About Orthodox witches: (Abbess Theophila Lepeshinskaya) besides, they are so blameless. Abbess Theophila (Lepeshinskaya)The cry of the third bird: earthly and heavenly in modern monasteries

Rhymes with joy

Reflections on old age

What is youth? –

First voyage on foggy seas,

Seed selection... An unknown skill.

What is old age? –

A bright garden filled with fruits,

Safely delivered cargo.

A. Solodovnikov.

Admonition to Nun Seraphim

Is it good to die young?

Disease or pattern?

Is old age a retribution?

Traditions and trends

Pension: right or mercy?

Save for old age

Forgive me, I feel sorry for the old ladies...

Never give up!

Eh, you klutz...

Tempora mutantur…

About the benefits of reading memoirs

The unconscious does not age

Trains with geese

Everything is useful for a smart person

Old age has its own valor

Nature's rank is defeated

Long live freedom!

“Soon my holiday will come”...

Gate of Eternity

P.S. Saint Gregory the Theologian. A song of exhortation.

Literature

Instead of a preface

Admonition to Nun Seraphim

How to win and overcome anxiety?

Where can I hide from my confusion?

God is merciful - and nothing more

You can't tell. I entrust everything as it is to God.

Maria Petrovykh.

My dear!

When we touch on this topic, I try my best to be an advocate for old age; as you obviously understand, I’m trying to encourage not only you, but also myself, to focus on the good and try not to be a coward: “he who fears is imperfect in love” for God: old age is included in the Creator’s project, which means it cannot simply be a painful appendage of the previous one life, but has its own purpose, its own meaning, and even more so should not turn into torture, evil, torment for a person.

Fear of old age is common to all people, firstly, because death follows it. More frightening than death is the prospect of loss of strength, helplessness, and the threat of becoming a burden to others. Actually, everyone makes the same mistake when judging the future from the perspective of today: they think that physical capabilities will dry up, but desires will remain the same as before. However, you must admit that at 60 years old, youthful exploits not only do not attract attention, but do not even come to mind; We have long since abandoned thoughts of, say, swimming behind buoys in the sea, watching the sunrise on our birthday, working in the garden for sixteen hours straight, walking twenty kilometers through the forest, driving at breakneck speed, driving ourselves, in a car. And remember our childhood dreams: to jump rope two hundred times, to win a hopscotch tournament, to overtake Vovka on a bicycle... thank God, our fantasies are adjusted in accordance with age.

Next, let us be aware: the future is hidden from us, as is tomorrow; Our fears are chimerical, a play of the imagination. We try on other people's illnesses because bad habit: bypassing the present, being in the past or future: what if I have a heart attack, like Vera P.? Or cancer, like with Galina A.? Then I remember my neighbor Lyuba, stricken by arthritis, which progressed over the years, completely immobilized her and brought her to the grave; then the dying state of the mother, who did not understand anything, did not recognize anyone; then you fall into terrible anxiety: we are of the same blood, genes, heredity, a nightmare! The tragedy continues to grow, and you forget to realize in time: the enemy is at work here, he can grab our mind like a hand and hold it in his claws, tormenting us with fruitless worries, depriving us of peace, joy and trust in the Creator.

It would seem, well, old age, it’s stupid to be afraid of it, because they are afraid of the mysterious, the enigmatic; we constantly, for many years, see before us various options and, I hope, draw useful conclusions. For example, K’s mother is surprised, she is close to 90, but, it seems, she is not striving for the end at all, is not preparing: having long ago given up all activities for the monastery, she carefully monitors her health, takes medicine by the handful, sleeps for a long time, only goes out to church, eats carried to the cell, but walks when the weather permits, breathes fresh air, from time to time asks to go to the hospital, where she is cheered up with IVs and injections. But mother Macarius, even in her mid-nineties, although she was overcome by ailments, her legs gave out, her heart was barely beating, she still tried to behave like a monk, to be useful, read the incessant psalter, even at night, often cried about her sins and asked forgiveness for her weakness and uselessness.

Do you remember mother Elena: a completely ordinary, pretty old lady, named Elizabeth, she lived a very difficult life: at the end of the war, having sold everything, she went to a foreign city, where her husband was being treated after being wounded, she brought him out, got him back on his feet, and he went to another; she invested her whole soul in her children, and they grew up atheists and sensualists, her only grandson was found mostly in prison; in a word, she found consolation only in church, in prayer, do you remember how she stood at the service, slightly leaning forward, without moving, all her attention. She cared most about us, city culoms, who were little capable of physical labor, looked for something to help, and in the fall she called the villagers to dig our potatoes; two weeks before her death, she moved to a monastery, she was tonsured, she beamed with delight and gratitude, she died quietly, meekly, the Lord delivered her from torment, although the disease, peritoneal cancer, was conducive to pain and we called a doctor and prepared to obtain painkillers.

Do you remember mother Nina; long ago, in Soviet times, she received tonsure from the parish priest-monk, lived next to the church, but did not go to the monastery, ran her own household; a decent woman, gloomy, with a phlegmatic temperament, with a stern character, she seemed to love only one equally wayward huge cow, Zhdanka. One day I went out into the yard to get firewood and fell by the woodpile: stroke, paralysis, lay for two weeks, now under our full care; she repented silently, nodded and shed tears, bequeathed the small money she had saved for the repair of the dome and quietly, meekly walked away. Do you remember how they buried you? The coffin, which she had prepared long ago, dried well, it was easily carried by the sisters themselves, and the farewell couldn’t have been better. Then we bought five coffins, just in case, and put them in the attic.

And Mother Margarita, whom we took from her sister a month earlier and brought to the monastery; she was ill, so she did not have the strength to gather herself, she only took down her beloved icon from the wall, “Joy to All Who Sorrow”; in the monastery they dressed her in a uniform, and, being a woman, she gained weight from this holy beauty and stood through all the services. One day after dinner, she went up to the priest for a blessing and suddenly began to sag and fall; They managed to pick him up, put him on a chair and carried him to the cell; she rejected the doctor, was sick for the same two weeks and died - on the day of remembrance of the icon “Joy of All Who Sorrow.”

Well, Tatiana L., a reference book on the history of the parish, a storehouse of humor, optimism and Christian joy; rural, she never went anywhere further than the regional center, she worked on a collective farm all her life: as a milkmaid, a calf raiser. A believer since childhood, she always lived with Christ and was not at all afraid of death; on the contrary, she asked for blessings to die, she was tired, only one year remained until she turned 90. On Sunday during Great Lent she venerated all the icons, took communion, and at dawn on Tuesday she quietly left the house, no one heard, she sat down on the porch and gave her soul to God.

Our last loss was mother Afanasy, who did not live to be 60; she fell ill while still in the world, suffered long and hard, endured meekly, repented and thanked those who helped her, considered it a great mercy that the Lord allowed her to live in the monastery for eight whole years, during which she comprehended a lot and learned everything; How worthily and beautifully she carried out the monastic obediences! The only thing that can console us in separation is the hope of meeting there, in future life, but how to replace her here, the one and only?

You are used to being useful, it hurts you to even think that someday you will have to burden someone with your illness, expect, and maybe even ask for someone else’s help, in short, lose independence; it's humiliating. Do you notice that these words – “independence”, “humiliating” – are not in our, not Orthodox vocabulary? The friends not only dragged the relaxed man, they dismantled the roof to bring him to Christ! Did they get their share from God, what do you think? Is there really such a strong line between those who are helped and those who help?

