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carefully prepared for decades. The Igihagtas, including Gregory Snant, were particularly carefully worked out. 1ak poyaiiilgi 1782 Published in Venice in Greek folio "Philokalia".

/17??! 1!. 1|7O^'OVreMeNNO With Nicodemus RU' monk Archimandrite 11aisii U III 1 /U4) published the "Philokalia" in Church Slavonic in St. Petersburg (1793).

For Orthodox monks, the Philokalia to this day remains an important guide to asceticism and mysticism, a reference book on religious education and the formation of a mystical worldview, an inexhaustible storehouse and a reliable support on the path to Christian perfection. The wisdom of the heart of the Eastern elders does not cease to flow from this source, teaching everyone Christian humility.

CHAPTER II. DEVELOPMENT

The rich material on the history of the monasteries of Ancient Russia contains, unfortunately, too little of what we need to understand what are the main forms of eldership and the ways of ascetic education. Stories about saints and the statutes of monasteries do not allow us to shed light on this issue. Even in the life of St. Sergius of Radonezh (f 1392), who was the most significant personality of his time, does not directly indicate whether there was eldership in his monastery as a formed phenomenon. He had many students who formed his school. It is known that in the monastery of one of them, namely Paul of Obnorsk (1317-1429), there were some elders.

Pdp. Paul of Obnorsk spent 50 years in the monastery of St. Sergius, after which he went north into the impenetrable virgin forests of the Vologda land. For three years he lived in the hollow of a tall linden tree. In 1389, near the Obnora River, he founded a monastery in the name of the Most Holy Trinity. There he died at the age of 112.

From his monastery comes a remarkable written instruction dating back to the first half of the fifteenth century, which explains how young monks should be guided, and gives us the opportunity to look at the state of the eldership at that time. Although the instruction deals mainly with the external life of the novice, it contains such concepts as "spiritual prayer," "self-discipline," and "silence." By "spiritual prayer" is understood, as in Russian monasteries in general, the Jesus Prayer, performed with the mind in the heart, the mental prayer.

From an instructive manuscript of the XV century.

The abbot summoned the venerable elder to him, asked for his blessing and handed over to him the newly-tonsured brother, entrusting him with the leadership of him, and at the same time said: "Brother, take care of him as if you had received him from the Gospel of Christ, in order to pass him on to our Heavenly Father." Then he said to the newly-tonsured: "Son, respect the elder as your father and teacher, be obedient to him and serve him as Christ Himself. Leave everything to him and cut off your own will with the sword of the word of God." For it is not fitting for us, brethren, to show disobedience, on the contrary, we should obey all commands as if they came from God, who one day

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He said to His apostles: "He who hears you hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me" (Lk. 10. 16).

What an evil is disobedience! Christ Himself was obedient, even unto death, and death on the cross. Obedience is the second ladder to heaven, greater than fasting and solitary asceticism. The Angel of the Lord follows the novice and counts his steps and reports each of his days to the Lord, counting every drop of his sweat, equating them with drops of the martyr's blood, bringing them to God as a kind of fragrance. Serving a brother is equivalent to serving God."