"Lutherans and Anglicans have no church: for they do not venerate saints and do not pray for the dead, who are also members of the church. Nor do they have the Head of the Church, Christ, for He is the Head of the whole body, and not of the dissected body, as with the Lutherans and Anglicans. Nor do they have a Helmsman at the ship, the Holy Spirit, for the Holy Spirit cannot dwell where the body of the Church is arbitrarily and boldly dismembered and deprived of life. In the Scriptures, in St. Paul, in the Epistle to Philip 2, chapters 10 and 11, it is said: "To Him (the Son of God) every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue shall declare as the Lord Jesus Christ to the glory of God the Father. Where are the Lutherans and Anglicans to have the tribe of heaven and hell, as well as the tribe of the earth? For even the tribe of the earth – the Lutherans and Anglicans living on earth – does not have a lawful priesthood and lawful, sanctifying, affirming, idolizing the Sacraments – Repentance, Communion, Chrismation, Priesthood, Marriage and Anointing. And where is the veneration of angels among the Lutherans and Anglicans? And they are members of the Church: for by Christ God the one Church of Angels and Men is formed and headed by Him."

The fourth word. John of Kronstadt on the Orthodox Priesthood

The priesthood of the Orthodox Church, according to the commandment of the Lord, does a work of infinite importance, immeasurable goodness, a work of supernatural power, God's: it enlightens, purifies and renews people through the celebration of the Sacraments and spiritual guidance. Only God alone can renew a person corrupted by sin, or those of people to whom God Himself gives grace and authority, and His power to be renewed and enlightened, and to be strengthened in a new life, and to renew, sanctify, and guide others with the power of God, with spiritual power. A fallen and corrupt person can arise and be renewed in no other way than by deep repentance and absolution of sins by spiritual power and communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, and certainly of the Blood – under a special kind of wine, as the Lord has established and not without Blood – must receive absolution of sins from an Orthodox priest who has lawful ordination and God-given authority – the Body and Blood from a lawful Orthodox priest. and not from a pappister or a Lutheran, who do not give the Blood of Christ! Oh, human superstition! Oh, the cunning, the cunning of lies! The Pappists deprived the laity of the Blood of Christ, shed for the cleansing of sins. Oh, the headlessness that acts contrary to the true head, Christ God! O Lutherans, who have lost the grace and truth of the sacraments! How can you give grace to others without having the spirit of Christ, the truth and righteousness of Christ? Protestants and formers, pastors and archpastors, tell me, how can you renew the people and lead them to a holy life, when you yourselves do not have the grace and authority of power and strength from the Holy Spirit, which you cannot receive anywhere except in the holy Orthodox Church? Tell me, how can you accomplish the work of the renewal of humanity, which can be done by God alone and by the one to whom He has given His grace and authority through episcopal ordination? You do not have the priesthood; How dare you undertake such a task that is beyond your strength? You yourselves are not renewed, and you do not renew the people, you do not sanctify, and you do not purify.

The fifth word. John of Kronstadt on the Sacrament of Holy Communion and on Himself

Thy Name has glorified me everywhere, O Lord: at the throne of kings, and at all the important and powerful of this world, and among the rich and the poor, the educated and the common: everywhere it has brought and continues to bring joy, peace, deliverance, salvation, healing, health, consolation, relief, victory over the wiles of the enemy. So wonderful is Thy Name, O Lord! How wonderful, sovereign, authoritative, and powerfully draws everyone to me, the wretched, Thy grace, which lives and abides in me through frequent communion of the Holy Mysteries. Mysteries of Thy most pure Body and Blood.O Lord! Thank You for the miracles of St. John. The mysteries that take place in me and in the Russian people every day; Thou drawest me and him to Thee by a wondrous, omnipotent, invincible power; all Orthodox Russia is drawn to Thee! Draw, draw, draw. The Word of God, our Creator. O our Deliverer, our Saviour, draw to Thee all and all!

Sixth WordThe earthly kingdoms are wavering and falling because of unbelief and iniquity

On May 6, 1907, Russia and the Church solemnly celebrate today the birth of the God-crowned Tsar to the throne of All Russia, and pray to the Tsar of Tsars for a prosperous state, victory, i.e. long life, peace, health, salvation for Him, our earthly Tsar, and for the Lord to hasten and help Him in everything and to subdue under His feet every enemy and adversary. I appeal to all of you, as a member of the human family, with the question of what these two words mean: the word and commandment of the Creator to the first men, and the false, tempting word of the murderer – the devil. What are they in essence? One word is lively, informative, cheerful; the other is flattering, dreamy, darkening, deadening. What was and still is the consequence of people's obedience to the word of the enemy, or of the man-sinner following all the suggestions of enemies, bodiless and all kinds of passions? Are there not all kinds of confusion in the world?