Sevastian's mother told how, back in Soviet times, she had, according to the will of her late mother, to inspect a schema-monastic woman who began her monastic path in a pre-revolutionary monastery; cautious and suspicious, the old woman at first rejected any help with an imperious hand, but after the second stroke she completely lost her strength, was forced to allow herself to be turned over, washed and fed, every time she kissed her hands with her pathetic hands and kept crying, at first, Sebastian’s mother said, like “from pride,” and then seemingly out of gratitude.

Dependence on someone's mercy is the most powerful means of humility, don't you agree? “When you were young, you girded yourself and went where you wanted; and when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and lead you where you do not want to go.” These words of the Savior, addressed to the Apostle Peter, prophesy his violent death, but it is permissible to interpret them by applying them to old age, almost always complicated by the loss of independence and freedom; the body, which was previously only used and neglected, now loudly declares its rights - with pain, stiffness, shortness of breath, exhaustion...

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Abbess Theophila (Lepeshinskaya)

The cry of the third bird: earthly and heavenly in modern monasteries

Religion. War for God
The first edition of this book about modern monasticism in Russia was anonymous. Even when everyone found out, after seeing the cover of the second edition, who the author of “The Cry of the Third Bird” was, the passions did not subside. The book was written by the abbess of the active Russian monastery Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate, who knows so much about monasticism that she always has something to say with irony or pain, and something to remain silent about. This is an honest, informative, piercing and frank book about monks and monasteries, written from the inside by a person who experienced the revival of monasticism in Russia. The strength of Abbess Theophila’s testimony lies in her constant turning to the prayer center, to the spiritual heights and hidden beauty of true monasticism. The third edition is supplemented by a foreword by Olesya Nikolaeva and a section with practical recommendations for those who have gathered to visit the monastery for various purposes.

Abbess Theophila (Lepeshinskaya)

The cry of the third bird: earthly and heavenly in modern monasteries

Approved for distribution by the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church

IS number R17-710-0383

Preface

About fifteen years ago, in a church bookstore, I came across a small book by a certain nun N. “Be of good cheer, daughter” - briefly speaking, about the Christian understanding of the place, purpose and role of a woman in the world. Having opened it at random, I could no longer tear myself away, and after reading it in its entirety, I experienced a feeling of joyful discovery. This happens when meeting a living, talented and meaningful phenomenon. And - in a completely unprecedented case for me - I immediately bought seven, or even ten, of these books to give as gifts, and, handing them over to my chosen ones, I invariably felt that I was giving something very valuable, very important for this person, and looked forward to that spiritual pleasure which he will experience while reading.

Then I was invited to speak to the sisters of the Mother of God-Nativity maiden hermitage in the village of Baryatino, not far from Kaluga, and I went there with my husband. We were met at the gate by the abbess and her assistant and led into the refectory, where the nuns and novices were already sitting. I read poems to them and answered questions. Something in the course of this conversation, namely, some important explanations and precise remarks that the abbess inserted, led me to a vague guess, which later, when we were invited to a meal and talked with the abbess, grew into the confidence that in front of me - that same mysterious nun N., the author of the book that amazed me so much. I recognized her by her turn of phrase, by her intonation, by the intelligent look in her penetrating eyes... And so it turned out. It was Mother Superior Theophila.

Then she wrote a new book, this one - “The Cry of the Third Bird”, which she sent to my husband and me. email even before publication. Burning with impatience to read it as quickly as possible, we wrote it out on paper and sat down next to him, passing the pages we had read to each other... Exemplarily structured, written in magnificent language, full of meanings, both found in the Holy Scriptures, patristic literature and world culture, and supported by personal spiritual experience, this is one of those books that you don’t want to part with: you want to live with it, re-read it, learn from it to penetrate into the essence of the movements of your own soul and comprehend the turns of external events. For it provides the key to understanding Christian life taking place here and now, in the conditions of modern Russia, at a certain historical moment, and places it in the context of the gospel metahistory, which sets the scale.

The volume of erudition of the author is amazing, who easily and freely uses it, organically and compactly placing it at the service of the main idea of human salvation. The subtleties of Christian anthropology, Orthodox dogmatics, asceticism, patristics, hermeneutics, moral theology, clergy, church history, Scripture and Tradition - in a word, churchliness is revealed in this book in an existential light: high speculations are reflected and refracted in specific manifestations human life, testifying to its urgency. This is “our daily bread.”

In addition, books let into the space and adjacent life stories belonging to different centuries, plots from current modern church life, as well as theological speculations, elements of Orthodox dogma, prayer practice, sayings of church leaders of the past and statements of preachers of our time, poetic lines of literary classics , taken as epigraphs to each chapter, and even journalistic digressions - all this, intertwined, creates a picture of the unity of the Christian world, incorporating time and space.

We are talking here, first of all, about monasticism and monasteries as such and about monasteries recreated after the collapse of the stronghold of theomachism and atheism - the Soviet empire, par excellence. Staying inside this process - rebirth monastic life in Russia - gives Abbess Theophila not only the experience of an eyewitness, but also the power of testimony about how this happened: the book contains many specific cases, situations, examples of mistakes, distortions and breakdowns of new pilgrims and newly tonsured monks. This is explained first of all - and forever and ever - by human nature, corrupted by the Fall, but also by the spiritual and moral damage that the “Babylonian captivity” caused to the Christian people. Soviet power: the loss of church traditions, the fading of faith, the distortion of concepts about man, the instability of moral foundations, the fog of delusions and superstitions, the extreme scarcity of genuine teachers of piety. Sometimes it was necessary to start from the scorched field of the human soul...

However, by describing specific regrettable cases of abuse of spiritual power in monasteries and church parishes, religious imposture, mystical amateurism, pharisaism, as well as the ignorance of those who flocked to monasteries and churches, Abbess Theophila does not at all aim to belittle the religious thirst that has opened up among the people . It is not the piquancy of individual episodes, sometimes bordering on anecdotes with which she sometimes illustrates her reasoning, that is the goal here: the height of her calling, the model, the Image of God - this is the ultimate aspiration of her thought. It is not for nothing that the book does not name the names of those whose dubious actions and statements served Mother Superior Theophila only as a tool for her apophatic method. The subject of reproof here is not the person himself, but his false words or bad deeds. Like an experienced restorer, it is as if she removes from the original foundation both the damaged layers of paint and those that sloppy and incompetent gods have roughly laid on it, in order to reveal the hidden Beauty that shines in Orthodoxy.

Although “The Cry of the Third Bird” is a book about monasticism, in its spiritual horizons it is much more voluminous, just like monasticism, the meaning and influence of which is not limited to the walls of a monastery or monastery, but extends to the destinies of peoples, reaching the very heavens. Monasticism is the lot of those who, like the rich young man of the Gospel, strive for perfection, for a life that bears the “reflection of the future age.” And in this sense, this is the very heart of Orthodoxy, the “salt of the earth,” a prayer center, near which the cold heart of a Christian is kindled with the love of Christ; a source of living water, after drinking from which the soul comes to life and the mind is enlightened. Them higher value for Russia and for all of Orthodoxy, what is happening to monasteries and in monasteries: spiritual troubles, impoverishment of faith and cooling of love, “salt that has lost its taste” - can have the most bad consequences for the life of not only the entire country, but also the whole world.

