somewhere I will have to lay my head!” - because again there was a change in his leadership; every bishop wanted to have him in his diocese, and Kyiv and Chernigov constantly argued about him. The successor of Archbishop Theodosius, John Maksimovich, who later became famous at the See of Siberia for the conversion of many thousands of pagans, offered Demetrius the Eletsky-Uspensky monastery in Chernigov, with the addition of Glukhovsky, and ordained him to the rank of archimandrite. Thus, the word of Archbishop Lazar was fulfilled: “Demetrius will receive a miter,” but soon the saint’s church also awaited him. Demetrius was not exalted by his new rank; on the contrary, his humility deepened as he ascended in spiritual degree, and his beloved concern for the lives of the saints did not leave him, as can be seen from his letter to his friend Theologist, a monk of the Chudov Monastery, who was later a clerk in a Moscow printing house.

“I greatly thank your brotherly love for me, unworthy, since your honesty, out of your love, deigned to write in both of your letters to me, unworthy, praise beyond my measure, calling me well-behaved, prudent and spreading rays of light into the world, and other the same, even if they come from your love, they both fill me with cold; as long as I am not like that, your love does not allow me to exist. I am not well-behaved, but ill-natured, I am full of bad customs and in my mind I am far from reasonable; I am a bully and an ignoramus, and my light is nothing but darkness and dust... I beg your brotherly love to pray for me to the Lord, my light, that it may enlighten my darkness and that the honest will come from the unworthy, and that yours will be revealed to me, a sinner, about this, perfect love in God, when you will help me with your holy prayers to the Lord for me, in my hopeless salvation and in the book matter before me. And this is from your love, as you give thanks to God for my erection of God to the Archimandrite of Yelets. I am a damned one, as if I loved your love, I will not get that archimandry. For all, as the Lord God sometimes allows, and the unworthy, from whom I am the first, receive honorable church dignity. Do this according to your unknown destinies; for which reason I am in no small passion, bearing honor above my unworthy Dignity. I hope in your holy prayers, trusting in God’s mercy, not to perish with my iniquities. The third three-month book of the lives of the Saints, March, April, May, if the Lord vouchsafes me to do so and see the type depicted, I will not forget your honesty, as I will send to the highest persons, or I will bring it myself, if the Lord pleases and we will live. About this, your honesty, be known and pray to the Lord Christ for my damnation, so that we will soon complete the book we are writing, with his omnipotent help, and may he protect us, healthy and saved, from the treachery of the enemy. Amen".

Two years later, Saint Demetrius was transferred to the Spassky Monastery of Novgorod-Seversk; this was already the last one, which he ruled, being alternately the abbot of five monasteries and twice one of Baturin. At the beginning of 1700, the third spring quarter of his Menaion for March, April and May was completed in the Lavra printing house, and the Lavra’s archimandrite Joasaph Krokovsky, as a pledge of his special gratitude to the laborer’s feat, sent him a blessing: the icon of the Mother of God, donated by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich to Metropolitan Peter Mogila. The royal icon, brought to Demetrius by the former archimandrite Nikon of the Moscow Donskoy Monastery, was, as it were, a secondary harbinger of the call of the future saint to the mother-throne of Moscow. Little Russia was already deprived of its lamp, which should have shone on the candlestick of the bishop's sees of Siberia and Rostov, so that from their height it would shine on the entire Russian Church. Emperor Peter the Great wanted to spread the light of Christianity among the foreigners of the recently conquered Siberia, so that its beneficial effect could reach the far reaches of China. After a consultation with His Holiness Patriarch Adrian, he decided to look in the then more educated Little Russia for a worthy person who could combine the duties of a preacher of the pagans with the rank of hierarch at the see of Tobolsk, which was orphaned after the death of the reverent Metropolitan Paul. Barlaam of Kiev was ordered to send to the capital one of the archimandrites or abbots, a man of learning and immaculate life, for the see of Siberia, who, with the help of God, could convert those stubborn in the blindness of idolatry to the knowledge of the true God. The new shepherd had to bring with him two or three monks who would study the Chinese and Mongolian languages ​​in order to serve in the newly established church in Beijing. The eagle gaze of the great transformer reached so far and beneficently, and Metropolitan Varlaam did not judge anyone more worthy of this high degree than Archimandrite Seversky, known to him for his virtue and learning.

Holiness Demetrius

Demetrius, having arrived in Moscow in February 1701, did not find his benefactor, Patriarch Adrian, alive, and greeted the sovereign with an eloquent word, in which he depicted the dignity of the king of the earth, as bearing the image of Christ. A month later, in the 50th year from birth, he was ordained Metropolitan of Siberia by the Right Reverend Stefan Yavorsky, Metropolitan of Ryazan, who himself had recently been elevated to the rank of abbot of the Kiev St. Nicholas Monastery with the appointment of locum tenens of the patriarchal throne. He was entrusted by the tsar with the management of all the affairs of the abolished patriarchate. However, the health of the new Metropolitan of Siberia, shaken by incessant studies, would not be able to cope with the harsh climate of his distant diocese, and, moreover, the favorite subject of his life’s work would remain unfinished. This thought disturbed the lover of saints to such an extent that he even fell into a serious illness, and the benevolent sovereign, having learned during his visit about the cause of the illness, reassured him with the royal word and allowed him to stay in Moscow for a while, waiting for the nearest diocese. It was not without the providence of God that his stay in the capital lasted more than a year; the newcomer to Little Russia had time to get acquainted with government and church leaders of the region where he was called to serve as a priest in the difficult time of transformation. In Moscow, his friendly relationship with Metropolitan Stefan, whom he knew little in Kyiv, began; they understood each other, and their friendship was based on mutual respect, although Saint Demetrius always tried to pay the deepest respect to the locum tenens of the patriarchal throne, as if to the Patriarch himself. During his long illness in the cells of the Chudov Monastery, he became close to some of the learned monastics, Cyril and Theodore, who were clerks at the printing house; He immediately found his old friend the monk Theologist, and all three subsequently provided him with many services for his scientific studies, on the subject of which he maintained constant correspondence with them. Books about the lives of saints and frequent preaching of the word of God gained him the love and respect of noble persons in Moscow. The widow of Tsar John Alekseevich, Tsarina Paraskeva Feodorovna, who enjoyed the special attention of the emperor, was filled with deep respect for the saint and often endowed him with clothes and dishes from her meal.

Meanwhile, Joasaph, Metropolitan of Rostov, died, and the sovereign, who appreciated the merits of Saint Demetrius even more, ordered him to be transferred to the newly opened see; for Siberia, a successor worthy of him was found in the person of Philotheus Leshchinsky, who baptized many thousands of Ostyaks, traveling after them on reindeer along their tundra. Even after his retirement, being a schema-monk, he was called again to new apostolic exploits when John Maksimovich, the former Archbishop of Chernigov, who took his place, died. They are both in the west of Siberia, and Bishop Innocent in the east in Irkutsk, who was later canonized, at one time illuminated the whole of vast Siberia with the light of Christianity. With what wonderful men of the Church, who all arose from the borders of Little Russia, the Lord consoled great Russia in the glorious days of Petrov’s reign! These three ascetics in Siberia, St. Demetrius in Rostov, Locum Tenens Stephen in the capital, a zealous defender of Orthodoxy and the dignity of the Hierarchy, Lazarus and Theodosius in Chernigov, Varlaam in Kiev, in addition to other famous Russian saints, St. Mitrophan of Voronezh, Job of Novgorod, who spread spiritual enlightenment , and others! Such a comforting phenomenon is not often repeated in church annals.

From here begins a new period of life for Saint Demetrius; entirely devoted to pastoral concerns, although he did not abandon his favorite academic pursuits, here he revealed himself, according to the apostolic word, as a bishop should be for his flock: “reverend, gentle, undefiled, separated from sinners,” although due to human weakness , like all the high priests, he also had to make sacrifices about his sins, offering a bloodless sacrifice for human sins, until he himself shone among the saints (Heb. 7, 26, 27). Entering his diocese with all readiness to devote the rest of his life to it, at the first step he already foresaw that its course should end here, and therefore he chose for himself a place of eternal rest on the edge of the city, in the monastery in which he stopped, in order to go from there solemnly move on, take the pulpit in the Rostov Cathedral. The new saint performed the usual prayer in the Church of the Conception of the Mother of God of the Yakovlevsky Monastery, founded by one of his holy predecessors, Bishop Jacob (whose relics rest there), and plunged into deep thought about his future; there, indicating a place in the corner of the cathedral, he said to those around him the word of the psalm of the prophet King David, which turned into a prophecy for himself: “Behold my rest, here I will dwell forever and ever.” And here the faithful are now truly flocking to the incorruptible relics of the newly glorified saint of God. Then he celebrated the divine liturgy in the Cathedral of the Assumption of Our Lady and greeted his flock with an eloquent word, reminding them of the ancient union of the Rostov Church with the Pechersk Lavra, from where he brought God’s blessing to his flock Holy Mother of God and Saints of Pechersk; the good shepherd talked like a father with his children, briefly outlining the mutual responsibilities of the shepherd and his flock. The words were especially touching: “Let not your heart be troubled by my coming to you, for I came in through doors, and did not cross elsewhere: I did not seek, but I was sought, and I do not know you, nor do you know me; The Lord's fate is many; You sent me to you, but I came, do not serve me, but let me serve you, according to the word of the Lord: although I be first in you, let me be a servant to all. I came to you with love: I would say that I came like a father to my children, but more than that, I came like a brother to my brothers, like a friend to dear friends: for Christ the Lord is not ashamed to call us brothers. “You are my friends,” he says, “I do not call you servants (John 15), but friends, and more honestly and amazingly, as one calls one’s loved ones fathers, saying: “This one is both father and mother, who does the will of the father.” my heavenly, for we are your love, fathers, brothers, and friends. If you call me as a father, then I answer you in an apostolic manner: I am my children, with whom I am sick, until Christ is imagined in you” (Gal. 4:19).

In the cell notes of St. Demetrius it is written: “1702. March 1st, in the second week of Great Lent, I sighed upon my throne in Rostov by God’s will,” and after that: “1703, Jannuarius 6th, at the third hour of the day of the Epiphany, my father Savva Grigorievich reposed and was buried in Kirillovsky-Kievsky Monastery, in the Church of the Holy Trinity: eternal memory to him.” These words conclude the diary of St. Demetrius, who seems not to want to continue his notes after the blessed death of his three-year-old elder parent. Isn’t such a filial feeling in the great saint touching, and at the same time isn’t it worthy of attention that the simple centurion Tuntalo, the pious ktitor of the Cyril monastery, even before his death had the consolation, if not to see personally, then at least to hear that his son his Demetrius reached a high degree of priesthood and the metropolis itself. All kinship and family relationships ended for the saint, and even the very ties that united him with his native Little Russia; a new large Rostov family surrounded his department, and he devoted all his pastoral cares to it for seven years, constantly caring for its spiritual improvement.

His flock did not have schools, which were only in Moscow, and was even deprived of the living preaching of the word of God, and therefore the people were easily carried away by the flattering teachings of lies and schism. With deep sorrow, the saint spoke in one of his teachings to the residents of Rostov: “Ol to our accursed time, as if that sowing was by no means neglected, the word of God was completely abandoned, and we do not know which black thing to cover: the sowers or the land, the priests, or the hearts of men, Or is the wallpaper purchased? Together with the indecency there was, there is no doing goodness, there is no one. The sower does not sow, and the earth does not accept; the priests do not err, but the people err; the priests do not teach, but the people are ignorant; The priests do not preach the word of God, and people do not listen, they just want to listen; It’s bad on both sides: the priests are stupid, and the people are foolish.” Insufficient preparation for the priesthood necessarily entailed various abuses and disorders, against which the caring saint was not slow to take pastoral measures. Two of his district letters to the diocesan clergy have reached us: from them it is clear, on the one hand, to what extent the inattention of the priests to the importance of the title entrusted to them then extended, and on the other hand, how great was the pastoral zeal of Saint Demetrius, crushing evil by all means beliefs and power.