Obedience to the word of God leads to silence, peace, and all order in the family, political, and economic world; to obedience to spiritual and civil authorities.These two words – the word of God and the word of the bodiless enemy, we all obey to this day; we listen to either one or the other. Having listened to the murderous enemy in the beginning and obeying him to this day, the human race has fallen into endless madness, it has exchanged life for death, light for darkness, beauty for ugliness, wisdom for madness, incorruptibility for corruption. during the senseless vacillation of minds that have tasted a little earthly wisdom and dreamed of themselves beyond measure; for knowledge is arrogant, according to the word of God, but love edifies. It is obvious to everyone that the Russian kingdom is wavering, tottering, close to falling.Why is it that the Russian kingdom, so great, which was so firm, powerful and glorious before, is now so weakened, weakened, destroyed, shaken? Because it has departed from the firm and unshakable foundation of the true faith and in the majority of the intelligentsia has fallen away from God, Who alone is an eternal power that cannot be shaken forever. By which heaven and earth are firmly held in wondrous harmony for so many centuries. That is why our kingdom is wavering: and is it only the Russian kingdom, which occupies a sixth of the earth, that is wavering from godlessness and anarchy? No, all the kingdoms of the earth are shaking and shaking, which have abandoned the true faith; and some kingdoms and cities, which were before Christ and after Christ, have completely departed from the disgrace of the world because of unbelief and lawlessness. And the further the adulterous and sinful world exists, and abounds in iniquity, the more and more it grows weaker, decrepit, and wavering, so that at the end of the world it will become a corpse and a smoking brand, which will utterly decay from the last terrible universal fire: for the earth and all the works in it will be burned up, according to the Apostle, and we look forward to a new heaven and a new earth, according to the promise of God, in whom righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:10; 13).We, the Russian Orthodox believers, as children of the Christian Church, after receiving the sacrament of Baptism, have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem and to the host of angels, to the triumphant assembly and church of the firstborn, written in heaven, and to the Judge of all, God, and to the spirits of the righteous, And to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the sprinkling blood (the blood of Christ), which speaks better than Abel's. "Take heed," says the Apostle in his Epistle to the Hebrews, "do not turn away from Him who speaks." If (the ancient Hebrews who were in the time of Moses) who did not listen to him who spoke on earth did not escape punishment, how much more shall we not escape if we turn away from God who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth, and who now has given such a promise; once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. The words, "once more," signify the change of that which is shaken as created, so that the unshakable may remain. Therefore, we, having received the kingdom of heaven, will preserve grace, which we will serve pleasingly to God with reverence and fear. For our God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:22-26; 29).I have quoted these words of Paul from the Epistle to the Hebrews because they also apply to us, the Russian people, who have apostatized from God and from the New Zion, the Church of Christ, founded on the indestructible Rock-Christ, on Whom whoever falls will be broken, and on whom He falls, He will crush (Matt. 21:44). There is no doubt that all Russians who have fallen away from the faith and the Church will be broken like clay pots (poor vessels, Psalm 2), if they do not turn and repent. And the Church will remain unshaken to the end of time, and the Monarch of Russia, if he remains faithful to the Orthodox Church, will be established on the throne of Russia until the end of time. And if you fall away from your faith, as many intellectuals have already fallen away from it, then you will no longer be Holy Russia or Russia, but a rabble of all kinds of heterodox who seek to exterminate each other. Remember the words of Christ to the unfaithful Jews: "The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and given to the tongue (people) that produce its fruits" (Matt. 21:42-43).