I know one nun who, having asked me for the manuscript of a book, returned it in complete silence, and then published an angry rebuke to her in a magazine, the main pathos of which boiled down to “not washing dirty linen in public.” This image seemed false and self-exposing to me, because monasteries are not a personal hut, but the abode of the Holy Spirit, “the gates of heaven,” “the tabernacle of God with men,” “the consecrated city,” and there is no more worthy zeal here than zeal for the Glory of God , and a more irreconcilable battle than a battle with a crafty enemy trying to pervert and profane this chosen place.

It is not for nothing that the entire Russian culture emerged from the monasteries and became the leaven that formed the national mentality, which, despite all their efforts, neither the Bolsheviks nor the postmodernists were able to completely change. Abbess Theophila attaches great importance to Orthodox education: the re-creation of man “in the image of God.” A Christian, in the words of the apostles Peter and Paul, must always be ready to give the questioner an answer about his hope and give an account for himself to God.

The author of the book contrasts Christian enlightenment with the ignorance and arbitrariness of the mind, which always either blindly and thoughtlessly follows the direction of a guide and risks getting lost by losing it, or strives to deviate into willful, proud quests fraught with schismatic potential or sectarian twist. The faith of the “coal miner and the old nurse” rarely passes the crucible of tests without damage.

Spiritual enlightenment, nutrition from the Gospel and patristic sources, knowledge of Tradition and church history, reading good literature following experience church prayer They bring together, center and form the personality, saving it from the fragmentation of consciousness and internal confusion, elevate it and help free it from the power of dark natural instincts.

It is not without reason that in her monastery, Abbess Theophila made part of her spiritual leadership the enlightenment and education of the nuns entrusted to her: in addition to participating in divine services and general monastery obediences - work in gold-embroidery and icon-painting workshops, work in the field, barnyard and in the kitchen - mother, inviting nuns and novices to the monastery library, rich in books, devotes part of his time to reading lectures on a variety of disciplines, both church and humanities.

Another surprising property of this book is that its content does not contradict the form, the meaning of the statement does not contradict its style. Excellent knowledge of the psychology of the human soul is also confirmed by the accuracy of expression. Neatness of thought corresponds to verbal transparency. And the aesthetic persuasiveness of Orthodoxy is expressed in the grace, even artistry, of style, which nevertheless remains masculine (monastically) clear and firm. This is what only a person says and writes, who testifies with full responsibility to the fact that he has experienced, felt, thought through and understood, with God’s help, himself, from his own experience, “God cooperates...”: “Shed blood and you will receive the Spirit.”

In a word, we have a wonderful writer, abbess, whose books can already be ranked among the Orthodox classics. Just as I once gave it to “Dare, Daughter,” with the feeling of a pioneer, so now I experience joy, anticipating the pleasure and spiritual benefit that the reader will receive from “The Cry of the Third Bird.” Amen.

Olesya Nikolaeva

To sisters, with love

Three monks stood on the seashore. A voice came to them from the other bank: “Take wings and come to Me.” Following the voice, the two monks received wings of fire and quickly flew to the other side. The third remained in the same place. He began to cry and scream. Finally, he too was given wings, but not fiery, but rather powerless, and he flew across the sea with great difficulty and effort. Often he weakened and sank into the sea; Seeing himself drowning, he began to cry out pitifully, rose from the sea, again flew quietly and low, again became exhausted, again sank into the abyss, cried out again, rose again and, exhausted, barely flew across the sea.

The first two monks served as an image of the monasticism of the first times, and the third - the monasticism of the last times, meager in number and success.

Memorable tales about the asceticism of the holy and blessed fathers

The Holy Fathers of Skete prophesied about the last generation, saying: “What have we done?” And, answering, one of them, great in life, named Ischirion, said: “We have created the commandments of God.” They also asked: “Will those following us do anything?” He said: “They will achieve half of our work.” - “And after them what?” And he said: “The people of his kind will have no deeds at all, but temptation will come to them, and those who prove worthy in this temptation will be higher than us and our fathers.”

Ancient patericon

...These people look like birds, my brother!
We also strive for the cherished Light:
Like some strong birds hurry,
There are others behind them, even though there are no such forces.
Only I perish like the third bird;
I don’t have the strength to fly above the clouds...
More and more often we have to sit in the waves...
But, God, don’t let me sink to the bottom!

Archdeacon Roman (Tamberg). Parable

Black monk behind a stone wall

Glory glows golden
Monastery cross from afar.
Shouldn't we turn towards eternal peace?
And what is life without a hood!

Are they really Chinese?..

This idea about the future of Russia, first expressed, it seems, by Fr. Andrei Kuraev, at first it comes as a shock; however, once you start thinking in a given direction, you gradually get used to it: are we better than the Greeks, from whom we received the sacred inheritance, and are we not more stiff-necked than the Jews: those, who found themselves after 70 years of captivity in an unfortunate devastated country, did not care about quality of life, but about a return to a single faith and the restoration of the Temple. Moreover, there has long been a rumor that the invasion and subsequent predominance yellow people definitely predicted either by the Bible or Nostradamus; and why is it not likely that our slanting brethren will gradually penetrate into Siberia, and then into Tula and Ryazan in small groups of one hundred thousand people with mass conversion to Orthodoxy? After all, God loves the Chinese too.

According to statistics, there are almost 80 million Orthodox Christians in Russia, but provincial priests claim that at most two percent of the population regularly attend church. Nevertheless, Orthodoxy is terribly popular, and especially monasticism, as evidenced by the widespread use of its image in advertising: “Holy Spring” drinking water, “Monastic dumplings” (with meat, of course), and even wine and vodka products! " Procession of the Cross", "Confession of a Sinner" (white semi-sweet and supposedly natural); “Black Monk”, “Old Monk”, “Whisper of a Monk”, “Tear of a Monk”, “Confession of a Monk”, “Soul of a Monk”, tea “ Chinese monk", with calls on the labels: touch the secret of ancient monasteries!..

They probably sell well, as do popular books with enticing titles: “Pelagia and white bulldog", "Pelagia and the Black Monk", "Pelagia and the Red Rooster", with a round face in glasses and an apostle on the cover. A church magazine dedicated a serious article to the author with a thorough analysis of the distortions of Christian truths and monastic rules; blissful - or naive - pure in heart! The fashionable writer did not at all strive for the truth of life; he set completely different goals, calculating queries using TV and computer general public, exhausted by progress: the century before last, cozy from afar, plus a detective plot, plus mysterious characters, unknown animals, some merchants, bishops, schema-monks, nuns.

The road, as usual, was paved long ago in the West, after the stunning success of the novel “The Name of the Rose,” flooding the market with bestsellers of similar themes, but of incomparably low quality, right up to the mediocre and boring parody of K. Buckley and D. Tierney “The Lord is My Broker” ( !) about overcoming the financial crisis in an American monastery, a new product offered at the book sale. Of course, the fantastic demand for the latest temptations, Da Vinci codes, etc. testifies to a stable, unabated, despite the secularism of the supposedly post-Christian era, interest in Christ.

Headlines of articles devoted to monasteries hint at terrible, shameful acts that are committed in the dead silence of tightly locked cells.