In the first, he denounces some of the priests of his flock for revealing the sins of their spiritual children, revealed to them in confession, either out of vanity, or out of a desire to harm them; The saint convincingly proves that to reveal secrets revealed in confession means not to understand the spirit of the sacrament, to offend the Holy Spirit, who granted forgiveness to the sinner, and to contradict the example of Jesus Christ, who condescended to sinners. An immodest confessor is Judas a traitor and, like him, is subject to eternal destruction. The discovery of the secrets of conscience is harmful not only for the one who discovers, but also for those who are convicted, who cannot then sincerely repent and bring upon themselves general disgrace.. Then the saint denounces the priests who leave their poor parishioners, the sick, without confession and communion of the holy mysteries, so many died without holy guidance; he threatens such shepherds with the wrath of God for closing the kingdom of heaven before people, not entering themselves, and forbidding those entering, and proposes that in crowded parishes, to correct church requirements, invite “altar” priests. In another, Saint Demetrius inspires special reverence for the sacrament of the life-giving body and blood of Christ. He denounces the priests who keep the Holy Gifts, prepared for the communion of the sick for a whole year, in the wrong place, and orders them to keep these secrets in clean vessels on the holy throne and to give them reverent veneration; then he exhorts the priests so that they should not begin the celebration of the Eucharist otherwise than with preliminary preparation, and at the end of the celebration they should remain in abstinence and sobriety; also briefly reminds them of their other responsibilities in relation to the flock.

Feeling that regulations alone cannot correct this evil,

Saint Demetrius decided to start a school at the bishop's house from his own income, and this was the first in great Russia after Moscow; it was divided into three grammatical classes, numbering up to two hundred people. The saint wanted those who left him to be able to preach the word of God; he himself observed their progress, asked questions, listened to the answers and, in the absence of the teacher, sometimes took on this responsibility, and in his free time he interpreted certain passages of the Holy Scriptures to selected students and in the summer called them to his country house. He cared no less about their moral education, gathering them on holidays for the all-night vigil and liturgy in the cathedral church, and at the end of the first kathisma, everyone had to approach his blessing, so that he could see: were there any absentees? During Pentecost and other fasts, he obliged everyone to fast, himself sharing the holy mysteries with all his disciples, and when he was sick, he sent them an order so that everyone should read the Lord’s Prayer for him five times in remembrance of the five plagues of Christ, and this spiritual medicine alleviated his illness. His treatment of his young pupils was completely fatherly, and he often repeated to them as a consolation for the upcoming separation: “If I am worthy to receive mercy from God, then I will pray for you too, so that you also receive mercy from him: it is written: yes, I am, and you will be” (XIV. 4). He gave those who completed the course places in churches at his own discretion and tried to instill in the clergy more respect for their position, ordaining them to the surplice, which had never happened before in Rostov.

Such constant activities did not reduce the saint’s activity in his favorite work, describing the lives of saints, for which he collected information through his Moscow acquaintances. Two years after its installation in Rostov, the last summer quarter of the Chetya-Minea was completed and also sent to Kyiv for printing. He joyfully informed his friend Theologian about this in Moscow: “Rejoice with me spiritually, for through the haste of your prayers the Lord vouchsafed me the month of August to write an Amen and complete the fourth book of the Lives of the Saints; known to your friendliness, knowing your brotherly love for my unworthiness and desire for our book to come to perfection. Glory to God, it has been accomplished, I ask you to pray that our evil work will not be in vain before the Lord.” And in the chronicles of the Rostov bishops, kept at the cathedral, the hand of the saint noted: “In the summer from the incarnation of God the Word, the month of Fevruarius, on the 9th day in memory of the Holy Martyr Nicephorus, the predicate victorious, on the occasion of the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, I spoke to St. Simeon To the God-Receiver your prayer: now absolving Thy servant, O Master, on the day of the Lord’s suffering on Friday, in which Christ spoke on the cross: having been accomplished before the Saturday of remembrance of the dead and before the week of the Last Judgment, with the help of God, and the Most Pure Mother of God, and all Saints with the prayers, the month of August was written . Amen".

Feats against schism

During all his activities, the saint, if possible, surveyed his flock and, on his second visit to the city of Yaroslavl in 1704, he solemnly transferred the relics of the holy princes, Theodore of Smolensk and his children David and Constantine, into a new shrine, built by the zeal of the citizens, partly his own; but with his love for all the saints of God, he gave himself a small part of their relics for blessing. Having visited Yaroslavl again the next year, he was concerned with admonishing some of the smaller brethren of his vast flock - they were alarmed by the royal command about barber shaving, because they, in their blindness, considered the loss of a beard to be a distortion of the image of God. The saint himself tells how one day, when leaving the cathedral after the liturgy, two elderly people stopped him with a question: what would he order them to do, because they prefer to put their heads on the chopping block for beheading, rather than their beards. Saint Demetrius, not prepared to answer, asked only them: “What will grow? Is it a severed head or a beard?” - to their answer: “Beard,” he said to them in turn: “And so it is better for us not to spare the beard, which will grow as many times as it will be shaved; the cut off head is only for the resurrection of the dead.” After such admonition, he exhorted the citizens who accompanied him to submit in everything to the ruling power, according to the word of the apostle, and not in a visible, external image, to understand the likeness of God. Subsequently, he wrote a whole discussion on this subject, which was repeatedly published by the will of the sovereign; This was his first experience of competition with schismatics, unknown to him before coming from Little Russia.

“I, the humble one, was not born and raised in these countries,” he wrote, “but when I heard about the schisms found in this country, nor about the difference in faiths and dissident morals; but already here, by God’s will and by order of the sovereign, having begun to live, I was led away by hearing from many reports.” Then, for the edification of his flock, in addition to the oral preaching of the word of God, he wrote catechetical instructions, in a more accessible form of questions and answers about faith, as well as a mirror of the Orthodox confession and twelve more articles on the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He also had other concerns about the welfare of the clergy entrusted to him, on the occasion of the census for the distribution of children of priests and clergy into military service, since then there was a great need for people of every rank for the burden of Russia. Swedish war. The impoverishment of the bishop's house was also disappointing, because all the estates were under the monastic order, but even the little that the saint could use, he used for schools for the poor. The extent to which his own misery reached can be seen from his letter to Theologus; he apologizes that he does not have horses to bring him to him, for he himself almost wanders on foot: “Neither horse nor rider, the sheep have become scarce, and there are no horses.” However, as he later expressed it in his will: “Since I took on the monastic image and promised God arbitrary poverty, even before approaching the tomb, I have not collected property except the books of saints; no gold, no silver, no unnecessary clothes, except the most necessary, but I tried to maintain non-covetousness and monastic poverty in spirit and in deed itself, relying in everything on God’s providence, which never abandoned me.” But his health, exhausted by many labors, became impoverished hour by hour, and this prompted him to write his spiritual, before Easter 1707.

A year before, he visited Moscow once more, where he was summoned to a succession of conferences, as happened under the patriarchs, and there he spoke a lot of church teachings. His experience was very useful for his friend, the locum tenens Stefan, and distant bishops, attracted by his fame as a spiritual writer and poet, turned to him. Metropolitan Tikhon of Kazan, who transferred the relics of Saint Gury to his cathedral, asked that a service and a word of praise be compiled for him, which Saint Demetrius performed with the same love with which he wrote the very lives of the saints. He composed two more services for Kazan, in honor miraculous icon Our Lady and the Holy Martyrs of Cyzicus, which are still celebrated there. His soul, imbued with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, often poured out in short spiritual works, filled with tenderness, which, flowing from such a gracious source, had a saving effect on readers.

These are his “Spiritual Medicine for Confusion of Thoughts, Briefly Collected from Various Books of the Fathers” and “Apology for Assuaging the Sorrow of a Man in Trouble and Embitterment,” and also: “The inner man is in the cage of his heart, studying alone in secret”; their very name already expresses inner dignity. His daily prayer of confession to God is touching, from a person who makes salvation the beginning, and the general confession of sins, spoken before the priest, which he puts into the mouth of every person who does not have enough courage to express them voluntarily. The saint’s reflection on the communion of the Holy Mysteries, to the contemplation of which he often loved to immerse himself, is sublime; He also left them a brief memory of them, on each heel, along with a touching kissing of the wounds of our Lord Jesus Christ, with God-thought worship of them and crying at the burial of Christ. Here the voice of the soul is clearly heard, in contemplation of the saving sufferings of its Savior, accompanying it from Gethsemane to Golgotha, a soul that, out of its love for the Crucified One, can exclaim with the Apostle: “Let me not boast except about the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal. VI, 14).

Sometimes this love was poured out in tears of sorrow; Seeing the lifeless source of life, he cries out: “Where are you coming, sweetest Jesus? Where are you coming from us, our hope and refuge? In our light, do you go away from our sight? never-setting sun, how do you know your west?

Become the bearer of the hand that bears the whole world! stand as bearers of those who bear the burden of sin for the entire human race! bearers stand, for his sake the sun and the moon in their rank, on the cross of that behold.”

“Do not scold us as children to come to our father, even if I am already dead; Do not scold your child and cry about the common parent of all, who gave birth to us with his blood. Let none of us pour out small drops of tearful tears over those who have poured out abundant streams of blood for us from the whole body, and water from the ribs with blood.”

Another spiritual edifying creation is attributed to the saint of Rostov, due to the deep sense of faith and reverence with which it is filled: this is the spiritual Alphabet, or the ladder of spiritual ascent, divided into 33 steps, according to the number of years of the Lord, in imitation of the lofty creation of the Climacus of Sinai. But Demetrius himself attributed it to the great ascetic Isaiah of Konystensky, who, like the ancient Hilarion of Pechersk, ascended to the See of Kyiv from the Antoniev caves. However, even now the general opinion adorns it with the name of St. Demetrius.

But since the zealous worker, with all his pastoral concerns, could not remain for long without constant work, then, after completing his many years of asceticism in the lives of the saints, he felt the need for a book that could acquaint the reader with the destinies of the Church in its ancient times. He decided to compile a chronicle, or Sacred History, in such a form that it would serve as a guide for preachers. He humbly communicated his new thought to his friend the locum tenens:

“Under the name and image of a chronicler, I would like to write some useful legal teachings, in order not only to amuse the reader with stories, but also to teach moral teachings. This is my intention, if not for others (for who am I to teach learned men), then at least for myself.” He zealously began to collect church, Slavic, Greek, and Latin chronicles for this subject and made a request to Theologus in Moscow to supplement his lack of Rostov chronographs. As the chronicle progressed, he sent his work to Metropolitan Stephen for consideration, humbly asking him to judge whether it would benefit the Holy Church or not, and sincerely thanking him for all his comments. But at the same time, he himself spiritually strengthened the Patriarchal locum tenens in his difficult field: “I pray, as much as I can. May the mighty and mighty Lord strengthen your Hierarchy in bearing the heavy cross. Do not faint, Saint of God, under such burdens! a branch under weight always bears fruit. Do not imagine that your labors are in vain before God, who says: Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden (Matt. XI: 28). Great is the reward for those who have endured hardship and hardship! They are not vain; they prudently steer the ship of the Church of Christ during times of great turmoil. You please, Your Eminence, solitude, I please and az; but Saint Macarius of Egypt’s reasoning is not bad either, who writes about the desert dwellers and those who toil in the cities and for human benefit: Ovy (desert dwellers), having grace, only care about themselves;

others (teachers and preachers of the word of God) strive to use other souls: these exceed them greatly. Strive for Jesus, who strengthens you, the ascetic of Christ! This burden was not imposed on your Holiness by any occasion, but by God’s will; first the crown of righteous reward awaits you; It is good to bear the yoke of Christ: make his burden light for you.”

