Glory to Thy longsuffering, O Lord!

Roses on Vladimirskaya

1990 year

This time there was an opportunity to be in the Lavra for all-night vigil before the feast, stay overnight in the Posad and go to the liturgy in the morning. In the evening we stood in the Church of the Intercession. The service is good, the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God is the most favorite. But my head is bad, it can barely hold on. It's not good because of the stuffiness. After the service, we go through Berezki in a warm evening. We decided to visit A. N., to bring her water from the pump. She had a daughter, she brought water. We sat on the terrace, talked about politics for the sake of decency (we had to talk about E. A. Shevardnadze's speech, answer K.'s questions...), and began to say goodbye. They gave us a bunch of green onions, a few boiled potatoes, and K. cut a few roses for us. Wonderful, classically pink, strong, large. Such a place is only in paradise. We are going to spend the night. It's still light. While the brightest evenings are and there is an opportunity not to rush, we walk slowly and silently. It is difficult for both of us, that's why it is not said. Our common pain and burden will not be weakened by words. You know that the only salvation in such a case is patience, but it is difficult... At about four o'clock I woke up, remembering that it was the feast of my beloved icon, that we would soon be in the Lavra for a service, and that we had roses. They smell delicate and touching. There is a faint ray of hope in their smell. Whereat? By the mercy of God, by the help of the Queen of Heaven... We go to the Trinity Cathedral to the Venerable. There is nothing ahead. We stand at the entrance in indecision. Father Matthew came to venerate the veneration, and on his way back he invited: "It's already open." He was going to start the Liturgy. He was rarely seen serving on a holiday. But here is the end of the service. In his sermon there was a story by a former employee of the Tretyakov Gallery, who even before the revolution went to the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin and remembered with what reverence everyone treated the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God. When the cathedral was closed and the icon was placed in the storeroom without a riza, without any respect, she could not calm down, she kept thinking about how to do so that the icon could be placed in a functioning church. I talked to my superiors – I don't mind (this was even before its restoration). I talked to the priest of one of the churches (without saying which icon she was bothering about) – and he did not mind. She began to pray fervently to the Mother of God, asking her to reveal Her will. On the last night before she wanted to give the icon to church, she saw this icon in a dream and understood, with her whole being, that the Mother of God was not pleased with this. He wakes up with the thought: if so, let everything remain as it is. And he calms down on this. After a while, she learns that the church where she wanted to take the icon was blown up at night... The Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God is still in the State Tretyakov Gallery. Books and articles are written about it, pictures are printed. The whole world gets acquainted with it – a reading world, not indifferent to beauty, cut off from the Church. She shines on him in this way, so that he does not get lost completely.

After the service, you can put roses in front of a photograph of this icon, which has been known in Russia since the XII century, loved and especially revered. Roses have endured the road and service, they have not even been grafted, they stand in all their glory and stream a delicate aroma. The pain in the soul is dulled, but does not go away completely. I read the canon of the monk Theostirictos CXVI, asking him with the words: "Fill my heart with joy, O Virgin...", knowing that joy is still far away. At least it was tolerable. And yet the edge of pain is broken. Glory to God and thanks to the Queen of Heaven! Old wounds will not heal immediately, but it would be ingratitude to say that everything has remained hopelessly dark and bitter. It is hard for me, because it is connected with others, because one after another one sees the victory not just of recklessness, self-love, or something else, but of a cunning, strong, malicious opponent of God, who easily twists ropes out of us and triumphs in victory. We are proud and selfish—is this not his pleasure? Who will help and protect us? Except for the Merciful Lady... The consciousness of guilt and mistakes is not easy, but you can pray, ask for forgiveness and help. It's worse if you blame others. Even if it is not joy yet, you ask for help and feel that somewhere deep a crack is outlined, there will be a fracture, the crisis will pass, the pain will weaken, the Lord will help through the prayers of His Mother. I look at the beautiful roses, which, I want to believe, God gave me as a sign of hope, gave them for encouragement, strengthening in patience. He gave them not to lose heart, not to weaken in prayer.

Most Holy Mother of God, help us!