Seventh HomilyOn the Day of Remembrance and Celebration of the Holy Anointing and Coronation of the Most Pious Sovereign Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich of All Russia

May 14, 1907We remember and celebrate the day of the holy anointing and coronation of our most pious Sovereign.These two or three years of his reign are confused and full of internal sedition, and the royal crown with porphyry was almost stained with blood recently. Deadly weapons are already ready. On this occasion I allow myself to be transported mentally to the ancient sacred history of the Jews and to tell about one suitable event similar to our sad state, which took place in the time of the judges of Israel.Among the judges of the Jewish people was, among other things, one raised up by God to govern and protect them from foreigners, famous for faith, courage and love for his fatherland, Gideon, who was engaged in agriculture. With God's help, he saved the Jews from the warlike Midianites, who wanted to subjugate the Jews to their pagan godless yoke. When he died at a ripe old age, he had 70 sons, for he was a polygamist; besides, he had a son by a maidservant, Abimelech. After the death of his father, Abimelech came to a certain city of his land and begged his relatives on his mother's side to try to win over its inhabitants in his favor, making it seem to them that it would be disadvantageous for them to submit to the seventy sons of Gideon, and it would be better to recognize the authority over them of one, moreover, the one who was close to them by kinship. And the inhabitants of that city (Shechem), the Jews, had already introduced the service of the pagan deity Baal, and managed to build a pagan temple to the Phoenician deity, called Baal-berif, i.e. the guardian of alliances and oaths. Among these people, apostates, Abimelech found adherents. They called him their brother and gave him money from the temple of their god. For a small sum he hired idle and homeless people, went with them to the house of his deceased father and beat the brothers on the same stone, with the exception of one younger brother Jotham, who managed to escape. After that, all the inhabitants of the city gathered in one place and there by the oak they made Abimelech king. At the same time, on a nearby mountain, Gerizin suddenly appeared to Jotham and shouted in a loud voice: "Listen to me, inhabitants of Shechem, and God will listen to you." When there was silence, he continued: "Once upon a time the trees decided to anoint the King over them. And they said to the olive tree, Be thou our King. The olive tree answered, 'Will I part with my fatness, which is used to honor gods and men, and will I tremble over the trees?' And the trees said to the fig tree, Come, reign over us. The fig tree answered, 'Shall I part with my sweetness and with my beautiful fruit, and shall I tremble over the trees?' The trees said to the vine, "Come, reign over us." And the vine answered, 'Shall I part with my sap, which rejoices gods and men, and shall I tremble over the trees?' Finally, all the trees offered to the thorns: "Come, reign over us." "The thorn tree said, 'If you truly anoint me king over you, then go and hide yourselves under my shadow (and what a shadow the thorn has), but if not, then take heed lest fire come out of the thorns, and burn the very cedars of Lebanon. "Consider, then, whether you have done justice in making Abimelech king, and have you rewarded Gideon and his house properly?" (now we have the house of the Romanovs). Why did my father put his life in danger for you, and delivered you from your enemies, and you killed his seventy sons, and made Abimelech the son of a handmaid king? Let fire come out from Abimelech and burn you." And when Jotham had said this, he fled, and hid himself from his brother. Abimelech did burn in the city tower the inhabitants who were hiding from his threat for disobedience, and Abimelech himself was killed by a woman who threw a piece of millstone at him. Thus the curse of Jotham befell both the Shechemites for impiety and Abimelech for fratricide!The sons of Russia celebrating the royal chrismation.Will not God's righteous punishment befall our traitors, who attempted to kill our Tsar anointed by God, whose ancestors, once anointed by God for the Russian kingdom, exalted him and elevated him to the rank of the first power in the world? And what would we, Russians, become without the Tsar? Our enemies would soon try to destroy the very name of Russia, since the Bearer and Guardian of Russia, after God, is the Sovereign of Russia, the Autocratic Tsar, and without him Russia is not Russia. manifested in Russia in previous centuries, through the intercession and intercession of the Mother of God and the holy Russian wonderworkers, of whom the Russian Church and the Russian land are not lacking.

Eighth HomilyOn the Day of the Accession to the All-Russian Throne of His Majesty the Sovereign Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich

On October 21, 1904, Russia and the Church now celebrate the triumph of the ascension to the All-Russian ancestral throne of our most pious Sovereign, Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich.The Holy Tsar and Prophet David, contemplating with his prophetic gaze the infinite greatness of the beginningless God, the Father, the Almighty, the Creator and King of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible, His eternal goodness, righteousness and wisdom, says in one of the Psalms: Thy kingdom, O God, the kingdom of all ages, and Thy dominion unto all generations. God is naturally in His very essence a King, as the Creator, Lawgiver and Providence of the visible and invisible world created by Him, and creatures fulfill His laws exactly: rational creatures – angels and pious people – freely and voluntarily, and not rational and good-natured, according to the necessity of nature and the exact will of the Creator. Only God can authorize a chosen person to reign, and entrust him with autocratic power, investing him with glory, majesty and power. The Most High possesses the kingdom of man, says the prophet, and to whom He willeth He giveth it (Dan. 4:29). For this reason kings ascend the throne, are crowned, chrismated, and reign on earth by divine right. So it was in the Old Testament, before the coming of Christ, the eternal King, and in the New, after His coming to earth, during His life and teaching on earth: and He Himself, the King of heaven and earth, and of every creature, obeyed the royal power according to humanity, and commanded that it be given due respect and obedience. His answer to the scribes and Pharisees is known: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God's God" (Matt. 22:21). The multi-leadership and multi-member government of the people has never been a permanent and universally recognized government in the world. "Obey the king as the predominant, if you are a prince, as sent by him, for vengeance, for you are evildoers, but for the praise of a benefactor (1 Peter 2:13, 14), says the Apostle. The King is the image of the King of Heaven; God is one – and the king is one. Our reason, in its cognition, generalizes all the innumerable things and phenomena in the world, and raises them to unity. The world, with its infinite variety of things, phenomena and actions, is one common harmonious whole, united by the One Creator and Provider and one common goal – to serve the glory of the Creator and the well-being and bliss of creatures, rational and irrational, to manifest His wisdom, beauty and infinite goodness. His almighty power. His eternal righteousness. Its unity and trinity. God is the only King of heaven and earth, as long as they stand and are not destroyed. For the time will come when they also will be destroyed (2 Peter 3:10), according to the word of God. And so God alone cloths and girds kings with His power, splendor and beauty, and places a royal crown on their heads. And in vain do the enemies of the autocracy want and try to undermine the tsar's throne. The Lord Himself establishes him by His power on the throne. God! exclaims the king the prophet David, the king rejoices in thy power, and rejoices immeasurably in thy salvation. Thou hast given him what his heart desired, and hast not rejected the petitions of his mouth. For Thou hast greeted him with the blessings of goodness, Thou hast placed upon Thy head a crown of pure gold. He asked Thee for life; Thou hast given him longevity for ever and ever. Great is his glory in Thy salvation. Thou hast bestowed honour and majesty upon him. Thou hast blessed him for ever, and hast made him rejoice with the joy of Thy countenance. For the king trusts in the Lord, and according to the goodness of the Most High he will not be shaken. Thy hand shall find all thy enemies, and thy right hand shall find all those who hate thee. In the time of Thy wrath Thou shalt make them like a furnace of fire; in His wrath the Lord will destroy them, and will consume their fire. Thou shalt destroy their fruit from the earth, and their seed from among the sons of men. For they have done evil against Thee, they have devised schemes, but they have not been able to carry them out. Thou shalt set their targets, and with Thy bows Thou shalt shoot arrows into their faces. Be lifted up, O Lord, by Thy power: we shall sing and glorify Thy might" (Psalm 20:2-14). May the autocracy, the pledge of its power and glory, abide forever in Russia, may the King of kings establish in the Tsar's hand the scepter and the orb, and may His glorious sword be turned to defeat the enemies of the kingdom and Orthodoxy.

Ninth HomilyOn the day of the transfer of the honorable and multi-healing relics from the city of Vladimir to St. Petersburg, St. Right-believing Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky in 1724