However, despite all the efforts of Saint Demetrius, his chronicle work was not completed, partly due to his illness, and partly due to the urgent needs of the diocese, although he really wanted to finish the sacred history, as can be seen from his letter to Theologist: “Why Can I, who am powerless, hope? The fear of death will attack me... but how will the book-writing business remain? Will there be any hunter to take it on and accomplish it? and you still need to work a lot in this matter: you won’t accomplish it in a year, and in another year you will struggle to achieve it, but the end is at the door, the ax at the root, the death’s scythe over your head. Alas for me! I don’t feel sorry for anything, I don’t feel sorry for anything below the imam, I haven’t collected wealth, I haven’t saved up money, my only pity is that the book-writing that I started is far from being completed; and I also think about the Psalter. Dumka is overseas, but death is behind us.” The chronicler stopped at the sixth century of the fourth thousand years.

For others, a more necessary work lay ahead of him before the end of his life: to direct the seduced minds of some of his flock to the truth. Soon after Easter in 1708, the saint learned that false teachers were hiding in his cathedral city and other cities and villages. The priest of Rostov informed him that one of his parishioners did not want to give due honor to either holy icons or relics, and the saint, from a personal conversation, became convinced of his obstinacy when he wanted to admonish him pastorally. The schismatic monasteries from the forests of Bryansk, within Kaluga, crept into his diocese, which was threatened on the other hand by the Kostroma and Nizhny Novgorod monasteries with their false teaching; schismatics lured the gullible, especially women. Not seeing in his clergy people capable of acting against the threatening schism, he himself decided to set a good example and a strong weapon against absurd rumors. In a simple, intelligible word, he explained to the people the harmful influence of the Bryansk false teachers on them and the unfoundedness of their opinions, and as a true shepherd he was not embarrassed by any secular relations when he had to stand for the truth. The priest of his diocese appeared as a defender of schismatic opinions; the saint, after a strict investigation, dismissed him from his post and ordered him, as a widow, to look for a place somewhere in the monastery; but the culprit through secret means found access to the queen, and she interceded for him before Saint Demetrius. Then the guardian of Orthodoxy presented the queen with the entire course of the illegal case and humbly asked her not to be angry at the fact that she could not change her decision. “I was much annoyed by him,” he wrote, “before many people he blasphemed my humble name, called me a heretic and a Roman and an infidel: otherwise I forgive him all this for my sake, for Christ’s sake, who we reproach against are not reproachful and endure suffering; Looking at the kindness of my Savior, I did not forbid that simple priest from the priesthood, and gave him the freedom to choose a place for himself, to take monastic vows in a monastery. But I am afraid of God’s wrath on myself, even if I am a wolf in sheep’s clothing, I will let people into the flock of Christ destroy human souls with schismatic teachings. I pray to Your Royal Nobility, do not put anger on me, your pilgrim, because I cannot make things impossible.”

Having learned that the schismatic teachers had intensified especially in Yaroslavl, he himself went there in November 1708 and convincingly preached about the wrongness of the schismatic faith and the truth of Orthodoxy in defense of the sign of the honorable cross. Not content with the living word, he began to compose written denunciations of the opinions of the schismatics, for which he put aside the chronicle work, which occupied him so much, thinking to himself, as he wrote to Theologist, that: ... God will not bother him about the chronicle, about the same, if he remains silent against the schismatics, he will suffer.” The saint, as if sensing that he did not have a year of life left, hurried with his work so that by the time of Great Lent it was almost over. This was his famous “search for the Bryn faith” or a complete denunciation against the schismatics; the last work with which he presented the Russian Church as a solid shield against false teaching, with which he wanted to protect his flock even after his death. It is amazing how quickly he wrote his multi-syllabic book, collecting from everywhere true oral information about sects and schismatic movements from people who lived in their monasteries and turned to the truth. The good example of the saint also raised up a new ascetic against the schismatics in the person of Pitirim, the former builder of Pereyaslavl, who was sent to act against them in Kirzhach and subsequently converted many to the rank of Bishop of Nizhny Novgorod. Saint Demetrius also sought information against the schism in Moscow, from his learned friends, asking them to carefully examine the sacred utensils of the cathedrals, which could serve as a denunciation of untruth.

Even in his last letters, he constantly informed Theologist about his new work, which occupied all his activity, although he was bored with this kind of debate and hoped to complete it by the Holy Day, complaining only about the lack of scribes. This book ended the saint’s written works during his forty-two-year monastic career and seven-year priesthood in Rostov. Repeating with David: “I sing to my God, even as I am,” he said that we must do something for the glory of God, so that the hour of death will not find us in idleness, and he thought of returning to his Chronicler if God would help his weakness; but she overcame him in the fifty-eighth year from birth, for his strength, exhausted by many years of labor, weakened more and more, and already a year before his death he wrote to Moscow to his friends: “God knows, can I complete what I started? Because of my ailments, the pen that writes from my hand is often taken away from my hand and the scribe is thrown onto the bed, and the coffin is presented to my eyes, and besides, my eyes see little and my glasses don’t help much, and my writing hand trembles, and the whole temple of my body is near ruin.”

Such were the holy exploits of Saint Demetrius, but who counted his cell exploits? For he was a vigorous man of prayer and fasting, and just as through his writings he instilled in others the commandments of fasting and prayer, he also set an example for their fulfillment. All days he remained in abstinence, eating little food, except for holidays, and in the first week of Pentecost he only allowed himself food once, in Holy Week only on Maundy Thursday, and he taught his relatives to do the same. He advised them to remember the hour of death at every strike of the hour bell, protecting themselves with the sign of the cross with the prayers: “Our Father and Mother of God.” He did not let those who came to his cell go without edification and blessing with small icons, and he used all his small cell income for good deeds, providing for widows and orphans; Part of the distribution of alms left nothing for everyday needs. He often gathered the poor, the blind and the lame into his cross chamber, distributing clothes to them along with bread, for he, like Job, was the eye of the blind, the foot of the lame and the comforter of his flock. Constantly awaiting his outcome as his illness multiplied, and fearing that after his death they would not begin to look for imaginary riches, the saint, two years before his death, wrote his spiritual, in which his entire lofty Christian soul, filled with love for his neighbors, was poured out before the Lord and people. deepest humility.

“In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Behold, I am the humble Bishop Dmitry, Metropolitan of Rostov and Yaroslavl, listening to the voice of my Lord in the Holy Gospel saying: Be prepared, for at this very hour you will not be heedless. The Son of Man will come (Matt. XXIV, 44); you don’t know, for when the Lord comes home, it will be evening, or midnight, or in silence, or morning, so that you do not come suddenly and find you sleeping (Mark XIII, 35), thus listening to the voice of the Lord and fearing, and also teating with illness being possessed, and day by day, exhausted in body, and tea for all the time of this unexpected hour of death, spoken by the Lord, and according to my strength, preparing for the departure from this life, it is known to everyone to create judgments with this spiritual literacy; whoever, after my death, desires to seek my property privately, so that he would not labor in vain, nor torture those who served me for God’s sake, so that the message is my treasure and wealth, hedgehog from my youth at the gatherings (this is not a vainglory of the river, but so that my seeker for me I will create estates); From now on, I received the holy monastic image and took monastic vows in the Kiev Cyril Monastery in the eighteenth year of my age and promised God’s willful poverty: from that time, even until I approached the tomb, I did not acquire property or collect money, except for the books of the saints, I did not collect gold and silver, I did not deign to have superfluous clothes, nor any things other than the very needs: but I tried to observe lack of wealth and monastic poverty in spirit and in deed itself as much as possible, not just for myself, but trusting in the providence of God, who would never leave me. The alms that came into my hands from my benefactors and even in the leadership of the cell parish, you exhausted for my and for the monastery needs, where they were abbots and archimandrites, and also in the bishopric, they did not collect cell parishes (who were not many) parishes, but firstly for my needs and those who depend on me, and secondly for the needs of the needy, wherever God leads. After my death, no one will work, testing or seeking any of my cell meetings; for what am I leaving for burial, not for commemoration, but the poverty of the monks, especially at the end, will appear to God: I believe that it will be more pleasing to Him, even if not a single piece of food remains for me, if a lot of food were distributed to the congregation? And if I have such food, no one will be given the usual burial, I pray to those who remember their death, may they take my sinful body to a wretched house, and there among the corpses let it be thrown. If the will of the rulers commands me, having died, to be buried in custom, I pray to the Christ-loving burials that they may bury me in the monastery of St. Jacob, Bishop of Rostov, in the corner of the church, where the place is named, about this person. If you deign to remember my sinful soul without money in your prayers for God’s sake, let the poor one himself not remember me, leaving nothing for remembrance: May God be merciful to everyone and to me, a sinner, forever. Amen".

“Sitsevo covenant: this is my spiritual letter: Sitsevo news of my estate. If anyone, having received this news and not having faith, begins to try and seek gold and silver from me, then even if he works a lot, he will find nothing, and God will judge him.”

Saint Demetrius announced his will in advance to his friend, the locum tenens Patriarchal Stephen, and they made a mutual vow: that whichever of them outlived the other would perform the funeral service over the deceased brother. Stefan, younger in years and vigorous in strength, had to pay this last debt to his friend. A few days before his death, Saint Demetrius, having heard that the pious Queen Paraskeva Feodorovna was going to Rostov to venerate the miraculous icon of the Mother of God, which was to be brought from the Tolga monastery, said to his treasurer, Hieromonk Philaret, foreshadowing his death: “Behold, two are coming to Rostov guests, the Queen of Heaven and the Queen of Earth, I will no longer be honored to see them here, but I must be ready to be your treasurer to receive them.”

Three days before his repose, he began to be exhausted, but on the day of his angel, the holy great martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica, he served the liturgy as usual in the cathedral church, but was no longer able to speak the sermon. One of the singers read what he had prepared from a notebook, while the saint sat at the royal door, his face changed from a serious illness. Despite the fact that he forced himself to be present at the usual meal in the chamber of the cross, although he did not eat anything. The next day, Archimandrite Varlaam, who was devoted to him, arrived from Pereyaslavl and was received by him with love. During their spiritual conversation, the former nurse of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, nun Euphrosinia, from the Kazinsky family, who lived near the bishop’s house, sent to ask the saint to visit her, who was sick. Exhausted himself from illness, he refused to go, although he had a lot of respect for her virtuous life; but she sent a second convincing request to visit her at least for a short time; Moved by the advice of the archimandrite, who believed that a little movement would be useful to him, the saint decided to fulfill the desire of the pious nun after the evening singing, but with difficulty he could walk back to his cell. He instructed his treasurer to treat the archimandrite, and he himself, supported by the servants, walked around the cell for a considerable time. Thinking of relief from a suffocating cough; then he ordered to call singers to his cell in order to once again delight his ears with the spiritual singing of hymns that he himself had once composed, such as: “My most beloved Jesus! I place my hope in God! You are my God, Jesus, You are my joy!” Throughout the singing, Saint Demetrius listened attentively, leaning against the stove and warming himself spiritually more than in body. With a blessing, he released each of the singers and kept only his beloved one with him, who was his diligent collaborator in the copying of his creations. The sickly saint innocently began to tell him about his life, already feeling its end: how he saw her off in his youth and in adulthood, how he prayed to the Lord, His Most Pure Mother and all the saints of God, and added: “And you, children, pray the same way.” .

Finally he said: “It’s time for you, child, to go to your home”; when the singer, having accepted the blessing, wanted to leave, the saint escorted him to the very door and bowed to him almost to the ground, thanking him for working hard to copy his compositions. The singer shuddered, seeing such an unusual farewell to his shepherd, and said with reverence: “Are you bowing down to me, the last slave, like this, holy master?” And with meekness the humble bishop again said to him: “Thank you, child,” and returned to his cell; The singer, weeping, went to his house. Then the saint ordered all his servants to disperse, but he himself, confining himself in a special cell, as if to get some rest, remained in prayer until his repose. At dawn, the ministers who had risen found him on his knees, as if praying, but with what sadness their hearts were filled when they saw him already asleep in prayer. They struck the big bell three times; the singer, who had been talking with him the day before, heard this sad voice of the saint’s repose, immediately ran to the bishop’s chambers and still found his shepherd and father kneeling in the position in which he had given up his righteous soul to God.