Current page: 1 (book has 19 pages total) [available reading passage: 13 pages]

Abbess Theophila (Lepeshinskaya)
The cry of the third bird: earthly and heavenly in modern monasteries

Approved for distribution by the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church

IS number R17-710-0383

* * *

Preface

Then she wrote a new book, this one, “The Cry of the Third Bird,” which she sent to my husband and me by e-mail even before publication. Burning with impatience to read it as quickly as possible, we wrote it out on paper and sat down next to him, passing the pages we had read to each other... Exemplarily structured, written in magnificent language, full of meanings, both found in the Holy Scriptures, patristic literature and world culture, and supported by personal spiritual experience, this is one of those books that you don’t want to part with: you want to live with it, re-read it, learn from it to penetrate into the essence of the movements of your own soul and comprehend the turns of external events. For it provides the key to understanding Christian life taking place here and now, in the conditions of modern Russia, at a certain historical moment, and places it in the context of the gospel metahistory, which sets the scale.

The volume of erudition of the author is amazing, who easily and freely uses it, organically and compactly placing it at the service of the main idea of human salvation. The subtleties of Christian anthropology, Orthodox dogmatics, asceticism, patristics, hermeneutics, moral theology, clergy, church history, Scripture and Tradition - in a word, churchliness is revealed in this book in an existential light: high speculations are reflected and refracted in specific manifestations of human life, testifying to its essence. This is “our daily bread.”

We are talking here, first of all, about monasticism and monasteries as such and about monasteries recreated after the collapse of the stronghold of theomachism and atheism - the Soviet empire, par excellence. Being inside this process - the revival of monastic life in Russia - gives Abbess Theophila not only the experience of an eyewitness, but also the power of testimony about how this happened: the book contains many specific cases, situations, examples of errors, distortions and breakdowns of new pilgrims and newly tonsured monks. This is explained first of all - and forever - by human nature, corrupted by the Fall, but also by the spiritual and moral damage that the “Babylonian captivity” of Soviet power inflicted on the Christian people: the loss of church traditions, the fading of faith, the distortion of concepts about man, the instability of moral foundations , the fog of delusions and superstitions, the extreme scarcity of genuine teachers of piety. Sometimes it was necessary to start from the scorched field of the human soul...

Although “The Cry of the Third Bird” is a book about monasticism, in its spiritual horizons it is much more voluminous, just like monasticism, the meaning and influence of which is not limited to the walls of a monastery or monastery, but extends to the destinies of peoples, reaching the very heavens. Monasticism is the lot of those who, like the rich young man of the Gospel, strive for perfection, for a life that bears the “reflection of the future age.” And in this sense, this is the very heart of Orthodoxy, the “salt of the earth,” a prayer center, near which the cold heart of a Christian is kindled with the love of Christ; a source of living water, after drinking from which the soul comes to life and the mind is enlightened. All the more important for Russia and for all of Orthodoxy is what is happening to and in monasteries: spiritual troubles, impoverishment of faith and cooling of love, “salt that has lost its taste” - can have the most bad consequences for the life of not only the entire country, but also the whole world.

Spiritual enlightenment, nourishment from the Gospel and patristic sources, knowledge of Tradition and church history, reading good literature following the experience of church prayer gathers together, centers and shapes the personality, saving it from split consciousness and internal confusion, elevates it and helps free itself from the power of the dark ones. natural instincts.

Olesya Nikolaeva

To sisters, with love

Three monks stood on the seashore. A voice came to them from the other bank: “Take wings and come to Me.” Following the voice, the two monks received wings of fire and quickly flew to the other side. The third remained in the same place. He began to cry and scream. Finally, he too was given wings, but not fiery, but rather powerless, and he flew across the sea with great difficulty and effort. Often he weakened and sank into the sea; Seeing himself drowning, he began to cry out pitifully, rose from the sea, again flew quietly and low, again became exhausted, again sank into the abyss, cried out again, rose again and, exhausted, barely flew across the sea.

The first two monks served as an image of the monasticism of the first times, and the third - the monasticism of the last times, meager in number and success.

Memorable tales about the asceticism of the holy and blessed fathers

The Holy Fathers of Skete prophesied about the last generation, saying: “What have we done?” And, answering, one of them, great in life, named Ischirion, said: “We have created the commandments of God.” They also asked: “Will those following us do anything?” He said: “They will achieve half of our work.” - “And after them what?” And he said: “The people of his kind will have no deeds at all, but temptation will come to them, and those who prove worthy in this temptation will be higher than us and our fathers.”

Ancient patericon

...These people look like birds, my brother!
We also strive for the cherished Light:
Like some strong birds hurry,
There are others behind them, even though there are no such forces.
Only I perish like the third bird;
I don’t have the strength to fly above the clouds...
More and more often we have to sit in the waves...
But, God, don’t let me sink to the bottom!
Archdeacon Roman (Tamberg). Parable

Black monk behind a stone wall

Glory glows golden
Monastery cross from afar.
Shouldn't we turn towards eternal peace?
And what is life without a hood!

A. Blok

Are they really Chinese?..

This idea about the future of Russia, first expressed, it seems, by Fr. Andrei Kuraev, at first it comes as a shock; however, once you start thinking in a given direction, you gradually get used to it: are we better than the Greeks, from whom we received the sacred inheritance, and are we not more stiff-necked than the Jews: those, who found themselves after 70 years of captivity in an unfortunate devastated country, did not care about quality of life, but about a return to a single faith and the restoration of the Temple. Moreover, there has long been a rumor that the invasion and subsequent predominance yellow people definitely predicted either by the Bible or Nostradamus; and why is it not likely that our slanting brethren will gradually penetrate into Siberia, and then into Tula and Ryazan in small groups of one hundred thousand people with mass conversion to Orthodoxy? After all, God loves the Chinese too.

According to statistics, there are almost 80 million Orthodox Christians in Russia, but provincial priests claim that at most two percent of the population regularly attend church. Nevertheless, Orthodoxy is terribly popular, and especially monasticism, as evidenced by the widespread use of its image in advertising: “Holy Spring” drinking water, “Monastic dumplings” (with meat, of course), and even wine and vodka products! “Procession of the Cross”, “Confession of a Sinner” (white semi-sweet and supposedly natural); “Black Monk”, “Old Monk”, “Whisper of a Monk”, “Tear of a Monk”, “Confession of a Monk”, “Soul of a Monk”, tea “Chinese Monk”, with calls on the labels: touch the secret of ancient monasteries!..

They probably sell well, just like popular books with enticing titles: “Pelagia and the White Bulldog”, “Pelagia and the Black Monk”, “Pelagia and the Red Rooster”, with a round face in glasses and an apostle on the cover. A church magazine dedicated a serious article to the author with a thorough analysis of the distortions of Christian truths and monastic rules; blessed – or naive – are the pure in heart! The fashionable writer did not at all strive for the truth of life; he set completely different goals 1
SALES rating is what today determines the quality of literature and the professionalism of the writer; and the light genre wins everywhere, because it is supported by promotion, which adherents of mass tastes are great masters at.

Having calculated with the help of TV and computer the needs of the general public, exhausted by progress: the century before last, cozy from afar, plus a detective plot, plus mysterious characters, unknown animals, some merchants, bishops, schema monks, nuns.

The road, as usual, was paved long ago in the West, after the stunning success of the novel “The Name of the Rose,” flooding the market with bestsellers of similar themes, but of incomparably low quality, right up to the mediocre and boring parody of K. Buckley and D. Tierney “The Lord is My Broker” ( !) about overcoming the financial crisis in an American monastery, a new product offered at the book sale. Of course, there is fantastic demand for The Last Temptations, Da Vinci Codes etc. testifies to a stable, unabated, despite the secularism of the supposedly post-Christian era, interest in Christ.

