I will return to the Liturgy that took place at our home. It was performed by Fr. Alexander, a humpback, of short stature and indeed a little hunchbacked, I do not know his name, he had previously been a priest in the Podkopaevsky Church, then closed. He lived, or rather, hid in different apartments in Moscow or went to the city of Borovsk, where he later died of pneumonia during the occupation of the city by the Germans. Fr. Alexander served the Liturgy with us many times. Not tall, almost small, with a constantly kind and affable face, he was bright and radiant, and very much reminded me of the elder Fr. Alexei Mechev. Everyone who knew loved him. When I confessed to him, I told him about my sins without strain, without the slightest effort, without embarrassment, as if I were telling myself, and from every word and gesture of Fr. Alexander emanated kindness and forgiveness. Fr. Alexander was an amazing man and priest.

The liturgy ended, the communicants congratulated each other, and everyone took communion. A table is set, cups and plates are arranged, everyone sits around the table, Lelya and I begin to give everyone water and food. I peer at all the familiar faces, except two. Present at the Liturgy were: Elizaveta Zamyatina, her cousin Lyudmila Diligenskaya, later the secret nun Seraphima, philologist and director, Zoya Pryanishnikova, the daughter of Academician Pryanishnikov, Pavel Olenin, the composer's son, Elena Sergeevna Volna khina, the daughter of the sculptor (the author of the monument to the first printer Ivan Fedorov), who secretly came from Orel or Rybinsk, Andrei, the spiritual son of Fr. Mikhail Shik, Yuri and Kira, and, of course, Lelya and I. Father Alexander knew all of us when he met at services, but he saw Yuri and Kira for the first time, just as I did, and turned to them with the question: Who is your spiritual father? Our father, Hieromonk Arseny, was in exile all the time, and is now imprisoned in a camp. Father Alexander asked something more clarifying, saying: I met Hieromonk Arseny more than once in 19251927, but I was not yet a priest then. I know, I know.

As you have already understood, I had heard about Hieromonk Arseny twice before 1958, but I did not attach any importance to it and did not expect to meet him.

In 1960, the cousin of my second wife Elizabeth, Lyudmila Diligenskaya (in the secret monasticism of Seraphim) invited Lisa to go to the city of Rostov to the Elder Hieromonk Arseny, and it was then that I heard about the Elder for the third time. There were three of them who went to Rostov: Lyudmila, Elizaveta and Kira. After her first visit to the priest, she told me about him with deep heartfeltness, for from almost 1941 to 1960 we did not have a spiritual leader in the full sense of the word. From that time on, Lisa went to see Fr. Arseny twice a year, but always accompanied by Lyudmila or Kira, he did not let her go alone. I did not go to see Fr. Arseny. I worked two jobs, got up at six in the morning, worked until 4:30 p.m. at one and quickly drove to the second and came home at 10:15 p.m., only had time to have lunch and went to bed tired. Lisa did not work after marriage, took care of the household, raised her son Alexander.

My first meeting with Fr. Arseny took place in January 1961, when I was given a two-room apartment in an unsheltered working-class area, and we lived on the Arbat in a communal apartment, and Lisa could not decide whether to move or not, she did not like the new area. We came to Fr. Arseny together, he listened to us and blessed us to move. Our meeting took place at the apartment of Yuri and Kira Bakhmat, and later we almost always met with Fr. Arseny at their place, rarely at Lyuda or Natalia Petrovna's.

The second meeting was long. Tell me about yourself, Fr. Arseny told me, and I began to tell them in detail. He spoke with sorrow about his deceased first wife Elena. Starting from 1930, she was a disabled person of the second group of double heart disease, valve damage. She received a pension and worked part-time at home, typing. I fell in love with Lelya, she did not agree to be my wife, but after my long persuasion and the blessing of my spiritual father, Fr. Sergius Mechev, she married me on July 17, 1936, all the time painfully worried that her illness was spoiling my life, but this was her deepest mistake.

A philologist by education, she could not work in her specialty. She came to the community of Fr. Sergius in 1924 together with her friends: Alexandra Tsurikova (later the wife of Priest Fyodor Semenenko), Irina Sveshnikova, and Valentin Ivanov. Here, after the difficult experiences associated with the death of her mother, she found peace of mind and the spiritual guidance of Fr. Sergius, many real, good, kind friends, with whom she was friends until her death. They were Maria Nikolaevna Sokolova (nun Juliana), who taught her icon painting, but not only her, but many brothers and sisters of the community, Elena Maydel, Zoya Pryanishnikova, Pavel Olenin, Tatiana Kupriyanova (later the wife of the secret priest Boris Vasiliev), my sister Elena Apushkina-Bykova (later the wife of Priest Konstantin Apushkin), Maria Alexandrovna Zalesova, Archpriest Peter Gnedich, a teacher at the Leningrad and then Moscow Theological Academy, and many others. Elena lived in a community and lived in a community, she was a person of extraordinary kindness, faith, prayerfulness and constant help to people around her. Beginning in 1934, a great and close friendship arose between his wife and Elizaveta Zamyatina, Fr. Sergius's favorite spiritual daughter and one of the active sisters of the community. Elizabeth was always present at all the liturgies celebrated in our home. In addition, three times a week we read Vespers, Matins, Hours, akathists, and Liza, Pavel Olenin, Zoya Pryanishnikova, and, of course, my wife Elena, the landlady of the apartment. I came home from work late and almost always found the end of the service.

