Handwritten Valaam Patericon

Foreword

Seal of Valaam

GREAT is the world of God, many of all kinds of people live in it, but most of them do not know the true God, the Creator of this world, and worship false gods. There are many people in the world and in Christ who believe, but not all of them uphold the true Apostolic Orthodox faith, and even among the Orthodox few live God-pleasing and pious. There are even fewer monastics among Orthodoxy, but even among them there are even fewer who live strictly in a monastic way, who shine with a virtuous life, and even more so those who have been swept away by God with grace-filled gifts and spiritual power. Therefore, just as gold, diamonds, etc., are precious and dear to people of this age, so also for people who believe deeply, precious are those people who, sincerely pleasing God and working for Him day and night, have been vouchsafed to receive from Him grace-filled gifts, visible or hidden, therefore the Most Wise One said: To him who praises the righteous shall men rejoice. And so, God-loving and faithful Christian souls, listening to or reading stories and stories about the lives of God-pleasing and highly moral men, are spiritually comforted and rejoiced. For them, these stories, according to the expression of the Bible, are as sweet as honeycombs (Proverbs 16:24). These Souls of virtuous Christians are truly like a bee that sits on a flower and extracts honey from it, and not like those sinners who, like a dung fly, love the vices opposite to the virtuous. But just as in the material world we see everything ordinary and priceless everywhere and trample under our feet, but we do not see the precious things soon, they are hidden, so in the spiritual world it is very difficult to find true virtue and holiness at once, we must search and work, just as everything dear is hidden for fear of being stolen, just as the Holy Spirit is also hidden in the spiritual world. The Fathers said: "A treasure that is declared is stolen"; and therefore, fearing these thieves, true ascetics carefully conceal and conceal their inner wealth, fearing lest through human praise and glory they should be deprived of eternal glory and kingdom from God.

Here, with God's help, we have gathered, although not the hidden feats and heartfelt deeds of the monks, because the secret knowledge is only to the One Heart-Knowing God, but nevertheless the joyful facts from their lives, shedding some light on their inner life and spiritual height, and also described wondrous incidents and miraculous events and manifestations from the world beyond the grave. All that is written here has happened either in our memory, or has been heard by us from persons who lived before us, and what happened in their time and before their eyes.

We earnestly ask you to be lenient to our weak work and to forgive us if we have unwittingly sinned in something. The purpose of our writing was as follows: to bring even a small spiritual benefit to those who read this Valaam Patericon, and if we have brought even a small grain of spiritual benefit to anyone, then thank God, Who has helped us in this work – our goal has been achieved.

1. ON THE FRAGRANCE OF THE SKULL OF CLEOPAS' FATHER

In 1893, in the Great Skete of All Saints, the monk Father Arseny (photographer) died. Fr. Hegumen Gabriel gave his blessing to bury him in the same skete, where he had lived and asceticized for many years. They began to dig a grave for him next to Jerusalem Schemamonk Cleopas, who died in 1816, a former disciple of the great Elder Paisius Velichkovsky, the worker of the Jesus Prayer and in general an elder of high spiritual life. During the digging of his grave, the novices suddenly felt a strong and intense fragrance, which was felt by everyone and further on, which they were very surprised. When their work was nearing completion, a human skull fell out of the side of the grave, clean, of dark wax flower. The fragrance intensified even more. The brethren then sent for the elder Fr. Theophilus, who at that time was the administrator of the skete. The latter came and gave orders to summon Hieroschemamonk Alexis and the other skete elders. Father Alexis hastened to come to the grave, and when he saw the skull and felt a wondrous fragrance, he took the skull in his hands with great joy and said to the brethren who were gathering: "This is the head of the holy elder Schemamonk Cleopas." And he said to the head, as if addressing a living person: "Father Cleopas! Christ is in our midst!" — and, crossing himself, kissed his head several times with love, and for a long time everyone admired the pleasant appearance of the head and delighted with the wondrous aroma, and after this, at the desire of all the skete elders, they served a pannikhida for the blessed elder Hieroschemamonk Cleopas, and, carefully placing his head in their place, covered it with earth. Hieroschemamonk Cleopas, as is known, came to Valaam in 1811, and reposed in the Lord in 1816.

2. ON THE WISH FOR THE DEATH OF FR. ANTIPAS I

Schemamonk Antipas I

When the elder Hieroschemamonk Fr. Antipas, who had lived in the skete of All Saints for 17 years, approached death, having led an ascetic and prayerful life, asceticizing early on Athena, it was said that his cell rule began at 12 o'clock at night and ended at 12 o'clock in the afternoon. When he fell ill and became weak, the brethren of the skete and monastery came to visit him and bid him farewell. The owner of the skete, the monk Fr. Theophilus, also came and, wishing to amuse the sick elder, as is usually done with very sick people, comforting him, said: "Never mind, elder, do not lose heart, you will still live with us, you will not die soon; I wish you to recover, and then again, as before, you will live in good health." — "What are you, why do you say this, Father Theophilus! "In vain do you wish me to recover, for I have not lived long in this world, and have endured everything for God's sake: sorrows, misfortunes, and pains." No, it is enough for me to live, I wish to die, it is time, it is time for me to end my earthly life, so that, by the mercy of God, I may rest from everything and be inseparable from Christ forever. Do not wish and do not pray to God that I recover," concluded the elder Fr. Antipas good-naturedly, "it is time for me to depart to my fathers!"

Soon the elder peacefully reposed in the Lord on January 10, 1882. Such is the attitude of the good ascetic monks to death, they wish to be quickly separated from the bonds of the forest, in order to be united with Christ forever, and their souls are torn from this vain and much-sorrowful world as if from a foreign country to their homeland, having departed for another better world, to which they have long striven with all their being, both soul and heart, as a thirsty deer yearns for water, so they also thirst to see their Lord.

3. ON THE FASTING OF THE ELDER HIEROSCHEMAMONK FR. ANTIPAS I

About the same Elder Hieroschemamonk Father Antipas said that, being a faster, he did not eat at all during the first week of Great Lent until Saturday, and then, after communing of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, he broke his fast. The elder adhered to this rule for many years, but once, as he himself later said to a monk who was close to him in spirit: "It was as if I were mentally proud of my podvig, and at the onset of Lent I did not ask the Lord for help for this podvig, but, presumptuously relying on my own strength and many years of experience, I began the Holy Forty Days. And so, from the very first day I was so weak and exhausted that, with all my desire, I could no longer fast, but on the second day of the fast I was forced to eat a little food and thereby tame my exhausted body. Thus the Lord humbled me, and I knew and was ashamed that without God's help we can do nothing good."