Headlines of articles devoted to monasteries hint at terrible, shameful acts that are committed in the dead silence of tightly locked cells.

And the everyday press does not deny monasticism attention for the same reason formulated by Buratino: there's some mystery here. The articles are friendly, with pompous descriptions of nature, daily routine, have a delicious lunch and cordial mother, and, on the contrary, revealing ones, painting a gloomy landscape, cruel discipline, meager menu, self-interested bosses and flagrant violation of human rights. One metropolitan newspaper directly wrote that the abbess uses young novices in order to attract sponsors, so to speak, in payment for generous donations... It is sometimes a pity that the Church prefers not to sue.

“Behind the Stone Wall”, “Behind the Monastery Walls”, the favorite “Men of High Security” - the titles hint at terrible, shameful acts that are committed in the dead silence of tightly locked cells. But it seems that Komsomolskaya Pravda has undertaken a promising intelligence operation, sending a spy to a monastery beyond the Urals 2
Maybe there will be more! It is reported that a reality show is being prepared on television with a study of the monastery among such closed structures as a prison, a foreign legion, israeli army“We put our man there and show the system from the inside,” one of the authors of the project promised in the press. The idea has long been implemented in the USA.

The girl pretended to try her hand at becoming a monk, was treated kindly, all doors were opened to her... So what? Nothing sensational; gave almost enthusiastic reports to the newspaper... Who knows, maybe someday she will come to the monastery for real.

But the usual way of correspondents sent for a couple of hours for exotic things is to fantasize to the extent of their own depravity, inventing bizarre explanations of the incomprehensible phenomenon that monasticism remains for everyone, alien and even not completely alien to Christianity. Well,

...my affairs
It's a little useful for you to know.
Can you tell your soul?
M. Yu. Lermontov

In fact, already in the time of St. Ignatius, Moscow magazines called monasticism an anachronism. K. Leontyev quoted a letter he received: “In our time, an idiot or a fraudster can become a monk.” At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was considered good manners to ridicule monks as stupid ignoramuses, useless for the good of humanity, and committing senseless violence against nature. In 1908, a book by Protestant theologian Adolf Harnack, “Monasticism. His ideals and his history." With irritation smoothed over by irony, the author exposes the absurdity of the behavior of fanatical ascetics who torture themselves for an unknown purpose, perhaps for the sake of museum storage of long-outdated rituals.

Monasticism is still in Russia, when it makes its way like a frail flower through the asphalt 3
I would like to compare the current situation with the era of the Edict of Milan, when the people saw the president, that is, the emperor, overshadowing himself sign of the cross, and poured into churches, but conscience warns against excessive optimism.

Trying to be born again, you are criticized from all sides. Those who are broadly and modernly inclined prove, as they did a century ago, that monasteries have outlived their time and it is much more useful to serve one’s neighbor through charitable and social institutions; pity the miserable monks who have lost the right to simple human happiness, lost to the world with its fast pace and colorful fireworks of great and small pleasures; The fate of girls, deprived of the joys of love and motherhood, is especially tragic; and if there is persecution again, they will kill everyone! And finally, there is always a topical reproach: those who become monks doom humanity to extinction.

Newspaper writers, ironizing about “cozy mythologies” about ancient times, when people were more pious and food tastier 4
What mythologies! Hand on heart, anyone will agree that people were truly more pious and the food was truly tastier - even in not so ancient times.

On the fly, they create other mythologies: among the monks then, as always, quarrels, theft, neglect of the sick and conflicts with the authorities flourished, but democracy reigned and all the highest church positions were elected (“NG-religions”). A well-known contingent, designated as “renovationism,” more than friendly towards Old Believers, Catholics, Protestants and Judaists, categorically does not accept monasticism, although it is Russian: Taizé 5
There, they say, numerous pilgrims are received with love, that is, with a courteous smile. “And I,” one abbess shared, “when I see this crowd for the holiday, I’m horrified: will there be enough food, where will I be accommodated, and we definitely won’t have enough bed linen for everyone, and water! and the sewer pit will definitely overflow, and you won’t be able to pump it out!..”

And other foreign tabernacles adherents Orthodoxy with a human face willingly visit and sing praises.

Others seek and do not find high spirituality: “Monasticism has lost its promise, it does not contain the promises given to us by the Most Holy Trinity itself.” 6
L. D. Bitekhtina. East - West, the experience of old age. Speculation of the soul. M.: Peresvet, 2002. The given incomprehensible phrase reflects the style of this thick, more than strange book, which opens with praise of the “divine intuitions” of Teresa of Avila.

There is criticism of the Synod, which blesses the opening of more and more monasteries: why so many if those already opened are so imperfect; less is better, the unforgettable leader of the world proletariat used to say, and long before him, Empress Catherine, who, for the most sensible reasons, shuffled surplus monastics and achieved the almost complete extermination of monasteries 7
Contrary to the age of enlightenment. Biography and works of the Most Reverend Gabriel (Petrov). Preface. M.: Pilgrim, 2001.

By the same logic, in the interests of quality, marriages should also be limited - there are too many unsuccessful ones.

Let the world not prescribe the law to the work of God, says Saint Philaret of Moscow. Now on the territory of Russia there are more than four hundred monasteries - but not one, with the exception of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, has reached the age of twenty; It is incorrect to expect triumphant achievements from them, much less pass judgment: monasticism is in decline... the monastic spirit is falling catastrophically 8
Archim. Rafail (Karelin). The mystery of salvation. M., 2001. pp. 221–222.

Fall suggests lost height; It is unclear from what standard to count, what monasticism to value as a criterion - Egyptian? Palestinian? Byzantine? Athonite? Old Russian? our pre-revolutionary? Various situations have happened in history; Let's take the phenomenon of the Tavenisian monasteries: they flourished - quantitatively and qualitatively - during the life of the founder, the great Pachomius, and then fell into impoverishment, which specifically meant the decline of the Tavenisian monasteries; monasticism continued to shine and smell fragrant, but in other places.

The loudest critics of monasteries, as always, are the monks themselves, especially those outside the monasteries. If buildings and temples are actively being built, they grumble that souls should be created, not stones - as if if construction was stopped, souls would grow faster. They let pilgrims and tourists in – it’s a walk-through yard, but if the gates are locked, they’re selfish and live only for themselves. They start vast fields or profitable production - they call them collective farms; if there are no fields and industries - lazy people who do not want to work.

Now in Russia there are more than four hundred monasteries - but not one, with the exception of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, has reached the age of twenty. It is incorrect to expect triumphant achievements from them, much less pass judgment.

Cleanliness and order - decoration; social service- shelters, almshouses - vanity and show; few inhabitants - no one comes, many - random people; they accept the elderly - why, they will no longer understand anything, the young - who will teach them what; monastic life, they say, today is just an appearance, without meaning and content, since there are no leaders, elders; refer to the judgments of St. Seraphim Zvezdinsky and St. Lawrence of Chernigov, relating to the era of total collapse, when imagining the revival of the Church was as unthinkable as the sudden abolition of Soviet power; the abolition of monasteries was seen as final and marked the extermination of Christianity, preceding the immediate end of the world.

