During his studies at the school, the boy had to take shelter in a dark corner with some carpenter, and at the very first lesson he had to taste the child's grief: there were no books, there was nothing to learn the lesson; He said so to the teacher when he began to ask for a lesson. But his excuse, which seemed to him so legitimate, was not taken into account, and for ignorance of the lesson the boy was punished with the rod. And all his life, until old age, he remembered this rod and called it his benefactor, for it forced him to get up early, to run to the school before dawn in order to borrow books from his comrades and prepare lessons on them...

The training was over. Gruzov left the seminary in the first category. He was even offered to go to the academy, but the good idealistic young man was attracted by the call to serve the Church in the village. The old seminary knew how to cultivate such a desire in young men. My brothers, who studied ten years after my uncle, still brought a heap of copied sermons by various authors: it was they who were preparing their supplies for the time of pastoral service. Now, alas!, the seminarians do not think about it... And so the young student went to the consistory and submitted to Metropolitan Philaret a petition for the first priestly position that had opened in the village of Petrovo in the Ruza district, 70 versts from Moscow. The place was poor, there were no rivals, and he was assigned there. We need to look for a bride. He asks relatives, acquaintances... They point out to him the family of a prosfornitsa, who have four daughters-brides. Grigory Ivanovich, overcoming his seminary shyness, goes to his future mother-in-law, gets acquainted, begins to visit her house... But why he walks is a lack of determination. The old prosfornitsa woman finally decides to help the young man: "Please, do not be shy, Grigory Ivanovich: after all, I know why you come to us (of course, the kind matchmakers warned her), speak frankly: which one do you like best?" - "And whichever mother, you bless," the bridegroom answered, "I will take it!" And the wedding soon took place. Grigory Ivanovich took a frock coat from one of the lords for the wedding, was ordained a priest and went with his young wife to Petrovo, hitherto unknown.

It was a stormy November evening. Mud, slush, cold, rain lashed in his face. The darkness is so dark that you can't see anything five steps away. The driver drove the young priest past the church and along the old avenue of the time of Catherine the Great brought him to a neighboring village. Seeing a light in the hut, Fr. Gregory got down from the cart and knocked on the window to ask for directions. The window opened, and the old man told the priest to turn back: they had passed the village...

Returned. We saw the church. Someone's house is nearby. They knocked here too. It turned out that Fr. Deacon lives here. The host cordially received his future abbot. In the morning, Fr. Gregory went to the church of God, where God led him to serve and... at the sight of him he began to cry.. The old wooden church is all skewed, if you open the door, you will not be able to close it, the walls are dumb, frost is falling from the ceiling, and therefore, if people gather, it will rain too...

After the church, I went to inspect my future home. And then - at least cry! A poor hut, with two windows, has grown into the ground, the floors have collapsed... This is the house of the priest, his predecessor.

What to do? How to live?..

He went to get acquainted with the neighbors, and there were only two of them, or, as they called themselves, managers of the estate. He came to the first one - he turned out to be a kind person: he encouraged the priest, caressed him, promised to help as much as he could. Fr. Gregory spoke about the house: "It is necessary," said the steward, "to build a new one." - "But there is no money, no forest." "Everything will be found, father!" - "Who will believe me?" "But why doesn't he believe it? After all, you came to live - you can't run away. Let's go to our neighbor: he has a dry forest ready - he will let us go!"

Let's go. For a long time, Fr. Gregory did not dare to say why he had come, but thanks to the first neighbor: he helped out! "Well, father, are you silent? Ask for NN-cha!" - "Excuse me: the spirit is lacking!" - "What's the matter?" - asks the owner. Fr. Gregory told me about his need. "Ah, Father Gregory! Take as much as you need!" - "After all, you have to pay for it, and I have no money." "We'll settle it down, you'll pay someday."

And Fr. Gregory, with the help of the same kind people (who also gave money), built himself a house, and, wasting no time, in the same house where he himself lived with his young wife, he gathered the children of the village and began to teach them to read and write. Thus, as early as 1848, the beginning of a parochial school was laid, or rather, a school of literacy. At that time, they did not "seek funds", did not expect help from anywhere, and did a holy deed in simplicity of heart: they took children, taught them seven and a half from their heads to read, write and the four rules of arithmetic, a pot of porridge and a measure of peas in addition - and the matter was over. This has been the case since time immemorial, and we once studied at our parents' school. This is what Fr. Gregory taught. And he was a master at teaching: all the time he was studying at the seminary, he gave lessons in the manor's houses, from where sometimes, as he used to boast, "they sent a carriage for him." All his life he loved children passionately, he knew how to caress them in some special way, to take possession of their hearts, he knew how to speak their childish language so that the children clung to him not even as to their father, but as to their own mother.