Funeral

June 8, 1991

On the first week of St. Peter's Fast, a large and clearly written message appeared at the entrance to the Church of the Intercession below, stating that on Saturday, before the celebration of the memory of all Russian saints, the Patriarch gave his blessing to perform the funeral service for those who died in the camps, exiles, and prisons during the years of repression. At last! Thank God that this will be an open, nationwide funeral service for those who did not even dream that they would ever be remembered. And now they have survived! Now we think: it's high time, and a few years ago we could not even allow such a thought. Thank God that this has become possible. Thank God that we can be present at this. The Patriarch gave his blessing to perform the funeral service in the hierarchical rite, taking into account the large number of archpastors who died "from Petrozavodsk to Magadan, as well as in Siberia and Kazakhstan." Anna Ilyinskaya wrote about this in the documentary story "Solovki"CXVII: "The martyrs want to be prayed for, buried, they ask us for commemoration." Books by B. ShiryaevCXVIII, Nikiforov-Volgin, V. ShalamovCXIX, S. VolkovCXX, Archpriest MichaelCXXI and many others who wrote about those who died in the vast expanses of the Motherland have already been published. And so all of them, most often unbeknownst to those standing in church, listen invisibly to the solemn funeral service, which few of them heard during their lifetime. It was preceded by a speech by the Rector, who spoke about the blessing of the Patriarch and the significance of this for the faithful in our time, when divisions are multiplying... It seems to me that the divisions themselves are not so terrible as the causes that caused them. And it also seems that at such a moment it is necessary to think and even say that the prayer of the Church for so many perished and martyred is not only a prayer for them as our duty to their memory, but also a reminder to all of us: it is frightening to see the multiplication of iniquities, for which love dries up.70 From this multiplication, thousands, even tens, and perhaps hundreds of thousands reached the point of bestiality, to the loss of the human image. Reading about mockery, sophisticated torture, one cannot but understand: this was not always an instruction "from above", not everyone was called upon to become informers and executioners, torturers who found pleasure in mockery. Much was done of their own free will, out of spiritual emptiness, anger, loss, stupid and destructive obsession. Now, praying for the martyred, we must not forget that we must make every effort not to be heirs to the dark deeds of our fathers and grandfathers. The Church prays for the victims, but what about the executioners? And what about their children and grandchildren? Is it not because the people live so darkly that they forget about the need to repent? Evil, which is not stopped by repentance, continues to incinerate the souls of the next generations. And nowhere does anyone talk about it. Why? It is necessary to know about the martyrs, to know about those who went through this hell, although there are fewer and fewer of them in the world, to know by name – as much as possible so that such things are experienced as a wound on the body of the Church...

Vladyka Rector did not speak about this. His brief words were drowned in the sound of the first words of the 118th Psalm of Blessed Immaculate. The other choir exhaled quietly: "Alleluia." The kathisma began to be read by several verses by all the servants. There were many of them. From the pulpit to the solea everyone stood in white vestments. This radiance of white robes is a symbol of the triumph of faith over the darkness of evil, which has brought our martyrs and confessors into common nameless graves. The kathisma was read in full, orderly, solemnly. Several verses before and after "Glory" were sung by two choirs. The rite of the hierarchical funeral, in addition to the prescribed stichera, troparia, and litanies, also includes the fivefold reading of the Epistle and the Gospel with a preliminary prokeimenon. When the last Gospel was read, the irmoi of the Great Lenten canon were sung, "By the waves of the sea...". These irmoses involuntarily bring back Passion Week, where the Golgotha of Christ crowns the Golgotha of every martyred. The litany for all the archpastors, pastors and faithful children of the Russian Orthodox Church sends a chill down my spine... After it, the truly touching words of St. John of Damascus began to be sung — the self-voices of CXXII. Some of them are familiar, some are not, but they all emphasize one thing: what a blessing the Church is for every believer! Since the eighth century, the Church has been comforting, uniting, calming and reconciling with the words of St. John, addressed to us with the conviction to value the Heavenly Fatherland more than "worldly sweetness." At that moment it seemed as if the entire Heavenly Triumphant Church had clung to the ground, so that we could hear with our inner ears: we must not live indifferently, we must not be concerned about the purity of our hearts, we must not waste time on trifles and waste our strength. We must hurry to learn to pray and live according to God's commandments.

He was tonsured in the Trinity Cathedral