The apocalyptic motive, which intensified with the pandemonium around the INN, still feeds the enthusiasm of the super-Orthodox zealots: they leave the dioceses if the bishop is not of a spirit they like; they send anonymous letters against the Synod to monasteries and in published leaflets they call for sewing backpacks, purchasing tents, sleeping bags, kerosene stoves, and preparing to go into the forests 9
Already at the beginning of the 19th century, ascetics left the Roslavl (Bryansk, Zhizdra) forests - for various reasons, including the destruction of forests - and settled in monasteries. There were also persecutions free monks, with forced eviction. But even in the heyday of desert living (forced due to the closure of monasteries), in the 18th century, there was no idyll: the monks were persecuted by land and forest owners, robbed and beaten, sometimes to death, by robbers; some rogue could, in mischief, set fire to the hermit’s house while he was going to church. What can you expect in today's forests!

; such agitation easily falls on the Soviet culture, the habit of always expecting something terrible; many still live with a joyless faith not in Christ, but in the Antichrist, intending, however, to somehow hide from him and wait out the end of the world; brochures and articles are full of lamentations: in our time of need... I just want to object, as Leontyev once did: his time, perhaps, is not my time at all.

The reason for the hostile attitude towards monasticism obviously lies in the fact that monks live according to the laws of another world. It is known what a wary, hostile attitude is met by dissidents; Moreover, those who live differently seem vaguely dangerous and cause anxiety that cannot be explained by logic. It’s one thing to feel sorry for the stepsons of fortune, the runts who haven’t found a more cheerful and comfortable place in the sun than a monastery, but what irritation, even rage, is caused by the opposite concept: “Everything is mediocre in comparison with monasticism, and every feat in comparison with it is philistinism.” 10
A. F. Losev. Dialectics of myth. M., 2001. P. 168.

Once you mention monasticism, relatives, friends, acquaintances, who have never been close to any monastery, will find many contrary arguments, they will dissuade, frighten and be horrified... Perhaps those in the world are sometimes visited by a crazy thought: what if they are right? monnoristsy and it is really impossible, in the words of Alyosha Karamazov, to give instead total two rubles, and instead follow me go only to mass? But if so... they they'll get in first?.. And we?.. And me?..

This is how suspicions arise, which are eliminated by reading from books or looking for anything bad on pilgrimage trips to monasteries. This is not difficult: strict, taciturn monks mean they have no love; hiding their eyes - hypocrites, looking straight - impudent; cheerful - so frivolous; sad - yeah, they feel bad; a meager meal - they starve, a plentiful meal - wow fasting people! the poor, pine-covered setting is like a barracks, but the decent furniture, paintings and carpets are new Russians!

All that remains is to conclude: what monasteries these days are! they eat and sleep... and they are no better than us! – and then breathe a sigh of relief. It all depends on the point of view: in the old days, say, Gogol, having visited Optina, received a spiritual charge for years and was grateful, but Tolstoy received nothing and blamed both the monasteries and the entire Russian Church for this...

“Patron” by Olesya Nikolaeva: an encyclopedia of Russian life; These words were once applied to “Eugene Onegin,” and such an analogy does not seem at all inappropriate to me.

Surprising: it seems that “Patron” for only one topic of the day should give rise to a great variety of diverse opinions and heated debates. But nothing like that - deaf silence. We have to, in pre-computer language, put pen to paper in order to attract the attention of at least the visitors of our site to it.

The new novel by O. Nikolaeva is a very large book, 878 pages in small print; This circumstance alone will scare off the reader: in recent years we have somehow lost the habit of major works; Moreover, “Patron” in no way resembles emotional and cozy Orthodox fiction, in which any conflicts, both external and internal, are easily and simply resolved thanks to faith, prayer and a timely miracle. In addition, the author’s unconditional affiliation with the Church sharply narrows the scope of mass interest - and how I would like the book to be read by those who, like the main character, being “in the very center of world orthodoxy”, stubbornly “do not allow themselves to be caught by it” (203) .

Reading the novel, you ask yourself a difficult question that torments every believer who is not indifferent to the fate of the Fatherland - why God-bearing people over the past decades of freedom granted from above, have you not become a Christian? The answer, although it is not formulated due to the lack of primitive edification and obsessive teaching, is to some extent clear. Educated, smart, subtle people, in the process of intellectual search, get involved in transcendental meditation, sphere music, political get-togethers, and end up with sorcerers and swindlers - because they are not looking for the truth, but for a new, sharp, exciting and uplifting pleasure, and on the cheap; simple, good people, compassionate, conscientious, religious, fall into cave superstition, prefer hatred and barricades, arming themselves with icons of new “saints” extracted from the most deplorable depths of our history - because they are also lazy, spiritually ignorant, selfish and instead of meaning, peace soul, joy in God, or at least the notorious “justice”, they thirst for self-affirmation, miracles, and power. The sinister figures of Fyodor Lyutik, a mentally ill, vanity-obsessed preacher and “savior of the world,” and the lopsided provocateur Svishchenko, a provocateur and “fighter for the purity of faith,” concentrate in themselves these bad, destructive traits inherent in gloomy interpreters and soothsayers who sow a rotten spirit of mistrust and suspicion, followed by unrest, rebellion, and schism. Will the “turbulent element of folk beliefs” ultimately enter the “strong church channel” (590), will Lenechka and Adamchik, Boriska and Vasyatka, Vera and Varvara, the Frolovna sisters, the home-grown nun Ascetria, the “sinless” Zorkaltsev become ORTHODOX - an open question .

Simplicity tends to organically transform into active stupidity, sometimes crushing, leading to disaster; an example is the fate of the novice novice Igor, who commits murder due to blind, illiterate, rabid fanaticism, possibly complicated by the post-traumatic syndrome of his former Afghan. Simple people easily become “suitable, flexible and pliable material” (634) for malicious missionaries and sectarians. It is rightly noted that destructive superstitions, up to “the displacement of the earth’s axis in Thailand” (830), penetrate into monasteries, among “professionals”, because some monks enjoy theories of the imminent destruction of the world, for the same reason as those mentioned in this regard, bikers: “if everything burns and fails, then why bother and strain?” (847).

Roman by O. Nikolaeva is a Very Big Book, amazing with its extraordinary artistic power and depth, even in comparison with other wonderful works by the same author. On its pages live and act characters of various beliefs and moral principles, from all existing social strata of Russian reality: bishops, elders, priests, monks, writers, billiard players, officials, oligarchs, deputies, artists, performers; here is the trickster Lazik Handel, and the investigator Veve, and the lawyer Baksov, and fatal beauties with extravagant manners, and “Lily from Odessa,” and the inhabitants of the almshouse, and the inhabitants of the madhouse, and roguish soothsayers, and self-proclaimed teachers, and each with his own biography , expressive behavior and own little words. Karetnikov, Berg’s friend and teacher, stands apart, Mitenka, Minka, an apologist for indifference to material things (the highest praise on his lips is “he doesn’t need anything”), a boy of the war years, a martyr of the Soviet era, who, however, managed to defend at great cost inner freedom and live real life, combining tragedy and bliss (310).

And this is what we see: our people, despite the dislocations and fractures of the last century, still remain a single family, however, there has been an abundance of divorce in this family freaks, “animals”, possessed by animal instincts of prey, freebies, muddy free “grandmas”. Powerful information pressure, relying on the most base and vicious in us, gradually changes national character: super-personal values, high ideals - God, Motherland, conscience, soul - are questioned, forced out of consciousness, giving way to irresponsibility, licentiousness, greed and aggression.