The deceased was dressed in the holy robe, which he had prepared for himself, and instead of a message, at his timely order, various works of his, rough-written by his hand, were given to him;

The body of the deceased shepherd was taken to his cross church of the All-Merciful Savior, which is in the vestibule, near the cell where he died. When the death of the good and child-loving shepherd was announced in Rostov, almost the entire city flocked to his honest body, and the people began to cry bitterly for the good shepherd, teacher and intercessor, who had left his flock orphans. On the same day, the pious Queen Paraskeva with her three princess daughters: Ekaterina, Paraskeva and Anna Ioannovna, arrived in Rostov after mass and was very sad that she was not worthy to receive the blessing of the saint before his departure. She ordered a cathedral requiem to be served over the deceased and went to the meeting of the miraculous icon at the Epiphany Monastery, from where it was brought in triumph to the Rostov Cathedral Church, so that the main shrine of the orphaned diocese would overshadow the deceased shepherd. There, in the presence of the queen, the body of the saint was transferred with due honor and a cathedral requiem service was celebrated a second time in her presence: such honor was destined by the Lord to be given to his blessed saint! His will was immediately sent to Moscow to the monastery order, and, in fulfillment of his dying wish, it was ordered in the Yakovlevsky monastery to prepare a grave in the cathedral church of the Conception of Our Lady, in the corner with right side, and line it with stone; but due to the negligence of the gravediggers, not without the special providence of God, however, the grave was not lined with stone, but only a wooden frame was made, which soon rotted due to dampness, and this subsequently served to discover the relics of the saint.

The body of Saint Demetrius remained incorrupt in his cathedral church for about a month, and during all this time public funeral services were performed over him. Already in the last days of November, the locum tenens of the patriarchal throne, Metropolitan Stefan, arrived in Rostov to fulfill his vow to a friend, and when he entered the cathedral, he cried a lot over the coffin of the deceased. Then the abbots of the Rostov monasteries, cathedral priests and many of the honorary citizens approached the metropolitan, begging him to bury the body of their beloved saint in the cathedral church, next to his predecessor Joasaph, where the Rostov metropolitans were always buried: but the patriarchal locum tenens did not dare to change the will of his friend. He said to those asking: “Since, upon his very accession to the Rostov diocese, His Eminence Demetrius had previously chosen his resting place in the Yakovlevsky Monastery, do I have the right to change it?”

On the day appointed for the burial, November 25, the patriarchal locum tenens served a solemn liturgy in the cathedral and funeral singing with all the clergy of the city of Rostov, and said a decent word in memory of the deceased. Then, accompanied by the entire clergy and people, with much weeping and extreme triumph, the holy body was transferred to the Yakovlevsky Monastery, where, according to the will, it was placed in the right corner of the cathedral church, and the funeral verses were written by the locum tenens Stefan himself. It is remarkable, due to the saint’s love for remembering the Passion of the Lord, the confluence of days that were significant for him: he died on Friday, shortly after his namesake, and was buried a month later, also on Friday, dedicated to the memory of the crucifixion of the Lord, and the discovery of his holy relics also happened on Friday, for this great ascetic, who throughout his life collected for the benefit of the entire Orthodox Christian race the lives of the saints written in heaven in the eternal book, and himself, soon after his departure from this short-lived life, was honored to be inscribed with them in that the eternal book by the finger of God and be crowned with the crown of incorruption.

After 42 years that had elapsed from his burial, on September 21, 1752, during the dismantling of the sunken platform in the Church of the Conception of Our Lady, his holy relics were found incorrupt in a rotted tomb, as well as his holy clothes, and from them, as from a blessed source, they began Healings flowed out to those possessed by various diseases: the blind received their sight, the dumb spoke, the paralytic moved, and demons were cast out by prayers performed at the holy relics. Heeding these clear instructions of Divine Providence, the Holy Synod, based on the testimony of holy relics and former miracles, canonized St. Demetrius among the newly-minted wonderworkers of Russia on April 22, 1757. His successor in the Rostov cathedra, Metropolitan Arseny, was entrusted with compiling a biography of the saint, and a service for him was written by Ambrose, Bishop of Pereyaslavl, later archbishop of the capital, where he ended his days as a martyr. The following year, the pious Empress Elizabeth, out of her zeal for the saint, arranged a silver shrine for his relics, and in 1763, Empress Catherine, after her royal wedding, traveled on foot from Moscow to Rostov to venerate the relics of St. Demetrius and transfer them to the prepared shrine, which she herself carried together. with the bishops during the solemn circumambulation of the temple: such royal honor was again given to the Pleasant of God.

Grace-filled healings are still taking place at the relics of the saint, over which, already in our time, another ascetic, the sepulchral elder Hieromonk Amphilochius, vigilantly watched for 40 years, leaving behind a good memory and reclining as if on guard at the threshold of the church church where they rest the relics of the saint (his pious nephew Archimandrite Innocent, who was for a long time the abbot of the Yakovlev monastery, also rests there in the vestibule). Let us glorify the Lord by His ineffable mercy, who has shown so much piety already in our days, in the humble city of Rostov, and who glorified there with many miracles the new great lamp of the Russian land, which is a quick helper for those who call upon it holy name. Through the prayers of this great Orthodoxy, a zealot and eradicator of schisms, a Russian healer and a spiritual healer who makes everyone wise with her writings, may we also be worthy to be written in the book of life of the Lamb of God, together with all those who have pleased him since the ages, among whom Saint Demetrius of Rostov is numbered.

Since November 10, 1991, the venerable relics of St. Demetrius have been in the Yakovlevsky Church, to the right of the royal gates. At the tomb of the saint, a warm and humble prayer is again offered to him: “O all-blessed Saint Demetrius...”.

Binding design Pavel Ilyina

Commemoration July 1

The Suffering of the Holy Martyrs Cosmas and Damian

After the carnal glorification on earth of the Lord Christ, our God, the exploits of the holy martyrs of Christ became known everywhere as a very amazing thing; for the power of the Savior was manifested in them; For everyone, the courageous resistance and invincible patience expressed by the saints to their tormentors was amazing. Among such martyrs were these, born in ancient Rome from the same father and mother and raised in the rules of Christian piety, brothers according to the flesh - the holy passion-bearers Cosmas and Damian, about whom our word lies ahead.

Having learned the art of medicine, these holy brothers successfully healed all sorts of diseases, and they were assisted in everything by the grace of God Himself. Whatever sick people or animals they laid their hands on, they immediately became completely healthy. These skilled healers did not take remuneration from anyone for their healings, for which they were nicknamed “unpaid doctors.” They demanded only one, most precious reward from those being healed - faith in Christ. And indeed, not only in Rome itself, but also in the surrounding cities and villages, which they went around with the aim of healing the sick, they converted many to Christ. In addition to the grace of healing, they benefited people with generous alms. They had a large property collected by their ancestors and passed on to them from their parents, which they sold and distributed to the poor and needy; they fed the hungry, clothed the naked; in a word, they showed mercy to all the poor and needy. When they healed the sick, they usually told them this:

“We only lay hands on you and cannot do anything with our own strength, but everything is done by the almighty power of the one true God and Lord Jesus Christ; if you believe in Him and do not doubt, you will immediately become healthy.

Martyrs Cosmas and Damian of Rome, unmercenaries. Miniature. Minology of Vasily II. Constantinople. 985 Rome. Vatican Apostolic Library

And indeed, those who believed received recovery.

Thus, daily, many, turning away from idolatrous wickedness, were united to Christ.

The dwelling of these holy doctors was in one Roman village, where their parents had an estate. Having their residence here, they enlightened all the surrounding areas with the holy faith.

Meanwhile, the devil, envious of such a life of saints, shining with virtues, incited some of his servants to go to the king and slander the innocent before him. At this time Carinus reigned in Rome. 1
Emperor Karin reigned from 283 to 284.

This latter, having listened to the slanderers, immediately sent soldiers to the village in which the saints lived, with orders to seize the unpaid doctors Koema and Damian and bring them to him for interrogation.

When the royal soldiers reached the village in which the saints lived and began asking questions about Cosmas and Damian, the believers gathered to the saints and begged them to take refuge somewhere for a short time until their royal wrath had passed. But the saints not only did not listen to this advice, but, on the contrary, intended to go out without permission to the soldiers who were looking for them, wanting to joyfully suffer for the name of Christ. When many believers gathered to them and with tearful pleas exhorted them to save their lives not for their own sake, but for the sake of saving others, the saints - albeit against their will - obeyed them. Then the believers, having taken the saints, hid them in a certain cave.

Meanwhile, the soldiers, carefully searching everywhere for saints and not finding them, out of anger and frustration, seized some pious men from that village, put shackles on them and led them to Rome.

Having learned about this, Saints Cosmas and Damian immediately left the cave and hastily ran in the footsteps of the soldiers; Having overtaken the latter on the road, they said to them:

“Release the innocents, and take us, for we are the very ones you were ordered to take.”

Thus, the soldiers, having released those men, placed shackles on the saints Coema and Damian and led them to Rome. Here the saints were put in chains in prison, where they remained until the morning. When morning came, the king sat down before the people at the usual court, which was located in the place reserved for spectacles; Having ordered that the holy prisoners Komu and Damian be presented before him, the king loudly said to them:

“Is it you who oppose the gods of our fathers and, by some magical trick, heal diseases of people and animals for free, tempting ordinary people to deviate from their fatherly gods and laws? But at least now leave your delusion and listen to my good advice; proceed, make a sacrifice to the gods, who until now have tolerated you for a long time. The gods, being offended by you, did not repay you with evil for evil - although they could have repaid you - but patiently awaited your appeal to them.

The holy saints of Christ, as if with one mouth, answered the king like this:

“We have not seduced a single person; We do not know any magic trick, we have not caused any harm to anyone, but we heal diseases by the power of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, as He commanded, saying: “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers”(Matt. 10:8). We do this freely, because this is what the Savior commanded, Who said: “Freely you have received, freely give”(Matt. 10:8). After all, we do not demand possessions, but we seek the salvation of human souls and serve the poor and weak, as Christ Himself, for He appropriates to Himself those cares that are performed for the sake of the former, speaking to benefactors: “For I was hungry, and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger and you accepted Me; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me" (Matt. 25:35–36). We try to fulfill these commandments of His, hoping to receive a reward from Him in the endless life of the Heavenly Kingdom. We will never agree to worship the gods you acknowledge. Worship them, you and those who agree with you! We know very well that they are not gods. If you, king, wish, then we will offer you good advice, so that you may know the one true God, the Creator of all, “For He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”(Matt. 5:45), - for our needs for the glory of His great name: having retreated from insensitive and soulless idols - serve Him!

Emperor Karin answered this to the saints like this:

“I didn’t call you to flaunt, but to make a sacrifice to the gods.”

“We offer,” answered the saints, “a bloodless sacrifice, our souls, to our only God, who delivered us from the snare of the devil and gave His Only Begotten Son for the salvation of the whole world.” This God of ours is not created, but the Creator of all, and your gods are human inventions and the work of artisans, and if there were no craft among people that produces gods for you, you would not have anyone to worship!

“Do not irritate the eternal gods,” said Karin, “but it is better to make sacrifices and worship them if you do not want to undergo the torment already prepared for you.”

“May you be put to shame, Karin, with your gods,” said the servants of Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit. - Since your mind turns away from the ever-existing and forever-living God and turns to insensitive and never-existent idols, let it be for your shame and so that you own experience I realized that our God is omnipotent - let your face change on your body and curl up from its place!