The Russian Church of the Fatherland, and especially the capital of Petrov, now celebrates the glorious day of the transfer of the honorable relics of the Holy Right-Believing Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky, the former invincible Knight of the Russian land, who in his time won a glorious victory on the banks of the Neva over the border Swedes, and for this reason was called Nevsky. For the better adornment of the capital, as well as for the glorification of the labors and exploits of the Holy Prince, who several hundred years earlier had gloriously fought against the Swedes, Peter the Great wished to transfer his holy miraculous relics from the city of Vladimir to his new capital, St. Petersburg, having previously ordered that a magnificent reliquary be built for them at his royal expense. when a bloody war of extermination is raging in the Far East with a fierce and cunning pagan people, symbolized by the dragon, I want to compare two signs revealed to John the Theologian in revelation, and which have applications to us, to our Orthodox Church, and to the dragon land of Japan. I mentioned these signs at the beginning of the word. They point us to the future victory of our church over the dragon, the ancient serpent, and over pagan Japan. The first sign. This is a woman clothed with the sun; under her feet is the moon, illuminated by the sun of righteousness, Christ, the earthly church, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. The woman clothed with the sun – Christ – is the Mother of God and at the same time the holy Church of Christ, clothed in Christ, Who is her head. The twelve stars are the twelve apostles who planted and established the Church on earth; It is now represented, among other things, by our Orthodox, Eastern, Universal Church. The woman was with child and cried out from the pains and pangs of childbirth – this is Russia, which has in it the children of its Orthodox Christians, who are now being born and baptized in the rivers of their blood into eternal life. Another sign in heaven. Here is a large red dragon with seven heads (generals). This dragon stood before the woman – Orthodox Russia and the Church – to devour her child. And she gave birth to a male child Christ – here we mean Christians, in whom Christ was imagined, Who was to shepherd all nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up to God (the Ascension of Christ) and His throne. Here is also meant all those who have fought the good fight and have transmigrated to heaven. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where a place had been prepared for her by God, that she might be nourished there for a thousand two hundred and sixty days (three and a half years). This signifies the last difficult times for the church.And there was a war in heaven (for the church). Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought against them. But they did not stand, and there was no place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, the old serpent, called the devil and Satan (now working in the Japanese), who deceiveth the whole world, was cast out to the earth, and his angels (demons) were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice speaking in heaven; now is salvation, and power, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ; for the accuser of our brethren has been cast down, who slandered them before our God day and night. They defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and did not love their own souls even unto death (Rev. 12:10, 11). now has come salvation and power, and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ.It is opportune now to bring to mind the following difficult circumstance from the glorious military life of the Holy Right-Believing Prince Alexander Nevsky. At the time when his father Yaroslav was reigning in Vladimir, and he in Novgorod the Great, the peoples who lived then (in the 13th century) around the Baltic Sea – the Varangians, now called the Swedes, led by their king with a multitude of military ships – came to our borders with the intention of taking possession of Izhora, Ladoga, Novgorod and capturing all the Russian land. They approached the Neva River and stopped at its mouth at the confluence with the Gulf of Finland; the king, proud of his army, sent his ambassadors to Novgorod to the Grand Duke Alexander to say: if you wish, submit to me; and if not, know that I am already in your land, and will soon take her captive. Alexander, not having a sufficient army in readiness and not being able to inform his father, Prince Yaroslav of Vladimir, of his difficult situation because of an accidental attack by the enemy, – alone, placing his hope in the one glorified God in the Trinity and praying for help to the MostHoly Mother of God, and calling for help from his kinsmen, the holy passion-bearers Boris and Gleb, without an army, with one small retinue, set out against a numerous army of his opponents. Having come to the Neva River, he took up arms not far from the Swedes. And when there was with him one of the governors of the Izhora region, a God-fearing man named Philip, who was entrusted with the night watch so that he could secretly scout how much strength the enemies had. Seeing a large army of the enemy and being in fear and bewilderment, he returned to report to the Prince about what he had seen; And as he walked by the sea, at sunrise, he saw a ship by the shore, and in the midst of it two splendid youths in scarlet robes, putting their hands on each other's shoulders; the oarsmen sat as if covered with mist. He hears a voice! Brother Gleb! let us go quickly – let us help our kinsman, the Grand Duke Alexander, against the adversary. And the other answered: "Very well, brother Boris!" The scout, hearing this, hastened with fear and joy to tell the holy Prince Alexander about it, and he heard about it, glorified God, the Most-Pure Mother of God, and the holy Martyrs Boris and Gleb. Having fought with the enemies, Alexander's small retinue defeated the enemy hordes, and the Prince himself struck the king himself in the face – who, with a small remnant of his army, fled.Thus, with God's help both the Mother of God and the Holy Martyrs Boris and Gleb, St. Alexander won a glorious victory and delivered his country from foreign slavery, and from this glorious victory at the Neva he was called Nevsky. And more than once he liberated Novgorod from these enemies. After this glorious victory, the Swedes attacked Pskov, beating up many people, and placed their governors in it. St. Alexander with his brother Andrew and a hastily assembled army, having surrounded all the Pskov roads, slew a multitude of enemies and returned the city of Pskov to their state. The name of Alexander Nevsky became terrible among the Swedes.Such is the strength of faith and piety in the Christian army, especially in its leaders. May God grant that our present leaders will also be imbued with faith and hope for help from above, and not only on their own minds and on the strength and number of the army. We believe and hope that our glorious leaders and our Christ-loving army, not only by strength, skill and bravery, but especially by their faith in the almighty help of God, will soon overcome our enemies.