* * *

Every year there are fewer and fewer of us, sisters and brothers who once stood at the origins of the community in the twenties. Before, I could not remember the names of all the sisters, but in 1977 there were few of us left there, that a feeling of deep sadness and sorrow overwhelmed my soul. In the twenties, most of us were twenty-thirty years old, and now the youngest are at least seventy-five, and others are well over eighty.

Each of those who are still living and those who have already passed away received a huge number of deep wounds and scars in life, many of whose relatives died in the Patriotic War, in camps, prisons, exiles, from hunger or in other life misfortunes, such was the life of almost all people of our time.

But we had the main thing that a person can have: faith in God, the Church, and a mentor, Elder Arsenius, who instilled in our souls an understanding of spirituality and love for people. Those who left earthly life left it with faith in God and prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos and the saints, with hope for the salvation of their souls by the mercy of the Lord.

He gave faith to many dozens, perhaps hundreds of people who came to Fr. Arseny after 1958, and he directed many with his prayer to God, to the knowledge of the Church. Now the old members of the community of the twenties and those who came after 1958 meet as the dearest people, united into one whole by the instructions, teachings and love of Fr. Arseny. He loved all of us, we are all his spiritual children. Father is not with us now, but in our misfortunes and troubles we hasten to help each other, for this is what he taught us.

Each of us, still living on earth, asks for the prayers of the priest before the Lord and the Most Holy Theotokos. We are Thy orphans, pray to God for us, sinners, Father Arseny! Eternal, eternal memory to you, our elder and spiritual father, Hieromonk Arseny!

AFTERWORD TO THE MEMOIRS OF FATHER ARSENY

On June 21, 1999, the rector of St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Institute, Archpriest Vladimir Vorobiev, asked me to write memoirs about my meetings with the Elder Hieromonk Arseny. I rashly agreed. Why recklessly? When I came home, looking through the book Father Arseny, written by his spiritual children, who had long and closely communicated with him from 1920 until his death in 1975, I realized that I could add only a little to the beautiful things that had already been written. After all, I first met Father in Moscow in 1961 and then met him eleven or twelve times only in Moscow, when he lived with his spiritual children for two weeks after treatment in clinics. I always came with my wife Elizabeth, she already knew Fr. Arseny well and went to see him in the city of R., now you can write Rostov (Northern) [27].

The longest of my meetings with Fr. Arseny was in 1967 and lasted more than three hours, a small part of the conversation was devoted to personal problems, and the main part was devoted to questions from the priest about the community led by Fr. Sergei Mechev (everyone knew the community called Maroseyka) and about the bishops and priests with whom we met in life, but I will write about this later. Although the rest of the meetings were short-lived, I entered Fr. Arseny as one person, and left as a completely different person, who received new spiritually renewing instruction, advice, help, and clarification of the perplexities that arose. Memory fades at the distance of the past years, many things are forgotten, but I am obliged to fulfill the promise I made to Fr. Vladimir, for what was said should not be broken.

Before writing, remembering, I went to the bookshelf, looked at how many editions of Father Arseny's book had been published, and saw that in Russia, since 1993, six editions have been published, with a total circulation of about 500,000 copies, two editions have been published in Greece in Greek, two in the United States in English, and there is a report that the book is also published in France. Such a number of publications in Russia and abroad, as well as huge circulations, have made this book one of the most widely read among Orthodox Christians, and this is the merit of the Orthodox St. Tikhon Theological Institute and the Brotherhood in the Name of the All-Merciful Savior, which laid the foundation for its publication and wide distribution) among the faithful.

I will have to tell you a little about the community led by Fr. Sergius Mechev and about my personal life, because it is connected with the mention of the name of Fr. Arseny, which I first heard in 19381939.

In the 192030s, Fr. Sergius Mechev discussed the question of ordaining nine brothers of the community to the secret priesthood by Bishop Athanasius (Sakharov). Three brothers were already ordained: Fyodor Semenenko (he was from Maroseia and Podkopaevsky), Herman and Georgy. But Vladyka Athanasius found himself again imprisoned in the camp, and Fr. Sergius said with regret: We did not have time, but Vladyka ordained ten brothers to the priesthood of Hieromonk Arseny. Now we are negotiating with Bishop Manuel (Lemeshevsky), he is ready to consecrate the brothers of our community. Of the nine, Bishop Manuel consecrated five: Roman, Boris, Peter, Constantine, and I don't remember the name of the fifth. But after a while, all those initiated by him were summoned to the Lubyanka, three received sentences, two denied initiation, were subjected to severe physical pressure and were released, but were under constant surveillance. The strangest thing was that Bishop Manuel twice came to the house of those who denied the consecration and asked them to confess to the authorities (??).

Bishop Manuel did not know about the proposed consecration of four more brothers, three of them had already been ordained to the priesthood under Patriarch Alexy I, but in different dioceses, and in 19451946 they served in churches. I learned all that I am writing about now only in the fifties, for even the initiates did not know which of the other brothers was to become or had become a priest. It was a terrible time, and secretly ordained priests celebrated home liturgies with a limited circle of people, who were forbidden to report the names of priests and the services performed. That's how we lived in those years.

The second time I heard the name of Fr. Arseny was in 1940, after the Liturgy at a trapeza at our home. My wife Elena (Lelya) and I lived in a separate two-room apartment (on the mezzanine of a three-story house at 14 Maly Kozikhinsky Lane), so we had secret liturgies served twice a month on Sundays, celebrated by priests of closed churches who were hiding from arrest or by secretly ordained priests. The Liturgy of 1940, as well as all those present at it, are well remembered by me. Usually, only members of the Maroseia community were invited to such services, but sometimes members of other communities were also invited, in whose loyalty there was no doubt. To make everything clear, I will say that the composition and number of those invited was determined not by the owners of the apartment, but by a person specially designated for this purpose in the community (it was Sima Seraphima Solovyova), we ourselves could invite only two people, our friends. Seraphim established the order of attendance at the liturgies by brothers and sisters. The community was led by Fr. Sergius Mechev, the son of the famous Moscow elder Fr. Alexei Mechev, whose spiritual son I was a 12-year-old boy and confessed to him. In 1939, Fr. Sergius lived in the city of Kalinin (Tver) under the supervision of the NKVD. I went to see him many times, sometimes Father secretly came in the summer to the Mtsyri station of the Oktyabrskaya Railway, where many met him in the forest. Father Sergius was the spiritual father of Lelya and mine, and he also blessed us for the marriage.