Do you want to combine the two directions into one: the Optina and the one that lives in our parishes, with your rector, Fr. Paul? You want to instill love for the Lord, as it is said in the commandments, and love for your neighbor as for yourself, and thereby create in the soul of a person resistance to sins, persecution, confusion, godlessness, and falls. Our meeting took place by God's will and is necessary for both of us. I, Bishop Hilarion, bless you to follow the path you have chosen, uniting the two paths in one. I will report on our conversation to His Holiness the Patriarch. I bless you, follow the chosen path. The Lord will preserve you in all troubles and misfortunes. I fell to my knees, and Vladyka, putting his hand on my head, once again blessed me. Throughout our conversation he was concentrated and serious, and only with the last blessing did a kind smile appear on his face. I don't remember now, but I think he was a secretary to His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon [26].

From that moment on, I went with the blessing of a remarkable church figure, later Archbishop of Verey, who died in prison, endured the Solovetsky camp, humiliation, beatings, and was met by Hieromonk Seraphim in Solovki for a humiliating cleaning of sewage (you know Fr. Seraphim and remember his memories of meeting Vladyka).

The meeting with Archbishop Hilarion was an extraordinary, miraculous manifestation of the Lord's mercy to me, an insignificant priest who began serving in a small Moscow church. In a person's life, a miracle cannot be accidental, it is determined by the degree of his spirituality, the need to influence his inner world. Such a miracle was given to me by the Lord through Vladyka Hilarion, and I walked along this path, always remembering the blessing I had received.

Returning to my church, I served a moleben of thanksgiving, told everything to Fr. Paul, and he said to me: If Vladyka Hilarion has blessed you, walk this path, Vladyka is a man of deep spirituality. I, an old man, shouldn't relearn, but I'll help you.

From that day on, I began serving in the church, guided by the decision I made. Every day we served an early mass, trying to make everything understandable and clear to the parishioners, introducing them, as it were, into the circle of participants in the service. I made an agreement with Deacon Fr. Lev (who died in the camp in 1937) that every word of the litanies would be loud and clear, and I also spoke with the choir, which consisted of three women. About 810 people came to the early mass, mostly those who lived close to the church, no one came to me for confession. There were always a lot of people at the late Mass, Fr. Paul served, and I was the helping priest. Fr. Paul had a queue of confessors, and I was standing at the lectern, the cross and the Gospel were lying, but the parishioners were not coming. Father Pavel began to send confessors to me, they came reluctantly, but when they came, he confessed for a long time, told me about the meaning of confession, spoke about the need to pray daily and read a chapter of the Gospel. They listened absent-mindedly, sometimes even entered into an argument, but gradually about ten fifteen people began to come to me. He organized conversations and teachings in the evening.

Father Pavel rejoiced for me and sent many confessors to me, but Fr. Michael, the second priest, for some reason hated me, calling me a sectarian and a heretic. Soon he drank heavily and left for another parish. The community grew, improved, Gleb was ordained a priest, you became my assistants. Of great importance to me was the parting words and blessings of Vladyka Hilarion, the knowledge acquired in the Optina Hermitage, the instructions of the Elders Nektarios and Anatoly, the great mercy of the Lord that His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon sent me to the church where Archpriest Paul was the rector. Do you remember the joint reports at the interviews that we conducted at that time? How much benefit they have brought to all of you (unfortunately, many are no longer among us). The community grew, you grew, and I taught you and learned from you!

We saw that Fr. Arseny was tired. Doctors Irina and Yulia stood up at the same time and said: Father Arseny! We forbid you to talk further, continue tomorrow. I must definitely tell everything, it is necessary. Yulia waved her hand to us, we went out.

On the fourth day of the Nativity of Christ, January 10, 1975, Fr. Arseny asked everyone to come to him. Father Nikolai had to leave, which he regretted very much, but unexpectedly Olya and Nadezhda, Yuri's sister, who had long since become a secret nun, arrived.

Our doctors were displeased that Fr. Arseny had gathered us again. We sat down in all directions, today the priest looked much better than yesterday, even his voice was louder.

Yesterday I told you how I went to the community, how it was created, the rest you know, for you have lived in it and know its whole life. Now I will speak about the years that were difficult physically, but spiritually bright, for both in exile and in the camps I met people of the highest spirit, ascetics of faith, sufferers who helped people. You know, I have met people whose faith was so perfect and great that I dreamed that if you put a wax candle to them, it would flash with an unearthly light. I will tell you about these righteous men, for I have studied and learned from them. But I will return to my mother, Maria Alexandrovna. As I have already said, my mother was an unusual person. She grew up in an intelligent family of professors, where faith was recognized as one of the obligatory customs of the Russian people, something similar to folklore, and in this environment she herself came to faith and became a believer, led her mother and her father to the knowledge of faith. Her faith in the Lord was so great, and her knowledge of the Holy Fathers and spiritual literature was so extensive, that she amazed the spiritual philosophers of her time. Why am I talking about this? Because it was my mother who planted the seeds of faith in my soul, nurtured them, and I entered life standing on a solid foundation from which nothing could push me. The Optina Hermitage, the acceptance of the priesthood, the founding of the community, and the difficult path of camps and exile were all based on the faith given to me by my mother. Now I will talk about a third of my life spent in camps and exile, not about the physical difficulties I endured, but about the wonderful people I met there, who taught me a lot and passed on their spiritual experience.

The first such spiritual light was Priest Hilarion, in monasticism John, who served in the village of Troitskoye, Arkhangelsk region. Ksenia Vladimirovna wrote down good memories of him, and they tell in detail about the influence that he had on me. The second was Hieromonk Seraphim from the Nilo-Stolobensky Monastery, memories of him were recorded by Alexander Sergeevich. I suddenly met the third in his own camp barracks, Monk Michael. Each of them passed on to me, without even knowing it, a deep spiritual wisdom that enriched me.

The camp was physically overwhelming and terrifying, but the numerous meetings and confessions of the prisoners revealed to me, as a priest, the immeasurably high spirituality of the people. Do not think that all these people were bishops, priests, monks, among these ascetics of the faith there were simple laymen who had found such a fullness of faith in Christ that I, a hieromonk, was far from them. Their confessions were for me a revelation of God. I remember a simple collective farmer Ivan Sergeyevich. Always quiet, calm, he confessed three days before his death, he was overwhelmed with rock in the face. I listened to his confession, the story of his life, I listened to the words: Father, I will die in three days, they are sending me to the camp in the mine. He spoke distantly, with deep faith in the Lord, I listened, and tears flowed down my face.

I remember an elderly engineer, I remember only his name, Vyacheslav, I saw him in the barracks every day. One evening he came up to me: Father, I am a bad believer, but tomorrow there will be a cleansing of the camp, I will be shot, confess and absolve my sins. This bad believer was so spiritually high that I listened to him with trepidation. The next day he was shot. And how many such meetings there were, how many they gave.

There in the camp was the hierodeacon of the Pechora Monastery, John, who was not tall, had his hair cut like all the prisoners, like all the prisoners, with a sad face, but when he spoke, his voice thundered. Musicians from the prisoners said that he had the rarest bass profundo, and with such a voice he should sing in the Italian theater of Milan La Scala. Father John came to me for confession in the barracks, tried to speak in a whisper, but every word he said could be heard five meters away. Confession did not take place, it was agreed that he would confess at the logging site, in the forest, that year I was sent to harvest wood.