Yes, life in Russia was not cloudless and easy. But from the Christian point of view, this is exactly what the life of the people of God should be. No Orthodox people lived a serene, safe and comfortable life. The reason for this is clear: man is weak, and if he is given all the comforts and a luxurious life, he easily forgets God, forgets everything heavenly and completely turns to the earth, drowning in the dust of the earth. That is why the Lord did not give His peoples such a life. St. Isaac of Syria says that "this is what distinguishes the sons of God from the rest, that they live in sorrows, while the world rejoices in pleasure and peace. For it was not God's pleasure that His beloved should rest while they were in the body, but rather that while they were in the world, they should remain in sorrow, in burden, in labor, in poverty, in nakedness, in loneliness, in need, in sickness, humiliation, in insults, in contrition of heart..." In this way the Lord leads all His true followers, just as He Himself, having become man, walked in our world precisely this path – the path of the cross.

In order to understand why the Lord does not allow His people to become too rich and luxurious, it is also necessary to remember what kind of land we live on, to remember that our land is not a place of entertainment and pleasure, but a place where we were expelled from Paradise, a place of our punishment and correction. We live in a perishable, fallen and damaged world, in a world where death reigns, where everything is saturated with it, we live in a territory occupied by the devil and death, we live a short time that we must devote to the struggle – the struggle to fulfill God's commandments. On earth we live as in a war, as at the front. Is it possible, therefore, for Christians to settle down here with all the comforts and luxuries? Will soldiers build five-star hotels with their glitter and excesses on the front line instead of trenches and fortifications? Is it possible for the followers of Christ to drown in pleasure and luxury in the world where their Creator, Lord and Savior have been killed? Where does merciless death rage? Where are many millions of people suffering and suffering? where someone dies every second?..

This does not mean, of course, that the people of God are doomed to complete poverty and ruin, to the life of ragged, homeless and homeless people, no, the Lord gives us everything necessary for earthly life, for, in His own words, He knows that we have need of it. But the Lord does not allow His people to become excessively rich and reach an excess and satiated life, because then the people cease to be the people of God, cease to give birth to saints. The Lord wisely leads His people along the middle path, the path of moderate poverty. In this way He led the people of Israel in Old Testament times, who never had even close to such earthly splendor and wealth, such a glorious earthly culture as, for example, Egypt, Greece or Rome. And in the same way He led all truly Christian, that is, Orthodox peoples in the times of the New Testament. He led them in this way because on this path the people of God are most capable of giving birth to saints and righteous men.

This was the path followed by Russia, which never ceased to give birth to saints. Even in the twentieth century, at the time of atheistic possession, many thousands of saints and righteous men shone in it. And today, after the unprecedented persecution of the Bolshevik state, when all the forces of darkness were aimed at erasing Orthodoxy from the face of the Russian land, even today more than half of the Orthodox people of our planet belong to the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Church teaches us that the saints are close to us, if, of course, we live in a Christian way. They are close to us in spirit, in common service to Christ. However, our Russian saints are close to us not only in spirit, but also in blood – they are literally our relatives. They came from us, from our midst, were born with us, grew up in our families, villages, cities. Take, for example, the last saints – the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia: after all, they lived quite recently, and most of them still have living relatives – children, grandchildren, nephews and others, more distant. Probably, it is rare in any other nation in our time to see relatives of saints in such numbers as here, in Russia. And this also shows that even today, on the threshold of the 21st century, our Fatherland continues to remain, in spite of everything, an Orthodox country and the people of God.

Acquire a peaceful spirit, and thousands will be saved around you, said St. Seraphim. That is, around every saint who has acquired the Holy Spirit, thousands of Christians are saved, although they have not attained holiness, but venerate holiness, pray to the saints and imitate them. For then we will undoubtedly enter into those thousands who will be saved around each of them, we will enter through their prayers and the mercy of God. Amen.

On the Safeguarding of the Mind. If thy eye be pure...