The novel, incorporating modern Russian life with everything good and bad, is chock-full of amazing stories, incredible incidents and stunning coincidences, which would be enough for several exciting books; what are the conspiracy plots worth - intrigues with the “Union of Friends of the Jewish People” and the “Radical Party”, numerical research and “deciphering” of the “Tsokotukha Flies”, technology of provocation and organization by the “Sisoevites” and “Zakopantsy” of mass madness; and the phantasmagoria with the “Gibraltar-Gibraltar system” and the world government is reminiscent of Dostoevsky’s “The Demons.” However, the feeling of artificiality and authorial arbitrariness does not arise anywhere - what is happening is subordinated to the logic of living life, it does not matter whether the writer’s generosity is generated by the power of imagination or the wealth of erudition.

There are so many characters and incidents, they are so linked and intricately intertwined with one another, that it is difficult to keep them in memory, to follow storyline from event to event, from era to era, moreover, mention of real historical figures, say, the abbot of the Sretensky Monastery, Bishop Diomede, “Mishka Gorbachev,” the poet Mezhirov further enhances the feeling of recognition and authenticity. The plot sparkles and shimmers: falsifications, practical jokes, literary hoaxes, homeless millionaires; talking artifacts: Brazilian shaman, mystical jaguar, Chechen dagger, dueling pistols, Matronushka’s “bag”, St. Tikhon of Zadonsk’s bag, St. Barbara’s mittens, St. Mitrofan’s cap, the belt of the martyr Tryphon - the action either evades the main character, then returns to him again; "Patron" - smart book, difficult in a sense, presupposing an understanding reader, requiring a certain level of intelligence, culture, erudition, and awareness in church matters.

And it’s a terrible book, because it’s about all of us, including church members, who present themselves as “servants of God,” but in reality are seeking in the Church his and only yours. Neophyte Berg, a philosopher and romantic, endowed with intellectual reflection, can be deceived, mistaking “quiet delight” and “the splashing fish of joy” in his chest for the enduring value of faith, although he is inspired by the “difference” that is flattering for vanity - “from Schelling to a simple old man in underdress" (207). But the super-believers, adherents of Elder Sisoy, who flies “to another dimension” from his energetic guardians, with an unshakable consciousness of their rightness, answer the monastic inhabitants of the Serapion Desert: “we have our own” (440). Each demonstrates his own, completely earthly, preference for the will of God, upsetting the most charming diocesan bishop Varnava: either a celibate deacon wanted to get married, then a priest with many children, in another case, the priest’s wife with many children runs away to a monastery, then the priest left for permanent residence in Israel, to add more obstinate ones false nuns, sectarian revolt of the elder's defenders, militant ignorance on the one hand and advanced liberals on the other; around the Church there are distortions, conspiracies, gossip, old wives' tales: seven elders, INN, masons, spies, the world behind the scenes, 666, the Antichrist and, of course, the end of the world.

It’s not angels falling from heaven into the monastery either: the Serapion Hermitage, a society in miniature, brought together people of different nationalities, ages, professions, cultural qualifications, degrees of faith; it is inhabited by repentant robbers, former drug addicts and alcoholics, priests' sons and orphans, cold and hot, reverent and stiff-necked, tax collectors and Pharisees, bores and entertainers (486). Does any of them understand the law formulated by the governor: “You came to the monastery - consider it God who brought you, but if you leave - it’s you yourself, the Lord does not persecute anyone” (620). Some are weak to keep up with smoking and alcohol, some give in to the crafty femininity of the parishioner, some with passion - “fiercely, but willfully” (472) rushes into asceticism, to chains, chains and lying on the ground, branding communal amenities and festive delicacies in the monastery as “glamorous Orthodoxy” - again, everyone has their own, their own idols, idols and ghosts, enslaving the soul, stealing the heart from Christ.

As a human institution, the Church, of course, cannot be very different from the society in which it exists - it is part of it. But! The Church is still primarily a divine institution, and therefore miracles are possible in it, the main thing of which is overcoming the wild chaos of human existence. Calms down and finds peace of mind most colorful o. Vlasiy. Having been at the epicenter of the “conspiracy”, having suffered from double pneumonia, he leaves “daring reform ideas” (514) and the “heavenly subject”, the inveterate liberal priest Georgy Sharymov, comes to mind. The cliques Zina and Khal, little by little extracted from the dungeon, confess and straighten out. Veve, investigator Samokhina, was baptized: “I went to churches when I was conducting the investigation, studied, looked closely, and I was... drawn in... Sucked right in...” (875).

Well, Alexander Berg, architect, artist, poet, gambler, businessman, collector, philanthropist, adventurer, artist, narcissist, psychiatric patient, who for so long, through pride (296), eluded his fate, “cunning, grated, cold, autistic “Berg (735), drawn into monastic life, tasted repentance and tears, firmly confessed faith in Christ (758), was transformed into the monk Elisha, tasted the grace of God “in prison ordeals” (826) and finally settled on Athos.

O. Nikolaeva was once reproached for being merciless towards her heroes; rigidity, perhaps, does take place - when she writes not about saints, but about completely unsaints, selflessly wallowing in their favorite phobias, complexes, passions and delusions. For example, a very unflattering judgment is made about the bohemian environment - the intellectual class, as is known, to this day tends to sing of their own suffering Soviet period, when “... it was fashionable and cool to die and cut your wrists, to rot and sing the praises of suicide, to crow like a rooster and challenge this vulgar world, to dance around with demons and drink to the point of oblivion, to look at what was happening with dull, uncomprehending eyes and fall headlong into Olivier salad” (116) . However, in the second, church part, the author does not soften the outrages, does not come up with consolations and does not draw soul-saving conclusions. Hope lies only in God, in His mighty mercy. Everything is ruled not by logic, not by law, not by rule, but by Divine Arbitrariness. (273) “Let those who fast and non-fast, left and right, enter into the joy of their Lord,” Archimandrite Abel reflects on Easter night. - And they will smile! After all, the hour will strike, and many of them will go to martyrdom, wanting to suffer for Christ. A blessing is also a cross, a cross is also a blessing, love is also pain...” (804).

What luxurious, generous prose, rich in precise epithets, vivid metaphors, unexpected comparisons: “Something like a big, clumsy thought swam in his eyes, like a sleepy fish” (396); “she raised her eyes and cast them with a crazy greenish light at both Bergs” (169); a few strokes - and the portrait is ready, the passing character takes on flesh and blood: “the St. Petersburg ace turned out to be frail, quite in the spirit of his escheated city, a consumptive subject with red rabbit eyes, for which he was immediately, without particularly straining, nicknamed the Rabbit, noting him too crimson socks, provocatively peeking out from under too short trouser legs” (209); and here is the “light-winged Mael” - “drunk, dressed in a Pierrot costume: tight black leggings, a loose blouse with excessively long sleeves, a huge bow on the chest and multi-colored buttons... she looked around and eloquently began to sing: “The heart is blissful in this wretched abode in the spaces life! (330).