While the saints were saying these words, Karin’s face suddenly changed and his neck curled in such a way that his face ended up on his shoulders, and he could not turn his neck, and no one could help him. Thus he sat on the throne - with a crooked neck and face. Meanwhile, the people looking at this cried out loudly:

– Great is the Christian God, and there is no other God besides Him!

At that time, many believed in Christ and begged the holy doctors to heal the king. The latter himself begged them for the same, saying:

“Now I truly know that you are servants of the true God.” So, I beg you, since you have already healed many, heal me too, so that I too may believe that there is no other God than the one you preach, who created heaven and earth.

“If you,” the saints told him, “know God who gave you life and the kingdom and believe in Him with all your heart, then He will heal you.”

“I believe in You,” the king said loudly, “Lord Jesus Christ, true God, have mercy on me, and do not remember my first ignorance!”

While the king was pronouncing these words, his neck straightened, his face returned to its place, as it was at first, and he, rising from his place, raised his eyes to heaven and, raising his hands, gave thanks to God together with all the people, saying So:

- Blessed are You, Christ, true God, who brought me through these holy servants of Yours from darkness to light.

Having thus received healing, the king honored the holy servants Koema and Damian with gifts and sent them away in peace.

Leaving Rome, the saints headed to their village. The inhabitants of both this village and the surrounding villages, having heard about everything that was done by the saints in Rome, came out to meet the saints of God and received them with joy, having fun and glorifying the Lord Christ. Meanwhile, the saints, as was their custom, again went around the surrounding cities and villages, healing ailments and enlightening everyone with the holy faith, and then returned to their village again. The devil, a hater of the human race, did not manage to harm the saints with his first intrigues and was unable to exterminate them from among the living people, and came up with another means. In that country there was one very famous doctor, from whom these saints Cosmas and Damian initially studied the art of medicine. It was he who was taught by the enemy of the human race, who could not tolerate the glory of the saints of God, to envy the saints. Having called the saints to him with flattery, he dragged them, as if for the purpose of collecting medicinal plants, to the mountain, concealing, among other things, Cain’s thought in his heart 2
Cain is the name of the eldest son of Adam and Eve. As the first fruit of childbearing in a sinful state, Cain was sullen and angry and out of envy killed his meek brother Abel (Gen. 4:1-16). This event is what is meant in the life.

Having brought the saints far away, he arranged for each to collect plants separately. Then, first attacking one, he stoned him, and then killed the other in the same way; after all, taking the bodies of the saints, he hid them at the well that was there 3
The death of the holy uncompensated doctors Cosmas and Damian followed in 284.

Thus, the holy passion-bearers of Christ, the free doctors Cosmas and Damian, accepted the end of their lives and were awarded the crowns of martyrdom from Christ the Lord our Savior, to whom honor and glory are given with the Father and the Holy Spirit now and to endless ages. Amen.

Memory of our venerable father Peter

The Monk Peter was born and raised in Constantinople. He came from famous and rich parents. His father, named Constantine, was a patrician 4
The Romans called patricians the full-fledged, freeborn children of native Roman citizens. There were about a hundred patrician families in Rome. Typically, patricians occupied the highest government positions.

And he held the position of commander. From his youth, diligently studying science, this Peter studied philosophy especially well, and also studied all secular sciences. Having then reached manhood, he married and, after the death of his father, inherited his honorary patrician rank. He was appointed patrician during the reign of the pious Queen Irina and her son Constantine 5
Constantine VI reigned from 780 to 797. His mother Irene reigned from 797 to 802.

When did Nicephorus ascend the imperial throne? 6
Nikephoros I reigned from 802 to 811.

And the Greeks began a war with the Bulgarians, then Peter was appointed by the emperor as the chief commander over all the regiments and went with the soldiers against the Bulgarians. During the great war that followed, first the Greeks defeated the Bulgarians, and then, by Divine permission, the Bulgarians, recovering from the defeat they had suffered, brutally defeated the Greeks and killed their emperor Nicephorus himself.

Venerable Peter of Constantinople. Fresco. OK. 1318 Kosovo. Gracanica Monastery

At this very time, Blessed Peter with fifty Greek princes was captured by the Bulgarians and, sentenced to torture and death, was kept in prison. And so, when he earnestly prayed to God for his deliverance, Saint John the Theologian appeared to him in the middle of the night 7
His memory is celebrated by the Holy Church on September 26 and May 8.

Reclining on Christ's breasts, he freed him from prison and brought him to Rome. From that time on, Peter devoted himself entirely to serving God; convinced of the insignificance of everything earthly, he retired to the Olympic Mountain 8
Mount Olympia was located in Asia Minor, on the borders of Phrygia and Bithynia.

; Having assumed the angelic form here, he labored together with Joannicius the Great 9
His memory is November 4.

Excelling in every virtue.

Having lived here for thirty-four years, Peter, after his wife and son had already died, arrived in Constantinople. Here he first of all lived for some time at the church he built, called Evandrian. Then, having retired to a secluded, silent place, he built himself a small cell here, in which he lived for eight years, wearing a thorny hair shirt on his body and without shoes on his feet during all the years of his fasting life. He exhausted himself terribly with fasting, vigil and other monastic deeds.

Striving so virtuously and godly, Saint Peter rested in the Lord and was numbered among the saints who glorify the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit forever. Amen 10
The death of Saint Peter followed around 865.

The Suffering of the Holy Martyr Potitus

During the reign of Emperor Antoninus 11
Emperor Antoninus Pius reigned from 138 to 161.

When persecution of Christians arose everywhere, in Sardinia 12
Sardinia is one of the islands of the Mediterranean Sea; is now part of the Kingdom of Italy.

There lived a certain man who adhered to idolatrous wickedness, named Gilas. He had an only son, a thirteen-year-old boy named Potitus. Potitus was enlightened by the wisdom of God, who praises Himself "from the mouths of babes"(Ps. 8:3), and was enlightened by the grace of the Holy Spirit so much that he knew his Creator and offered his prayers and worship to Him alone, but he abhorred soulless idols. Knowing how to read books, Potitus found the Christian Divine Scriptures and, having read them, was filled with spiritual wisdom and intelligence. Having secretly left his father for the Christians, he accepted Holy Baptism and turned away from vile idol sacrifices. Gilas, the father of Potitus, noticing that his son did not worship idols, became very sad and began to tenderly exhort him to offer sacrifice to the gods with him.

“Father,” the holy youth answered Gilas to these admonitions, “you are speaking unkind words to me, ordering me to sacrifice to demons!” If you love me, your son, truly like a father, then advise me that which saves and does not destroy the soul. I wish that you, having learned the truth, turn away from the nasty delusion and begin to serve the One God who lives in heaven and contains everything, the Creator of all creation!

The father, angry, imprisoned him in a separate room and gave orders that none of the household should dare to give the boy either bread or water.

“Let’s see,” he threatened, “if your God, Whom you worship, will give you food and drink!”

Meanwhile, the holy youth Potitus, kneeling, prayed to God, saying:

- “Enter, O Lord, into litigation with those who litigate with me, overcome those who fight with me.”(Ps. 34:1). I wish to serve You, my Lord Jesus Christ, who deigned to descend from heaven to earth for the salvation of the human race. Listen to the prayer of Your humble servant and strengthen me in hunger, as You strengthened Your prophet Daniel, who was cast into the lion’s den. 13
Daniel is the fourth of the so-called “great prophets” (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel). He was taken captive to Babylon in 604 BC, by order of King Nebuchadnezzar. Here he became famous for his wisdom and interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dreams. Due to the slander of envious people, he was thrown into a den to be devoured by lions, but by the power of God he remained unharmed (Dan. 14:29-42). This event is what is meant in the life. The memory of the holy prophet Daniel is celebrated by the Holy Church on December 17.

You said in Your Holy Gospel: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled... Blessed are those who were persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 5:6,10). So, do not leave me, imprisoned here and tormented by hunger and thirst for Thy righteousness!

The saint remained in that prison for many days, tormented by hunger and thirst from his father, but strengthened by God with spiritual food and infused with the grace of the Holy Spirit, so that his face shone like the sun. Rejoicing in the Lord, he said:

“I thank You, Master, that You have deigned to satisfy me, Your unworthy servant, with Your spiritual benefits, which we desire the more strongly the more we receive. I also pray to You, good and merciful God, God of angels and archangels, who does not desire the death of the sinner, but desires that he may be converted and live, hear me, crying out to You with all my heart for my parent: grant him the knowledge of Your truth and the understanding of faith ; open his mind, so that he may know You, his Creator, and serve You alone, and not Hellenic polytheism. Let not the enemy of the Christian race, the devil, rejoice over him, but let Your almighty power, guiding the salvation of the erring, be glorified in him.

When the saint prayed in such words, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him, strengthened him and said:

– You will get what you ask for! God, in whom you believe with all your heart, is always with you, and you will receive what you ask of Him. But know also that the destroyer of human souls, the devil, is plotting against you. So you need to perceive "the whole armor of God"(Eph. 6:11), so that you may be able to resist his wiles.

Having said these words, the angel of light left.

Meanwhile, the saint continued to pray to God, saying:

After some time had passed, suddenly, in the radiance of a false light, an angel of darkness appeared to Potitus and said to him:

“Behold, I came to you, O gentle young man, so that you would not be exhausted in body and soul from hunger and thirst, but so that you would obey your father and be satisfied with food with him.” I am Christ, who has mercy on you; Seeing your tears, I came to visit you.

- “Get away from me, Satan”(Matthew 16:23), enemy of truth, answered the holy youth Potitus to the seducer. - You will not deceive the servant of God: you are not Christ, but the Antichrist.

Having said this, the saint began to pray, saying:

- Lord Jesus Christ! Drive away this nasty enemy from me and throw him into the abyss into which he and his servants are condemned!

Then the devil, changing his feigned angelic likeness, became a huge giant, fifteen cubits tall, and then again transformed into a huge ox and roared in a terrible voice. The saint, protecting himself with the sign of the cross, said to him:

- Stop, evil spirit, tempting the soldiers of Christ! You cannot intimidate one who has been redeemed by the power of the cross!

- Oh, what a young lad defeats me! Alas, where can I rest now? On whom shall I shoot my arrows? If I approach an old man, then even then I am not as easily defeated by him as by this youth. But I will go and enter the only daughter of Emperor Antoninus, and I will show my strength on her! Against you, Potitus, I will incite the king and teach him to destroy you in terrible torment!

“Enemy,” answered Saint Potitus, “no matter what torment they subject me to, I will win victory over you everywhere; it will not be I who will win, but my Lord Jesus Christ!”

Then the devil ran away, crying:

- Woe is me, because I am defeated by the youth!

After this, Potitus' father Gilas, leading him out of prison, said to him:

“Child, make a sacrifice to the gods, for the emperor commanded that anyone who does not make sacrifices to the gods should be put to death after terrible torture or be given to be devoured by wild beasts.” I suffer for you, since you are my only son; I don't want to lose my heir.

“Which gods should I,” asked the saint, “sacrifice so that I can know them by name?”

“Don’t you know,” said the father, “the god Zeus?” 14
Zeus is the supreme god of the ancient Greek religion, considered the ancestor of other gods and people.

Areya 15
Ares, or Mars, is the god of war.

And Minerva? 16
Minerva, or Athena, is the goddess of wisdom.

“Since the day of my birth,” answered the youth, “I have never heard that these were gods, but idols.” Oh, father, if you knew how great the Christian God is, Who, having humbled Himself, saved us, then you would believe in Him, for He is the one true God, who created heaven and earth; all other gods are pagan demons.

-Where do you get these speeches that you make? – Gilas asked.

“It is through my lips that He Whom I serve speaks,” answered the saint, “for He said in His Gospel: “Do not worry how or what to say; for in that hour it will be given to you what to say.”(Matt. 10:19).

“Aren’t you afraid of torment, my child?” – Gilas asked. - What will you do when you are taken to the ruler, who will give you up to severe torment?