I told Fr. Arseny about Elena's last dying illness in 1943 (although every year, beginning in 1934, she fell seriously ill and lay in bed for three months with severe shortness of breath and congestive pneumonia). I told her about the amazing spiritual friendship between Elena and Elizabeth, as a result of which Lelya (she understood that she was dying) turned to Lisa in March 1943 with a request that Lisa marry me. Elena told me: I'm leaving, you can't live alone, you need a spiritually strong person. I'll be leaving soon, don't console me, I understand and know everything. I ask you to let Lisa become your wife, a person of strong character, great faith, love for people, who is able to help you in everything. She is much higher than me in her spiritual development, more beautiful and attractive. This is my will, I also asked Lisa to be your wife.

But everything turned out to be complicated and difficult, Lisa categorically refused to get married, her dream from the age of 18 was to become a nun, but my memories are not about that. The Lord nevertheless united us.

I told Fr. Arseny my life, he never interrupted or stopped, he only listened and looked at me attentively, and when I finished, I said, turning to the icons: Let us pray to the Lord, the Most Holy Theotokos the Lady and Saints Elizabeth and Zachariah, the Holy Prince Vladimir, Saints Constantine and Helena, let us thank God for His mercy. After the prayer, he spoke to me the words with which he reinterpreted, opened and evaluated everything I had said from the point of view of spirituality, faith, and all that I had not said about Elena, Lisa and myself, about relationships with others, he put before me, saying: Vladimir, Vladimir! I am amazed at the great mercy that the Lord and the Most Holy Theotokos have shown you. They sent you two amazingly spiritual women, his wife Helena and his wife Elizabeth, who by faith and the way of their lives put into you the power of faith, inwardly nourished you with this faith, and thus saved you from all evil. The Lord, by His mercy, as a boy, brought you to the great elder of Moscow, Fr. Alexei Mechev, and gave you the opportunity to be his spiritual son almost until the execution of the wonderful priest Fr. Sergius Mechev (I knew him). What you have told me about your wife Elena and Elizaveta Alexandrovna makes me, Priest Arseny, happy, and how I would like all the sisters of our small community to be like them. Thank the Lord for everything and everything, and I have known Elizaveta Alexandrovna for two years. Father told me much more, and I clung to him with all my soul and found spiritual joy and consolation in short and rather rare meetings with him.

I read almost all the memoirs about Fr. Arseny, I remember what people wrote to him who confessed to him or talked with him, amazed at his ability to penetrate the human soul with a spiritual gaze. I was also shocked at the time, and my whole story about myself seemed superficial and incomplete after his words. Addressing me, Fr. Arseny with each of his words, as if from an onion, stripped me of the husk, showing mistakes, errors, and imperfections. Speaking about Elizabeth, he emphasized her high inner spirituality and faith and, smiling with a kind and warm smile, said: She is your spiritual guide and mentor in life. Elizaveta Alexandrovna is very vulnerable, in terms of perfection and purity of soul, she takes everything to her heart, and this leaves unhealed scars. Take care of it, people with such a soul are rare.

Father Arseny possessed an extraordinary gift of clairvoyance, which sometimes frightened and surprised people who came to him. Above average height, with a slightly elongated oval beautiful face, a small beard, rather thick, once probably dark, and now almost gray hair, large kind brown eyes and always a kind friendly face, he immediately won over a person. On the left side of the face, almost from the eye itself, two scars stretched, hiding under the beard, on the right side on half of the forehead there was a whitish scar that went to the temple and disappeared into the hair of the head. The memoirs of Fr. Arseny and his spiritual children tell in detail about the severe physical suffering he endured, but he did not hunch, did not slouch, walked upright. He never complained about anything, although he was seriously ill, but always thanked the Lord and the Most Holy Theotokos for everything, constantly saying the Jesus Prayer. Of the saints, he especially revered Sts. Sergius of Radonezh, Seraphim of Sarov, Panteleimon the Healer, St. Mary Magdalene, Mary of Egypt, the Apostle of Love John the Theologian, Nicholas the Wonderworker.

In 1967, Fr. Arseny had a long conversation with me, Lisa, Kira, Yuri, and Lyudmila Diligenskaya. Father asked Liza, Lyudmila, and me in detail about the community of Fr. Sergius Mechev, about the elder Fr. Alexei Mechev, and for some reason asked me to tell them about the priests we met in life. There were many names, and sometimes Fr. Arseny would say: I knew him, I met him in the Optina Hermitage, or he was the spiritual son of Elder Nektarios, and this one died in the camps or was shot. About one he said: I got lost, went to the Living Church. Listening to us, Father was sad, many names probably reminded him of friends and acquaintances who had long passed away, but some of the names of the priests we called were unknown to him. Write me the names of the priests who were shot, who died in the camps and exiles, who died, I will commemorate them, said Fr. Arseny. We wrote not only those who were mentioned to the priest, but also the names of many other priests and deacons.

In 1971, for the first time, I came across a separate notebook of samizdat memoirs about Fr. Arseny, they struck me with their extraordinary modernity, truthfulness and spirituality, which showed the life of people in our difficult time of the 1920s and 1960s. In 1975, Father died, and many of his spiritual children began to supplement their previously written memoirs, and he had to collect what he had written again and again.