Swore. I took and married them. Live, they say, God be with you... and I did not even take anything from them for the wedding, because I see that there is really nothing to take from them. Well, so that it did not reach the authorities, I did not enter it either in the metric or in the search, but simply gave them a certificate that they were really legally married. That's how it would have turned out, but you see: I've made friends here. Once I quarreled with a neighboring priest, and he took it and denounced me to the consistory. Well, you know... Judged... The investigation was... And they sentenced me to a monastery, which means to repentance. I went to the bishop, thinking he would have mercy. Where is it, he did not even accept. Through his cell-attendant he said: "Tell this scoundrel not to dare to show himself to me." So I was offended. "If so," I said, "tell the bishop that not only will I not go to the monastery, but I will not return to the parish..." Let him appoint anyone in my place... He turned and left. So he left the place. I wanted to find some private classes, but who needs a full-time priest. He wanted to become a worker, but they did not accept him: it was inconvenient, they said, to pile a sack of flour on the back of a man in a cassock... I've decided to look for a place in a foreign diocese, maybe I'll find a bishop with a good soul somewhere... will get into the situation. I am going to the local bishop; Good, they say, but it is evident that I have such a misfortune: on the way I find out that he is not at home. Transferred... And they are waiting for a new one in his place. What, as soon as they send some half-witted lord, and go again... And at home the family... Soon you will have to put your teeth on the shelf. Well, how can you not drink it?

"Do you know what," said the priest, reviving, "if I were you, I would do the same. It is not the priest's business to conduct a prenuptial search and witness the documents of the newlyweds. The correctness of the documents will not add to the grace of God, just as the absence of them cannot serve as an obstacle to receiving God's blessing. Marriage existed in the first centuries of Christianity, when they had no idea about metrics or about our usual marriage search books. It would be a different matter if you married minors. This would be a great sin, because you would turn the sacrament of marriage into an empty invocation of the name of God. There would be no grace in the sacrament. This is the same as praying for the healing of an already dead person from an illness, that is, performing the sacrament of unction over a corpse. By marrying minors, you violate the law of nature, according to which only persons who have reached a certain age and physical maturity can marry. But the law of nature, like moral laws, is the same law of God. God has ordained both. You understand what nonsense it turns out to be: on the one hand, you violate the law of God, on the other hand, you ask God to give grace to fulfill this violated law. Of course, the grace of God does not work, and instead of the sacrament, it is profaned. And those who are related cannot be married, why, you know this yourself.

So, you have not committed a sin. It is true that you have been punished for not observing the formalities, but has it not been endured, if only for the sake of the joy you have given to the married couple? Come, we were happy... thanked you...

- Of course! One of these days I am going on a steamer... wharf... I had to buy something to eat. I got off at the pier and squeezed my way to the merchants. I heard suddenly: "Hello, father, would you like some apples, take them." "Why," I said, "don't you take it, and how much will you give it back?" - "Why, father," he said, "is it possible for you to... Take it this way. Don't you recognize me?" Yes, this is my fiancée without a passport. "Well," I said, "do you live?" - "Thank God," she said, laughing herself, so joyful, "son," she said, "God gave it." - "Well, God bless you!" - "Thank you, father, but take the apples, don't be disdainful." He pokes all his apples into my hands along with the basket. What to do? Took. After that, all the way, I treated almost all the passengers with them...

"Well, you see... And you began to drink it. You need to fight grief, but pray to God more earnestly. Prayer invigorates a person, refreshes his mind, and a person with fresh strength will always find a way out for himself. You have a kind soul, you have strength. So do not destroy yourself and others. Well, it seems that we are already approaching the city. We'll have to go soon... This is also my first time coming here. Recently I have just received an appointment... Here's the thing - you will come to see me in the city, my apartment will be next to the cathedral. We'll talk to you later. Maybe we'll come up with something. And now goodbye for now. We need to get ready.

Father stood up, gave his hand to Father Pavel and kissed him three times.

"Goodbye," Father Pavel said embarrassedly. - Thank you for your kind word and forgive me... I didn't know you were...

"God will forgive me," the priest smiled and disappeared into the cabin.

The steamer moored to the pier. Father Pavel tied his things in a bundle and stood at the gangway. A few minutes later, the priest appeared. He was accompanied by another priest, who wore a pectoral cross on his chest. Squeezing through the crowd, both priests took a cab and drove into the city. Father Pavel followed them.

Chapter 2

A week passed. Father Pavel still could not muster up the courage to go with his request to the bishop. From the newspaper news he read that the new archpastor had already arrived and assumed the administration of the diocese. "What a man he is," thought Father Pavel with anxiety. - What if he does not accept, or will say: go, they say, to where you came from."

Finally, Father Paul had the idea of asking someone about the bishop beforehand. He remembered that in the city, somewhere on the outskirts, his former seminary friend, Father Gerasim, served as a priest. Should I find him and talk to him? Probably he knows something about the bishop. And, locking his room at the inn where he was staying, Father Pavel went to look for his former friend. Father Pavel was prevented from finding the priest who met him on the ship because of his natural shyness. - "True, he is affectionate, kind and humble," Father Pavel thought about Father, "he lifted my hat... and I thought he was some kind of proud man; And yet they are urban, as soon as you go to visit him, and even in such a form." Father Pavel looked sadly at his worn-out, rusty duckweed. It's better to go to Father Gerasim. After all, this one was once his own man.

It did not take long to look for Father Gerasim. As soon as Father Pavel came to the outskirts of the city, the first person he met, hearing the name of Father Gerasim, immediately pointed out the street and his apartment, and even kindly escorted him. Father Pavel noticed that the person he met once pronounced the name of Father Gerasim in a particularly loving way.

"Won't you be his parishioner?" He asked his guide, trying to guess the reasons for his respectful attitude towards Father Gerasim.