“Oh, father,” the holy youth answered, smiling, “you uttered a crazy word!” Redeemer of our souls, my Lord Jesus Christ, He will strengthen me, His servant. Don't you know, father, that in the name of the Lord David 17
David - prophet, psalmist and famous king of Israel, who lived eleven centuries before the birth of Christ; waged successful wars with neighboring peoples, significantly expanded the borders of the kingdom of Israel, and took care of streamlining the internal life of the Jews and the improvement of worship. He wrote the book of Psalms, containing 150 (151) psalms, or short religious and moral prayers, expressing the various feelings of the believer.

An unarmed young man killed a strong Goliath with a stone 18
This refers to the famous feat of David in his single combat with the Philistine giant Goliath (for more information on this, see 1 Sam. 17:32–51).

and, drawing his sword, beheaded him?

– In hope of your God, are you ready to endure all the suffering? – Gilas asked.

The saint answered:

“I believe that my Creator, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the One God in the Trinity, will give me the strength not only to courageously endure all the torments, but also to die for Him fearlessly. And you, father, believe in God, about whom I tell you, and then you will be saved. After all, those gods that you now bow to are nothingness - and they never saved anyone and could not do anything. And what is the use of bowing to soulless copper, stone, wood, which, when they fall to the ground, cannot rise, but are broken into pieces and, being broken, do not emit a voice, since they are dumb and insensitive? In ancient times, the names with which you call your idols were used to refer to the most vile and lawless people who engaged in demonic sorcery and indulged in all sorts of atrocities, worthy of all punishment. State laws still condemn such people and put them to death. The damned souls of those gods of yours are currently constantly tormented in the eternal, never-quenching fire of hell. In the same fire those who now serve the idols of those gods will suffer endlessly. Our eternally living God directs everything to a good goal, controls all visible and invisible creatures, rules over heavenly and earthly things. He will truly glorify in His Heavenly Kingdom those who believe in Him and faithfully serve Him. However, on earth He also makes their names glorious, enriching them with wonderful grace, by the power of which they work signs and wonders. For He says: “These signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will take snakes; and if they drink anything deadly, it will not harm them; They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mark 16:17–18).

In May 1763, Catherine the Second ascended the Russian throne and first of all went to Rostov, to the Spaso-Yakovlevsky Monastery. Future great empress bowed to the miraculous relics of Dmitry, Metropolitan of Rostov. It was no coincidence that Catherine decided to turn with prayers to St. Demetrius. During his lifetime, he became famous for his wisdom and talent as a preacher, and was considered a successor to the traditions of John Chrysostom and Gregory the Theologian. And the Chetii-Minea, or lives of saints, written by him still remain a reference book for every Orthodox Christian.

The future Saint Dmitry, in his adolescence Daniel, was born in the Ukrainian town of Makarov in December 1651, in the family of the Cossack centurion Savva Tuntala. However, Daniel refused military service and chose the Brotherhood School at the Epiphany Church in Kyiv. Soon after college, he went to the Cyril monastery, where he took monastic vows, receiving the monastic name Dmitry.

Life had prepared for him many moves from one monastery to another. From a young age, he was expected everywhere as a skilled preacher, a fighter against Roman influence, which was very strong on Ukrainian soil in those years. The love for Dmitry's sermons was so great that one day they detained him with great hospitality in Slutsk, in the Vilna monastery, and did not even want to let him go. However, at the call of Hetman Samoilovich, the preacher moved to Baturin, to the St. Nicholas Monastery, where he became abbot. But he soon abandoned the management of the monastery, as if foreseeing that a greater and more responsible task awaited him.

In 1684, Archimandrite of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Varlaam Yasinsky called Father Dmitry to him. Varlaam highly valued his literary gift and penchant for painstaking scientific work. It was these qualities that were necessary for writing in the New Russian language the complete Readings of the Menaion: the lives of the saints, presented in the order of the months, for daily reading by all Orthodox Christians.

In June of the same 1684, Father Dmitry began the first part of the Chetiy Menaion. In total, he devoted 20 years of his life to writing the Lives of the Saints - and in the modern edition there are 13 volumes with an average of seven hundred pages. Difficult moves from one place to another more than once interrupted the work of Dmitry’s father. And if he wrote the first part of the Lives in Baturin near Kyiv, then he finished the last in Rostov.

In 1701, Father Dmitry was summoned to Moscow. Tsar Peter wanted to spread the light of Christianity in pagan Siberia, and the elder was chosen for this mission - he was ordained Metropolitan of Siberia. However, his health did not allow him to go to distant Tobolsk. In addition, Saint Demetrius was afraid that the new appointment would prevent him from completing the Chetii-Minea. Sovereign Peter reacted favorably to the concerns of Father Dmitry, and he was entrusted with the Rostov department. Rostov and the Spaso-Yakovlevsky Monastery became the last refuge for the saint.

In 1705, the last part of Chetiy-Minei was completed. The health of Father Dmitry was already seriously undermined - the saint, despite his mature years, traveled a lot around the diocese, fighting the schism. “Our damned last times! - wrote Dimitri. - The Holy Church is greatly constrained on the one hand by external persecutors, and on the other by internal schismatics. It is difficult to find a true son of the church; in almost every city a special faith is invented; simple men and women dogmatize and teach about faith.”

On the night of October 28, 1709, Metropolitan Dmitry sent away all the ministers and retired to his cell. In the morning he was found already deceased. In the last minutes of his life, Saint Dmitry prayed.

Current page: 1 (book has 28 pages total) [available reading passage: 16 pages]

Preface

In the publication offered to the reader, the lives of the saints are presented in chronological order. The first volume tells about the Old Testament righteous men and prophets, subsequent volumes will reveal the history of the New Testament Church right up to the ascetics of our time.

As a rule, collections of the lives of saints are built according to the calendar principle. In such publications, the biographies of ascetics are given in the sequence in which the memory of saints is celebrated in the Orthodox liturgical circle. This presentation has a deep meaning, for the church’s memory of a particular moment in sacred history is not a story about the long past, but a living experience of participation in the event. From year to year we honor the memory of the saints on the same days, we return to the same stories and lives, for this experience of participation is inexhaustible and eternal.

However, the temporal sequence of sacred history should not be ignored by the Christian. Christianity is a religion that recognizes the value of history, its purposefulness, professing its deep meaning and the action of God's Providence in it. In a temporal perspective, God's plan for humanity is revealed, that is, “childhood” (“pedagogy”), thanks to which the possibility of salvation is open to everyone. It is this attitude to history that determines the logic of the publication offered to the reader.

On the second Sunday before the Feast of the Nativity of Christ, the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, the Holy Church prayerfully remembers those who “prepared the way for the Lord” (cf. Is. 40:3) in His earthly ministry, who preserved the true faith in the darkness of human ignorance, preserved as a precious gift to Christ who came save the dead(Matthew 18, I). These are people who lived in hope, these are the souls by which the world, doomed to submission to vanity, was held together (see: Rom. 8:20) - the righteous of the Old Testament.

The word “Old Testament” has in our minds a significant echo of the concept of “old [man]” (cf. Rom. 6:6) and is associated with impermanence, closeness to destruction. This is largely due to the fact that the word “dilapidated” itself has become unambiguous in our eyes, having lost the diversity of its originally inherent meanings. Its related Latin word “vetus” speaks of antiquity and old age. These two dimensions define a space of holiness before Christ unknown to us: exemplary, “paradigmatic,” immutability, determined by antiquity and originality, and youth – beautiful, inexperienced and transitory, which became old age in the face of the New Testament. Both dimensions exist simultaneously, and it is no coincidence that we read the hymn of the Apostle Paul, dedicated to the Old Testament ascetics (see: Heb. 11:4-40), on All Saints’ Day, speaking about holiness in general. It is also no coincidence that many of the actions of the ancient righteous people have to be specially explained, and we have no right to repeat them. We cannot imitate the actions of the saints, which are entirely related to the customs of spiritually immature, young humanity - their polygamy and sometimes attitude towards children (see: Gen. 25, 6). We cannot follow their boldness, similar to the power of blooming youth, and together with Moses ask for the appearance of the face of God (see: Ex. 33, 18), which St. Athanasius the Great warned about in his preface to the psalms.

In the “antiquity” and “old age” of the Old Testament - its strength and its weakness, from which all the tension of waiting for the Redeemer is formed - the strength of endless hope from the multiplication of insurmountable weakness.

The Old Testament saints provide us with an example of faithfulness to the promise. They can be called genuine Christians in the sense that their entire lives were filled with the expectation of Christ. Among the harsh laws of the Old Testament, which protected from sin human nature that was not yet perfect, not perfected by Christ, we gain insights into the coming spirituality of the New Testament. Among the brief remarks of the Old Testament we find the light of deep, intense spiritual experiences.

We know the righteous Abraham, whom the Lord, in order to show the world the fullness of his faith, commanded to sacrifice his son. Scripture says that Abraham unquestioningly decided to fulfill the commandment, but is silent about the experiences of the righteous man. However, the narrative does not miss one detail, insignificant at first glance: it was three days’ journey to Mount Moriah (see: Gen. 22: 3-4). How should a father feel as he led the most dear person in his life to the slaughter? But this did not happen right away: day succeeded day, and the morning brought the righteous not the joy of a new light, but a painful reminder that a terrible sacrifice lay ahead. And could sleep bring peace to Abraham? Rather, his condition can be described by the words of Job: When I think: my bed will comfort me, my bed will take away my sorrow, dreams scare me and visions scare me (cf. Job 7:13-14). Three days of travel, when fatigue brought closer not rest, but an inevitable outcome. Three days of painful thought - and at any moment Abraham could refuse. Three days of travel - behind a brief biblical remark lies the power of faith and the severity of the suffering of the righteous.

Aaron, brother of Moses. His name is lost among the many biblical righteous people known to us, obscured by the image of his illustrious brother, with whom not a single Old Testament prophet can be compared (see: Deut. 34:10). We are hardly able to say much about him, and this applies not only to us, but also to the people of Old Testament antiquity: Aaron himself, in the eyes of the people, always retreated before Moses, and the people themselves did not treat him with the love and respect with which they treated their teacher . To remain in the shadow of a great brother, to humbly carry out one’s service, although great, is not so noticeable to others, to serve a righteous man without envying his glory - isn’t this a Christian feat already revealed in the Old Testament?

From childhood, this righteous man learned humility. His younger brother, saved from death, was taken to the palace of the pharaoh and received a royal education, surrounded by all the honors of the Egyptian court. When Moses is called by God to serve, Aaron must retell his words to the people; Scripture itself says that Moses was like a god for Aaron and Aaron was a prophet for Moses (see: Ex. 7: 1). But we can imagine what enormous advantages an older brother must have had in biblical times. And here is a complete renunciation of all advantages, complete submission to the younger brother for the sake of the will of God.

His submission to the will of the Lord was so great that even sorrow for his beloved sons receded before her. When the fire of God burned Aaron's two sons for carelessness in worship, Aaron accepts the instruction and humbly agrees with everything; he was even forbidden to mourn his sons (Lev. 10:1-7). Scripture conveys to us only one small detail, from which the heart is filled with tenderness and sorrow: Aaron was silent(Lev. 10:3).

We have heard about Job, endowed with all the blessings of the earth. Can we appreciate the fullness of his suffering? Fortunately, we do not know from experience what leprosy is, but in the eyes of superstitious pagans it meant much more than just a disease: leprosy was considered a sign that God had abandoned man. And we see Job alone, abandoned by his people (after all, Tradition says that Job was a king): we are afraid of losing one friend - can we imagine what it’s like to lose a people?