Years passed, and Fr. Gregory's school grew, expanded, and later divided into two: one turned into an elementary parish school, the other into a two-class school for the children of the orphanage. While there was no last one, Fr. Gregory prepared his pupils for the exam, and when they passed the exams, he received 17 or 18 rubles per student from the orphanage for training.

Spring has come. It turned out that there was a swamp near the house. Fr. Gregory immediately began to drain this swamp: he made ditches, dug a pond, and all this alone, with his own hands. And then he planted an orchard of fruit trees, which later began to give him up to 70 rubles: he himself took apples and cherries for sale to Belokamennaya.

But his main concern was the temple of God. He set himself the idea of building a stone church. For twenty-five years he had been building it, building it without major donors, only with the mites of parishioners and collecting for Mother Russia through "Uncle Vlas", and he had built it, and what a building it was! Three-altar, with a gilded five-tiered iconostasis, with a stone bell tower, and a bell of 200 poods cast... "Everything is God," the elder used to say, "God and good people are my parishioners. They worked, by their labors they built God's temple. They set up their own brick factory, for 25 years they transported firewood from forest dachas, bricks, goods to the factory of the late Pavel Grigorievich Tsurikov - they carried them, and I went to the office of the factory and received and took it to Moscow on occasion, handed it over to the safe treasury. So they saved pennies at a time, and when they saved a little, they began to build... All God and my good parishioners!"

But the humble pastor himself worked a lot. Every day more than once in the summer he went up the scaffolding to the construction site, himself, together with the foreman (the architect came twice during the entire construction season), supervised the work, gave instructions, went to buy materials himself, managed the brick factory himself, in a word - everywhere he appeared personally, not trusting any stranger - not because he did not have good and honest parishioners: In those days there were good people everywhere - but because "your own eye is a lookout", and you can choose a better product, and buy a cheaper one... I remember that in 1874 he came to see me in New Jerusalem, where I was then a novice, joyful and triumphant. "Thank God," he said, "the consecration of the church is permitted!" and he told how the unforgettable hierarch of Moscow, Metropolitan Innocent, received it. "I came to him at the wrong time: he, father, went to the bathhouse," they told me. "Oh, no, father: we can't do that, Vladyka has ordered us to report on everyone who comes from afar, without failing." - I'm sitting waiting. They say: he came. He calls to him. I enter the office. And he, father, may he rest in peace, comes out to me easily, wearing only a cassock, and water is flowing from his head and beard... Well, father, what do you say? Why did you come? I told him what was the matter. "Have you come from far away?" - he asks me. - For 70 versts. (It should be remembered that in those days there were no railways or highways.) And where," he said, "did he stop?" - At the inn, I answer. "Oh, how inconvenient it is," said the saint thoughtfully. "I must let you go as soon as possible, otherwise the consistory will drag out the matter..." Why, here's the thing: I'll write a resolution at once, my office will give you a copy of the attestation, and you go with God, show it to the dean, and consecrate the holy church... Such was the angel of God!" and tears of gratitude to the great Equal-to-the-Apostles hierarch watered the senile cheeks of my uncle. "Every day, both morning and evening, I commemorate him in my sinful prayer," the elder added, "and when I serve, I invariably commemorate his name with my relatives."

And the church was consecrated by the dean. Fr. Gregory said a word to his good fellow parishioners that moved them to tears. In general, he taught his spiritual children without philosophizing, in simplicity of heart and from the heart, he did not write his words, but spoke what his heart and love for spiritual children prompted him. And his word, like a good seed, fell on simple hearts and bore fruit after its kind. But following the Apostle's commandment to love not only in word, but also in deed, Fr. Gregory also showed in deed his love for his parishioners. It happened, for example, that when he walked around the parish with the shrine on Pascha, he noticed that the poor peasant's yard was open, the straw was taken from the roof and fed to the cattle: it was clear that he did not have a penny to pay the priest for his visit. The peasant met the priest at the gate, took his blessing, and Fr. Gregory asked him: "What, brother, do we have nothing to pay with?" - "Don't be judged, dear," he answered. And Fr. Gregory, taking 15-20 rubles out of his pocket, thrusts it into the peasant's hand, looking around, lest the sacristan notice it. "Take it, brother, pay us off, otherwise the sexton will grieve: after all, I, a priest, will live somehow, and he receives an eighth kopeck: how can he live with his large family?" That is why the parishioners loved him so dearly, and you should have seen how they saw him off when, after a serious illness for a whole year, he decided to go out of office: crowds accompanied him to the border of the parish and wept bitterly - these peasants, these coarse-looking natures... And when the elder settled in Moscow, they often visited him, their "dear father," and brought him unwise village gifts. And in Petrovo, despite the poverty of the parish, his house, by the mercy of God and the love of the parishioners, could be called a full chalice: he had horses and cows, geese and ducks on his pond of labor, rye, buckwheat, potatoes, and vetch were born in his field... God blessed everything!