Yuri and I came to Fr. Arseny for the Christmas holidays for ten days, stayed with the Platonovs, where in the summer we constantly rented a room.

It was the third day of the Nativity of Christ, January 9, 1975. Two doctors, Irina and Lyuda, had been living with Nadezhda Petrovna for several days, watching his condition. Liturgy on this day was served by Fr. Nicholas, Fr. Herman and Fr. Paul. Father Arseny was lying on the sofa. From constant weakness, shortness of breath and arrhythmia, he could not only get up, but also sit.

At the end of Liturgy and after breakfast, Fr. Arseny asked all those who had come that day to come to him: Lyuda, Irina, Yuri, Fr. Nicholas, Fr. Herman and Fr. Pavel, Nadezhda Petrovna, Natasha, and me. We sat silently in armchairs, on chairs, and on a footstool. Father Arseny was thoughtful, lying on the sofa, mechanically sorting through the fringe of the blanket that covered him. There was silence. Raising his bowed head, he looked at the icons for a long time, crossed himself three times and said in a low voice:

My dear and beloved friends and spiritual children, life is slowly and inexorably leaving my mortal body, such is the will of the Lord. And now I want to tell you the segments of my life, on the basis of which my spiritual worldview was formed and the further path leading to the knowledge of God and the leadership of the flock entrusted to me by the Lord and the individuals I met in life were determined.

I lived a long life, two-thirds of which was surrounded by people who brought divine joy and light. The first was my mother, Maria Alexandrovna (I have already spoken about her once), a gifted, wise person, imbued with the deepest faith in God, precisely the deepest. She treated me in two ways: as her own son, and as a creation of God, which she was obliged to preserve and bring up in deep faith in the Creator. She considered herself responsible to Him, for He had entrusted her with a human soul. I was the third child in the family, my brother died at the age of two, my sister was four years old, and my mother, when I was born, made a promise to the Lord to put faith, truthfulness and love for people in me, and she raised me this way. At the age of sixteen, being fond of Old Russian art, he already dreamed of monasticism. Then there was the Optina Hermitage, where it was difficult to get under the guidance of the elders, but by the mercy of God I was accepted, and I was guided by the elders Fr. Anatoly and Fr. Nektarios. For two years he lived in the Optina Hermitage under the guidance of Elder Fr. Nektarios and Elder Fr. Anatoly. Why two elders? Many people are surprised by this; Probably, according to the plan of the elders, this was part of the system of my spiritual education. Sometimes, when you came to Fr. Nektarios, you always had to wait a long time. You ask, and he answers: Go to Fr. Anatoly, he will tell you. I will come to Fr. Anatoly, and he will also answer: Go ask Fr. Nektarios. At first, I was confused and even offended to tears, but then I realized: It means that this is the way it should be, and this later determined my spiritual worldview, when, with the blessing of Fr. Nektarios and Fr. Anatoly, I was sent to serve in the world, in the parish church, in the rank of hieromonk.

The circle of communication in the monastery is small, the same people are constantly the same, monks whom you know and see every day, monastic work, constant prayer in church, cell, at work, a minimum of conversations and instructions from the elders. Obedience and humility in communication with novices and monks. One should not think that the relationships with others were cloudless in the monastery, sometimes they were so difficult that the soul contracted with pain, these were temptations allowed by the Lord. Coming to the elder, crushed and oppressed, I wanted to tell him everything, but he already knew, yes, he knew everything, and by the nature of your attitude to what had happened, he determined the level of your spiritual perfection or fall and taught you to perceive what had happened with prayer as the will of the Lord.

Your opinion, the humiliation you received, the insult you received were not taken into account, only humility before God and understanding were accepted: you are still so imperfect that what happened is the result of your sinfulness and is just. The elder in the monastery is your father, mentor, guide in everything, you do not have your own will, you have a complete renunciation of your vain self.