But the worst thing is that Job did not understand why he was suffering. A person who suffers for Christ or even for his homeland gains strength in his suffering; he knows its meaning, reaching eternity. Job suffered more than any martyr, but he was not given the opportunity to understand the meaning of his own suffering. This is his greatest sorrow, this is his unbearable cry, which Scripture does not hide from us, does not soften, does not smooth out, does not bury it under the reasoning of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, which, at first glance, are completely pious. The answer is given only at the end, and this is the answer of Job’s humility, which bows before the incomprehensibility of God’s destinies. And only Job could appreciate the sweetness of this humility. This endless sweetness is contained in one phrase, which for us has become a prerequisite for true theology: I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; now my eyes see You; so I renounce and repent in dust and ashes(Job 42:5-6).

Thus, in every story told by Scripture, there are hidden many details that testify to the depth of suffering and the height of hope of the ancient righteous.

The Old Testament has become distant to us with its ritual instructions, which have lost force in the Church of Christ; he frightens us with the severity of punishments and the severity of prohibitions. But he is also infinitely close to us with the beauty of inspired prayer, the power of immutable hope and unwavering striving for God - despite all the falls to which even the righteous have been subjected, despite the inclination to sin of a person who has not yet been healed by Christ. The light of the Old Testament is light from the depth(Ps. 129:1).

The blessed spiritual experience of one of the most famous Old Testament saints - the king and prophet David - has become for us an enduring example of all spiritual experience. These are the psalms, the wondrous prayers of David, in every word of which the fathers of the New Testament Church found the light of Christ. Saint Athanasius of Alexandria has an amazing idea: if the Psalter reveals the most perfect human feelings, and the most perfect Man is Christ, then the Psalter is the perfect image of Christ before His incarnation. This image is revealed in the spiritual experience of the Church.

The Apostle Paul says that we are joint heirs with the Old Testament saints, and they achieved perfection not without us(Heb. I, 39-40). This is the great mystery of God’s economy, and this reveals our mysterious kinship with the ancient righteous. The Church preserves their experience as an ancient treasure, and invites us to join the sacred traditions telling about the lives of the Old Testament saints. We hope that the proposed book, compiled on the basis of the “Cell Chronicler” and “The Lives of the Saints, set out according to the guidance of the Four Menaions” by St. Demetrius of Rostov, will serve the Church in its holy work of teaching and will reveal to the reader the majestic and arduous path of the saints to Christ, saved by Christ .

Maxim Kalinin

Lives of the Saints. Old Testament forefathers

Sunday of the Holy Fathers happens within the dates from December 11 to December 17. All the ancestors of the people of God are remembered - the patriarchs who lived before the law given in Sinai, and under the law, from Adam to Joseph the Betrothed. Together with them, the prophets who preached Christ, all the Old Testament righteous people who were justified by faith in the coming Messiah, and the pious youths are remembered.

ADAM and EVE

After arranging and putting in order all the visible creation above and below and planting Paradise, God the Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, in His Divine Council of Rivers: Let us create man in our image and likeness; may he possess the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, and the wild animals, and the livestock, and all the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And God created man(Gen. 1, 26-27).

The image of God and likeness is not created in the human body, but in the soul, for God does not have a body. God is a disembodied Spirit, and He created the human soul disembodied, similar to Himself, free, rational, immortal, participating in eternity, and united it with flesh, as Saint Damascus says to God: “You gave me a soul by Divine and life-giving inspiration, from the earth I gave you a body.” having created" (Funeral chants). The Holy Fathers make a distinction between the image and likeness of God in the human soul. Saint Basil the Great in his 10th Sixth Day conversation, Chrysostom in his interpretation of the book of Genesis in his 9th conversation, and Jerome in his interpretation of the prophecy of Ezekiel, chapter 28, establish the following difference: the soul receives the image of God from God at the time of its creation, and the likeness of God is created in her in baptism.

The image is in the mind, and the likeness is in the will; the image is in freedom, autocracy, and the likeness is in virtues.

God called the name of the first man Adam(Genesis 5:2).

Adam is translated from Hebrew as an earthen or red man, since he was created from red earth. 1
This etymology is based on the consonance of the words ‘ādām – “man”, ‘adōm – “red”, ‘ădāmā – “earth” and dām – “blood”. – Ed.

This name is also interpreted as “microcosmos,” that is, a small world, for it received its name from the four ends of the great world: from the east, west, north and noon (south). In Greek, these four ends of the universe are called as follows: “anatoli” - east; “disis” – west; “Arktos” – north or midnight; “mesimvria” – noon (south). Take the first letters from these Greek names and it will be “Adam”. And just as in the name of Adam the four-pointed world was depicted, which Adam was to populate with the human race, so in the same name the four-pointed cross of Christ was depicted, through which the new Adam - Christ our God - was subsequently to save the human race, inhabited at the four ends, from death and hell universe.

The day on which God created Adam, as already mentioned, was the sixth day, which we call Friday. On the same day that God created animals and cattle, He also created man, who has common feelings with animals. Man with all creation - visible and invisible, material, I say, and spiritual - has something in common. He has commonality with insensible things in being, with beasts, livestock and every living creature - in feeling, and with Angels in reason. And the Lord God took the created man and brought him into a beautiful Paradise, filled with indescribable blessings and sweets, irrigated by four rivers of the purest waters; in the midst of it was a tree of life, and whoever ate its fruit never died. There was also another tree there, called the tree of understanding or the knowledge of good and evil; it was the tree of death. God, having commanded Adam to eat the fruit of every tree, commanded him not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: On the same day, if you take it down, - he said, - you will die by death(Gen. 2:17). The tree of life is attention to yourself, for you will not destroy your salvation, you will not lose eternal life, when you are attentive to yourself. And the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is curiosity, examining the deeds of others, followed by condemnation of one's neighbor; condemnation entails the punishment of eternal death in hell: Judge for your brother the Antichrist is(James 4:11-12; 1 John 3:15; Rom. 14:10) 2
This interesting interpretation cannot be applied to the biblical narrative itself, if only because Adam and Eve were the only people on earth. But the very idea that the tree of knowledge is associated with a person’s moral choice, and not with some special property of its fruits, has become widespread in patristic interpretations. Having fulfilled God's commandment not to eat from the tree, a person would experience goodness; Having broken the commandment, Adam and Eve experienced evil and its consequences. – Ed.

Holy forefather ADAM and holy foremother EVE

God made Adam king and ruler over all of His earthly creation and subjected everything to his power - all the sheep and oxen, and the livestock, and the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, so that he would possess them all. And he brought to him all the cattle and all the birds and the meek and submissive beast, for at that time the wolf was still like a lamb, and the hawk like a hen in its disposition, one not harming the other. And Adam gave them all names such as were appropriate and characteristic of each animal, coordinating the name of each animal with its true nature and disposition that subsequently emerged. For Adam was very wise from God and had the mind of an angel. The wise and most kind Creator, having created Adam as such, wanted to give him a concubine and loving companionship, so that he would have someone with whom to enjoy such great blessings, and said: It is not good for man to be alone; let us create a helper for him(Genesis 2:18).

And God brought Adam into a deep sleep, so that in his spirit he could see what was happening and understand the upcoming sacrament of marriage, and especially the union of Christ Himself with the Church; for the mystery of the incarnation of Christ was revealed to him (I speak in agreement with theologians), since the knowledge of the Holy Trinity was given to him, and he knew about the former angelic fall and about the impending reproduction of the human race from it, and also through God's revelation then he comprehended many others sacraments, except for his fall, which by the destinies of God was hidden from him. During such a wonderful dream or, better yet, delight 3
In the Septuagint, Adam's dream is designated by the word §ta aig-"frenzy, delight." – Ed.

The Lord took one of Adam’s ribs and created him a wife to help him, whom Adam, waking up from sleep, recognized and said: Behold, bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh(Genesis 2:23). Both in the creation of Adam from the earth, and in the creation of Eve from a rib, there was a prototype of Christ’s incarnation from the Most Pure Virgin, which St. Chrysostom perfectly explains, saying the following: “As Adam, in addition to his wife, produced a wife, so the Virgin without a husband gave birth to a Husband, giving for Eve husbands duty; Adam remained intact after the removal of his fleshly rib, and the Virgin remained incorrupt after the Child came from Her” (Word for the Nativity of Christ). In the same creation of Eve from Adam’s rib there was a prototype of the Church of Christ, which was to arise from the piercing of His rib on the Cross. Augustine says the following about this: “Adam sleeps so that Eve may be created; Christ dies, let there be a Church. When Adam slept, Eve was created from a rib; When Christ died, the ribs were pierced with a spear so that the sacraments by which the Church would be structured would flow out.”

Adam and Eve were both created by God in ordinary human stature, as John of Damascus testifies to this, saying: “God created man who was gentle, righteous, virtuous, carefree, sorrowless, sanctified by all virtue, adorned with all blessings, like a kind of second world, small in the great, another angel, a joint worshiper, bowing to God together with the Angels, an overseer of a visible creation, thinking about mysteries, a king existing on earth, earthly and heavenly, temporary and immortal, visible and thinking, average majesty (in height) and humility, and also spiritual and carnal" (John of Damascus. An accurate exposition of the Orthodox faith. Book 2, ch. XII).

Having thus created on the sixth day a husband and wife to stay in Paradise, entrusting them with dominion over all earthly creation, commanding them to enjoy all the sweets of Paradise, except for the fruits of the reserved tree, and blessing their marriage, which then had to be a carnal union, for he said: Grow and multiply(Gen. 1:28), the Lord God rested from all His works on the seventh day. But He did not rest as if weary, for God is Spirit, and how can He be tired? He rested in order to provide rest to people from their external affairs and worries on the seventh day, which in the Old Testament was the Sabbath (which means rest), and in the new grace the day of the week (Sunday) was sanctified for this purpose, for the sake of what was on this day Resurrection of Christ.

God rested from work in order not to produce new creatures more perfect than those created, for there was no need for more, since every creature, above and below, was created. But God Himself did not rest, and does not rest, and will not rest, supporting and governing all creation, which is why Christ said in the Gospel: My Father is working hitherto, and I am working(John 5:17). God acts, directing the heavenly currents, arranging beneficial changes of times, establishing the earth, which is not based on anything, motionless and producing from it rivers and sweet water springs for watering every living creature. God acts for the benefit of all not only verbal, but also dumb animals, providing for, preserving, feeding and multiplying them. God acts, preserving the life and existence of every person, faithful and unfaithful, righteous and sinful. About Him, - as the Apostle says, - we live and move and we are(Acts 17, 28). And if the Lord God were to withdraw His all-powerful hand from all His creation and from us, then we would immediately perish, and all creation would be destroyed. Yet the Lord does this, without troubling himself at all, as one of the theologians (Augustine) says: “When he rests he does, and when he does he rests.”

The Sabbath day, or the day of God’s rest from work, foreshadowed that coming Saturday, on which our Lord Christ rested in the Tomb after the labors of His free suffering for us and the accomplishment of our salvation on the Cross.

Adam and his wife were both naked in Paradise and were not ashamed (just as small babies are not ashamed today), for they did not yet feel within themselves carnal lust, which is the beginning of shame and about which they knew nothing then, and this is their very dispassion and innocence were like a beautiful robe for them. And what clothes could be more beautiful for them than their pure, virgin, immaculate flesh, delighting in heavenly bliss, nourished by heavenly food and overshadowed by the grace of God?

The devil was jealous of their blissful stay in Paradise and, in the form of a serpent, deceived them so that they would eat the fruit from the forbidden tree; and Eve tasted it first, and then Adam, and both sinned gravely, breaking the commandment of God. Immediately, having angered their Creator God, they lost the grace of God, recognized their nakedness and understood the enemy’s deception, for [the devil] said to them: You will be like a god(Gen. 3:5) and lied, being father of lies(cf. John 8:44). Not only did they not receive deity, but they also destroyed what they had, for they both lost the ineffable gifts of God. Is it only that the devil turned out to be telling the truth when he said: You will be the leader of good and evil(Genesis 3:5). Indeed, it was only at that time that our ancestors realized how good Paradise and staying in it were, when they became unworthy of it and were expelled from it. Truly, good is not so well known that it is good when a person has it in his possession, but at the time when he destroys it. Both of them also knew evil, which they had not known before. For they knew nakedness, hunger, winter, heat, labor, sickness, passions, weakness, death and hell; They learned all this when they transgressed the commandment of God.