Olesya Nikolaeva is a subtle expert in monastic psychology, which, of course, largely coincides with the psychology of any thoughtful Christian. “It’s a huge temptation when the miracle of faith turns into an ideology and a habit... you could even bruise your forehead, even crack it, but grace came and went as it pleased. Divine arbitrariness! When it’s not there, there’s automatism, and habit, and gray everyday life, and the demon of despondency on the alert”... (205). Or: about the spiritual situation in a convent: “an anguish, it’s also a neurosis... they say one thing, think another, but do something else. And all this with a feeling of complete sincerity” (263). Or: “Insensibility... is a kind of spiritual disease when the soul is deprived of the gift of tears, the gift of tenderness, the gift of compassion, the gift of love, withdraws into itself, freezes, freezes, forgets God, is not afraid of sin and is poisoned by itself” (379).

Theological reflections are attributed mostly to Archimandrite Abel; here again Dostoevsky comes to mind, his dream to create the image of a truly beautiful person; the classic correctly believed that such a person could not survive in the world, and isolated him, protecting him with illness. Abel, a man of bright faith, natural kindness and responsiveness, piercing sincerity, joyful, simple and open disposition, was placed in a monastery; Perhaps this is the main merit of the author: the positive hero turned out to be completely alive and extremely reliable. A monk, a warrior of Christ, attentive and merciless to himself, he has the gift of compassion for others, to feel sorry for a person “metaphysically”, already because “the people have gone the wrong way - fragile, neurotic, dual, unviable” (541), he is exhausted under the burden responsibility, asks the Lord for wisdom and strength, receiving in response “many trials, temptations, problems, conflicts, lost souls, confusing circumstances” (731) and on the verge of despair humbly realizes that “no previous, acquired experience helps” (732 ); however, after another meeting with Elder Ignatius, his confessor, he is consoled by the confidence in the goodness of Providence and switches himself to “the problem of humor in Orthodoxy” (665).

The novel is thoroughly permeated with humor; Here Lezhnev talks about how American college students perceive “Heart of a Dog”: “For them, Sharikov is a positive hero! He fights for his rights, which were violated by the professor. He is for social justice. And most importantly, the trade union represented by Shvonder is on his side! And Preobrazhensky for them is a snob, a sybarite, probably doesn’t pay taxes, lives alone in six rooms, mocks the dog and, violating his rights, turns him into a human! And - intolerant! Thanks to the warm humor to which a person with a clear head and a wide heart is prone, what is exposed appears not so bad and disgusting; performance with a three-day celebration of the anniversary of Fr. Vlasia is colored by the appearance of a daring stallion, who, “looking with a sly eye, snatched a handbag from a lady from the city administration with his teeth and rushed off into the distance”; and then - questions and answers from Elder Sisoy: “My confessor has disappeared... has he been kidnapped or killed? “Li-li,” Father Sisoy repeated clearly. - Li-li, li-li. Lili-lili and spilled” (294 - 295).

Epigraph: “The light that is in you, is not darkness?” - obviously applies to all of us, sometimes shamelessly confident that we have already registered in the Kingdom of Heaven. All conflicts with reality, the confusion of destinies, all the contradictions and torment of a person are generated by the fact that he does not know and is not looking for his place in the world, the best for himself, a place “where a person is ontologically equal to himself” (462), and does not understand this , and does not long for “life and fate to coincide” (473). But I want, following Archimandrite Abel, to believe: “The Lord does not allow any evil to happen unless He foresees that He Himself will transform its consequences for good” (524).

What a huge, what a rare pleasure it is to read wonderful prose and understand: Russian literature, with its inherent anxiety and sadness about man, is still alive!

About monastic feat and the problem of modern monasteries.

Not long ago I came across a story about the life of a student at the Moscow Theological Academy; she admitted that she reads literature not according to the program, anything “ideologically incorrect,” for example, she reads it on the sly. How justified is this, from your point of view?

We don’t forbid reading; another thing is that few people know Zamyatin now. The entire library of the monastery was compiled by me. I went to all sorts of shops and bought books. I think that all the classics, everything that is called literature - we should have all this. If they don't read it now, they'll read it later. But you need to read Zamyatin...

I have already talked about the essay about the life of student Lavra. As far as I know, after the publication of this material, the author was strongly asked to remove the text from the site. Moreover, the requests came from the press service of the Theological Academy. It turns out that students cannot even talk about themselves, is this good?

Bad. Well, it’s clear that this is not good, but people are different, unfortunately. The Lavra has always had strict boundaries both in the seminary and in the school. Perhaps the girl told someone that there was such a publication, maybe she shouldn’t have done it.

Have you read Maria Kikot’s book “Confession of a Former Novice”? How do you feel about her?

“The Cry of the Third Bird” was first released in 2008 under the pseudonym “Nun N.” The book met with mixed reviews: some readers saw the author’s love for modern monasticism and concern for its future, while another part decided that the author was “washing dirty linen in public.”

Of course, I read it with burning interest. It was only thanks to her that my book was republished. But the effect of Kikot’s book is ultimately negative. You see, in monasteries no one fetters you with chains. Why did she live there for seven years? This is the first question. Second, more than a hundred people live there. They live, and no one has lost God. But she didn't have God. There is a situation when a person simply has the wrong attitude. She went there out of pure curiosity. After all, now there are so many monasteries and they are all different, you can choose one for yourself. To know a place, you need to stay there for a year. I have no faith in the sincerity of this man.

So it seems to you that there are not so many problems there?

The author of the book didn’t come up with anything, but she didn’t see anything good either. I don't have the right to say anything specific because I don't live there. When I lived there (and I lived there for a short time), I noticed some tendencies of tight management. But since my mother Nikolai and I are both from the Shamordino monastery (Kazan Ambrosievskaya stauropegial women's hermitage), this did not apply to me.

What do you see as the problem with modern monasteries?

During the years of Soviet power, we lost continuity. As for monasticism, this is a great loss. Because before, when young people came to the monastery, they looked at their elders and learned to do the same. But what happened to nunneries in Russia? There is not one left. Therefore, when we came, there was no one to learn from. And so they take you and appoint you as abbess, because you went to church, because some priest recommended you, and so on. But all the abbess who came to the monasteries then were as uneducated as everyone else. What to do? The easiest way out is to behave like a boss.

Just now, talking with other journalists, you said that persecution of the church is not so bad. Can you explain?

A church without persecution is like a person without roots. If there were no persecution, we would have no theology. After the end of the persecution of the first Christians, there was a period when there was no persecution. Heresies began to spread, thanks to this it became clear that it was necessary to create a doctrine. Any criticism, even if it is completely unfair, helps and cleanses. People are starting to think. There is the Church as an institution of Christ, His creation, which He always looks after, and there is the Church as a system, without this it is also impossible, otherwise there will be chaos. Any system can fail, and criticism in this case is very important.

For many people, Orthodoxy is a broader concept than faith. Few people deny God; there are very few real atheists, like the odious Nikonov. A Orthodox people They consider themselves by combining two concepts: Orthodoxy and patriotism. Why “Russians don’t give up”, why do Russians know that there is something higher and more valuable than their own lives? This is Orthodoxy. I have long noticed that Orthodoxy swims in our blood, in a good and bad sense. Both advantages and disadvantages come from here.

Well, as for eighty percent, that’s how it’s always been. A person remembers God in the most tragic moments of life. He comes to the temple and bursts into tears. But the church counts heads and sees those who come at least for Easter. And this is so far 2% - those people whom Catholics call practicing believers. But on the other hand, until the hour of death we cannot say anything definitive about a person.

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