When I received a blessing from Elder Fr. Nektarios and Elder Fr. Anatoly to go to serve in the world, in the parish church (this was completely unusual in those days), I was deeply surprised and confused. I do not know who spoke about me to His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, but I was invited to see him, he accepted me, and allowed me to serve in the parish church, where Archpriest Paul was the rector. The Patriarch spoke with me for ten minutes, blessed me and said prophetic words about my priestly path, I will not say them, they are too hidden. I will say one thing: while in exile and camps, being taken out to be shot, beaten during interrogations and almost dying in the frosty stages, I believed the words of the great hierarch of the Russian land, Patriarch Tikhon, that his predestined words would be fulfilled and I would again come to you, my spiritual children. He believed boldly, for these were the words of the Patriarch.

I, an inexperienced hieromonk Arseny, came to the rector of the church, Fr. Paul. Tall, bearded, a little bulky, with a kind and friendly face, he looked at me skeptically, asking me to tell me about himself. He spoke at length and in detail: about life before the monastery, about childhood, education, passion for ancient Russian art and architecture, life in the Optina Hermitage. Father Pavel did not ask a single question, he said: You are from the intelligentsia, I also have such parishioners, they all have some kind of search and search, they cannot even find themselves in the faith, so you will deal with them, I do not understand them well. I have not been to the Optina Hermitage, I have heard a lot about Elder Nektarios, Elder Anatoly, and the elders Nikon and Barsanuphius. They say that the elders are great, but Moscow is not Optina, a noisy, sinful city.

From time immemorial, my great-grandfathers and grandfathers were priests, and good priests, I aspired to the priesthood all my life, graduated from the seminary, then the Academy, but I did not meet with the eldership. There are priests in Moscow, they have created communities, they want to follow the Optina path in the world, God help them. You know, my friend (Fr. Paul had a favorite expression, father), it is difficult to be a priest in the world, especially in Moscow, you cannot imagine! This is not a monastery where everything is scheduled by the hour. I would gladly go to a monastery, but I can't leave the parishioners, I'm married, children, although adults, but children. Did Fr. Paul know the Lord's will? He was arrested and died in exile in the Arkhangelsk region of starvation six years after this conversation. The authorities are destroying the church, sending priests to the camps, who will I leave the church to? Father Michael is a good man, but he loves a glass. You know, Fr. Arseny! I will leave it to you, and blessed me.

Here's the thing, my friend, that everything that is monastic will remain with you, but I will retrain you for service in the city. Do not be offended, you are strong in education, but I have been serving as a priest for more than thirty-five years, and I will pass on to you everything I know. You know, this bulky, bearded priest Fr. Paul, cheerful, smiling, a lover of strong tea with sugar and drinking it with black bread, possessed great spiritual perfection, I revered him. His spiritual world was not inferior to the spiritual world of the Optina Elders, but it was different, urban.

And so I, Hieromonk Arseny, felt in my spirit, saw two paths, different, but leading to the same goal. And I pondered, asked the Lord to indicate which spiritual path to take, which one to choose. I pondered for a long time, prayed, begging the Lord to help me make the right choice, and went to the Optina Hermitage to receive advice from the elders. I lived for three days, Fr. Anatoly listened and said: I bless! May the mercy of the Lord be with you. Go for it! Father Nektarios received him only on the third day just before his departure, listened and was silent for a long time, apparently praying, then said: There is an elder in Moscow, he leads parishioners in Optina, this is who should be an example. Go to churches, look, consult, the Lord will enlighten you. Go and find your way.

I left, visited the Moscow priests who led the communities, each had his own opinion, gave different advice, different from each other, but the blessing of Elder Anatoly was a guiding star for me. I saw that the authorities were doing everything to destroy the Church, and I understood that it would be even worse in the future: the clergy were repressed, churches were closed and destroyed.

My thought was to teach a person to have unlimited faith in God and to love his neighbor. I believed and still believe that the faith of Christ is based on two commandments about love for the Lord and neighbor, and I have told you about this many times.