When their eyes were opened to see and know their nakedness, they immediately began to be ashamed of each other. At the same hour in which they ate the forbidden fruit, carnal lust was immediately born in them from eating this food; Both of them felt passionate lust in their members, and shame and fear seized them, and they began to cover the shame of their bodies with fig tree leaves. Having heard the Lord God walking in Paradise at noon, they hid from Him under a tree, for they no longer dared to appear before the face of their Creator, whose commandments they did not keep, and hid from His face, being overwhelmed by both shame and great awe.

God, calling them with His voice and presenting them before His face, after testing them in sin, pronounced His righteous judgment on them, so that they would be expelled from Paradise and feed from the labor of their hands and the sweat of their brow: to Eve, so that she would give birth to children in illness; Adam, so that he would cultivate the land that produces thorns and thistles, and for both of them, so that after much suffering in this life they would die and turn their bodies into the ground, and with their souls go down into the prisons of hell.

Only God comforted them greatly in that he revealed to them at the same time about the upcoming Redemption of their human race through the incarnation of Christ after a certain time. For the Lord, speaking to the serpent about the woman that her Seed would erase his head, predicted to Adam and Eve that from their seed would be born the Most Pure Virgin, the bearer of their punishment, and from the Virgin would be born Christ, who with His blood would redeem them and the entire human race from slavery He will lead the enemy out of the bonds of hell and again make him worthy of Paradise and the Heavenly Villages, while he will trample the head of the devil and completely erase him.

And God expelled Adam and Eve from Paradise and settled him directly opposite Paradise, so that he could cultivate the land from which he was taken. He appointed Cherubim with weapons to guard Paradise, so that no man, beast or devil would enter it.

We begin to count the years of the world's existence from the time of Adam's expulsion from Paradise, for how long the time lasted during which Adam enjoyed the blessings of Paradise is completely unknown to us. The time at which he began to suffer after his exile became known to us, and from here the years got their beginning - when the human race saw evil. Truly, Adam knew good and evil at a time when he was deprived of goodness and fell into unexpected disasters that he had never experienced before. For, being at first in Paradise, he was like a son in his father’s house, without sorrow and labor, being satisfied with a ready and rich meal; outside Paradise, as if expelled from his fatherland, he began to eat bread in the sweat of his brow with tears and sighs. His assistant Eve, the mother of all living, also began to give birth to children in illness.

It is most likely that after being expelled from Paradise, our first parents, if not immediately, then not for a long time, knew each other carnally and began to give birth to children: this is partly because both of them were created at a perfect age, capable of marriage, and partly because that their natural lust and desire for carnal intercourse intensified after the former grace of God was taken away from them for breaking the commandment. In addition, seeing only themselves in this world and knowing, however, that they were created and destined by God in order to give birth and multiply the human race, they wanted to see fruit similar to themselves and the multiplication of humanity as soon as possible, and therefore they soon came to know themselves carnally and began to give birth.

When Adam was expelled from Paradise, at first he was not far from Paradise; constantly looking at him with his assistant, he cried incessantly, sighing heavily from the depths of his heart at the memory of the ineffable blessings of heaven, which he lost and fell into such great suffering for the sake of a small taste of the forbidden fruit.

Although our first parents Adam and Eve sinned before the Lord God and lost their former grace, they did not lose faith in God: both of them were filled with the fear of the Lord and love and had hope for their deliverance, given to them in revelation.

God was pleased with their repentance, incessant tears and fasting, with which they humbled their souls for the intemperance they committed in Paradise. And the Lord looked upon them mercifully, listening to their prayers, made out of contrition of heart, and prepared forgiveness for them from Himself, freeing them from sinful guilt, which is clearly seen from the words of the Book of Wisdom: Siya(wisdom of God) preserved the primordial father of the world, the one created, and delivered him from his sin, and gave him every kind of strength to maintain(Wis. 10, 1-2).

Our ancestors Adam and Eve, not despairing of God’s mercy, but trusting in His compassion for mankind, in their repentance began to invent ways of serving God; they began to bow to the east, where Paradise was planted, and to pray to their Creator, and also to offer sacrifices to God: either from the flocks of sheep, which, according to God, was a prototype of the sacrifice of the Son of God, who was to be slain like a lamb for deliverance human race; or they brought from the harvest of the field, which was a foreshadowing of the Sacrament in new grace, when the Son of God, under the guise of bread, was offered as an auspicious Sacrifice to God His Father for the remission of human sins.

Doing this themselves, they taught their children to honor God and make sacrifices to Him and told them with tears about the blessings of heaven, rousing them to achieve the salvation promised to them by God and instructing them to live a life pleasing to God.

After six hundred years from the creation of the world, when the forefather Adam pleased God with true and deep repentance, he received (according to the testimony of George Kedrin) by God's will from the Archangel Uriel, the prince and guardian of repentant people and intercessor for them before God, a well-known revelation about the incarnation of God from the Most Pure, Unmarried and Ever-Virgin Virgin. If the incarnation was revealed, then other mysteries of our salvation were revealed to him, that is, about the free suffering and death of Christ, about the descent into hell and the liberation of the righteous from there, about His three-day stay in the Tomb and the uprising, and about many other mysteries of God, and also about many things that were to happen later, such as the corruption of the sons of God of the Seth tribe, the flood, the future Judgment and the general resurrection of all. And Adam was filled with the great prophetic gift, and he began to predict the future, leading sinners to the path of repentance, and comforting the righteous with the hope of salvation 4
Wed: Georgy Kedrin. Synopsis. 17, 18 – 18, 7 (in references to Kedrin’s chronicle, the first digit indicates the page number of the critical edition, the second - the line number. Links are given by edition: Georgius Cedrenus / Ed. Immanuel Bekkerus. T. 1. Bonnae, 1838). This opinion of George Kedrin raises doubts from the point of view of the theological and liturgical Tradition of the Church. The liturgical poetry of the Church emphasizes the fact that the Incarnation is a sacrament “hidden from the ages” and “unknown to the Angel” (Theotokion on “God the Lord” in the 4th tone). St. John Chrysostom said that the Angels fully realized the God-manhood of Christ only during the Ascension. The statement that all the secrets of the Divine Redemption were revealed to Adam contradicts the idea of ​​​​the gradual communication of Divine revelation to humanity. The mystery of salvation could be revealed in full only by Christ. – Ed.

The holy forefather Adam, who set the first example of both fall and repentance and with tearful sobbing, who pleased God with many deeds and labors, when he reached the age of 930, by God's revelation, he knew his approaching death. Calling his assistant Eve, his sons and daughters, and also calling his grandchildren and great-grandsons, he instructed them to live virtuously, doing the will of the Lord and trying in every possible way to please Him. As the first prophet on earth, he announced the future to them. Having then taught peace and blessing to everyone, he died the death to which he was condemned by God for breaking the commandment. His death befell him on Friday (according to the testimony of Saint Irenaeus), on which he had previously transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, and at the same sixth hour of the day in which he ate the commanded food given to him from the hands of the Evines. Leaving behind many sons and daughters, Adam did good to the entire human race all the days of his life.

How many children Adam gave birth to, historians say differently about this. Georgiy Kedrin writes that Adam left behind 33 sons and 27 daughters; Cyrus Dorotheus of Monemvasia also claims the same thing. The holy martyr Methodius, Bishop of Tire, during the reign of Diocletian in Chalcis (not in Chalcedon, but in Chalcis, for one is the city of Chalcedon, and the other is the city of Chalcis, which see in Onomasticon), a Greek city that suffered for Christ, in the Roman The Martyrology ("Martyr's Word"), under the 18th day of the month of September, the revered one (not found in our Saints), tells that Adam had one hundred sons and the same number of daughters, born along with the sons, for twins were born, male and female 5
Georgy Kedrin. Synopsis. 18, 9-10. – Ed.

The entire human tribe mourned Adam, and they buried him (according to the testimony of Egyptipus) in a marble tomb in Hebron, where the Field of Damascus is, and the Mamre oak tree later grew there. There was also that double cave, which Abraham later acquired for the burial of Sarah and himself, having bought it from Ephron during the time of the sons of the Hittites. So, Adam, created from the earth, returned to the earth again, according to the word of the Lord.

Others wrote that Adam was buried where Golgotha ​​is, near Jerusalem; but it is appropriate to know that the head of Adam was brought there after the flood. There is a probable account of James of Ephesus, who was the teacher of St. Ephraim. He says that Noah, entering the ship before the flood, took the honest relics of Adam from the tomb and carried them with him into the ship, hoping through his prayers to be saved during the flood. After the flood, he divided the relics between his three sons: to the eldest son Shem he gave the most honorable part - the forehead of Adam - and indicated that he would live in that part of the earth where Jerusalem would later be created. Hereby, according to God’s vision and according to the prophetic gift given to him from God, he gave burial to Adam’s forehead on high place, not far from the place where Jerusalem was to arise. Having poured a great grave over his forehead, he called it the “place of the forehead” from Adam’s forehead, buried where our Lord Christ was subsequently crucified by His will.

After the death of the forefather Adam, the forefather Eve still survived; Having lived ten years after Adam, she died in 940 from the beginning of the world and was buried next to her husband, from whose rib she was created.

Among Orthodox people there is such a tradition: whoever prays to St. Dmitry of Rostov, all the saints offer prayer for him, for he worked for many years on the description of their lives and compiled a multi-volume work - “The Book of the Lives of the Saints”, another name: the Fourth Menaion.

Many generations of the Russian people were brought up on this book. Until now, the works of St. Demetrius are republished and read with interest by his contemporaries.

A.S. Pushkin called this book “eternally alive,” “an inexhaustible treasury for an inspired artist.”

Saint Demetrius, the future saint of Rostov, was born in 1651 in the village of Makarov, several miles from Kyiv. He received his education at the Kiev-Mohyla College, and then at the Kirillov Monastery. At the age of 23 (he took monastic vows at 18), the future saint became a famous preacher. In 1684 the cathedral Kiev-Pechersk Lavra blessed him to compile the lives of the saints. To write the book, Saint Demetrius used the first collection of Lives, which was compiled by Saint Macarius (mid-16th century). From the first centuries, Christians recorded events from the lives of holy ascetics. These stories began to be collected in collections, where they were arranged according to the days of their church veneration.

A collection of the lives of Saint Macarius was sent to Saint Demetrius from Moscow by Patriarch Joachim. The first book of Lives was completed four years later - in 1688 (September and November). In 1695, the second book was written (December, February) and five years later the third (March, May). Saint Demetrius completed his work in the Spaso-Jacob Monastery of Rostov the Great.

Lives of the saints are also called Chetii-menaia - books for reading (not liturgical), where the lives of the saints are presented sequentially for every day and month of the whole year (“menaia” in Greek means “lasting month”). The Lives of Saints of St. Dmitry of Rostov, in addition to the biographies themselves, included descriptions of holidays and instructive words on the events of the saint’s life.

The saint's main hagiographical work was published in 1711-1718. In 1745, the Holy Synod instructed the Kiev-Pechersk Archimandrite Timofey Shcherbatsky to correct and supplement the books of St. Dmitry.

Subsequently, Archimandrite Joseph Mitkevich and Hierodeacon Nikodim also worked on this. The collected lives of the holy saints of God were republished in 1759. For the work done, Saint Dmitry began to be called the “Russian Chrysostom.” Saint Dmitry, until his death, continued to collect new materials on the lives of the saints.

Secular readers also viewed the collection of lives as a historical source (for example, V. Tatishchev, A. Schlötser, N. Karamzin used them in their books).

In 1900, “The Lives of the Saints” began to be published in Russian. These books are printed according to the 1904 edition of the Moscow Synodal Printing House.

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