Later it turned out that the letter was fake, and the young man was sent.

The Beginning of Prayer and Struggle

My dear daddy saved our souls. He often read to us about the lives of the saints, explained the Gospel to us. Dad begged me to read at least one page, at least five minutes a day, from the spiritual literature that he selected for me. These were "The Path to Salvation", "What Is Spiritual Life" and other works of the Holy Fathers.

"Not interested?" he asked. "But it's like medicine - it tastes bad, but it is necessary. I beg you: read at least a little.

And out of love for my father, I took the Diveyevo Chronicle, the works of Theophan the Recluse. Little by little, but the light poured into my soul. I began to pray consciously, that is, to call on the Lord with my mind, without Whom my heart was already tormented by sins. And the child begins to feel remorse very early. It does not matter what sin is it – big or small, but it already darkens the light of God's grace in the child's soul, the child becomes sad, thoughtful, irritable. So it was with me.

I was about seven years old, and I was walking with my governess in the woods. Our cousin Yura, my age, was visiting us. He was a nervous, lively, developed child, he always came up with noisy games, which he directed, and Kolya always submitted to him. And so three boys were running through the forest screaming, with sticks in their hands. Apparently, they were playing war. Aunt Varya did not see them, she shrugged her shoulders, not knowing where the guys were. In vain she persuaded the children to pick strawberries, which here and there turned red under their feet. I was on Aunt Varya's side, called my brothers to her, ran after them through the forest, but all in vain. Excited, red, they returned home, but there were no berries in their cups. I collected more than a glass, even poured large juicy strawberries into the governess's vessel. When we sat down to eat, we were given porridge with milk. I poured berries thickly into my plate, and the boys looked at me with envy. Aunt Varya said to me: "Iss selbst! Die Knaben wollten kaine Behren im Wald sam-meln" ("Eat yourself! The boys did not want to pick berries in the forest"). I felt sorry for the guys, especially Kolya, who asked me to give them at least a spoonful of berries. But I did not give it, I proudly ate myself and condemned the brothers for their behavior in the forest. I remember that I could hardly swallow berries, I was so ashamed of myself, of my greed. Even now I remember this sin, these first pangs of conscience. May God forgive me, because I did not go to confession then. And when I went, I couldn't say, I didn't understand.

I first experienced the power of prayer when I was ten years old. We lived in the summer in the city of Uglich, where an epidemic of dysentery was raging. My grandfather, an experienced doctor, was dismissed from his job at the age of seventy as "failing". Forty babies died in the hospital in two days, and they were infants deprived of their mothers. Their mothers worked in a concentration camp, on the construction of a railway. There were no antibiotics yet, so my grandfather Veniamin Fedorovich could not do anything to save these motherless babies. He said: "How many houses on our street, so many people we buried this summer." And on the street where we lived, there were half as many dead people during the summer: a hundred houses - fifty dead. This, of course, is on average. Horses dragged strings of coffins towards the cemetery. And there, a machine dug a ditch every day, where dozens of coffins were lowered. Everyone was in a panic and did not know what to do. Heat, dust, clouds of flies...

Dad came to us on his vacation from Moscow, where he also had dysentery. And how good we felt with him when he took us on a boat along the Volga, invented games, and in the evenings read books aloud to us. I was impressed by the following story:

"The man woke up at night and saw that a robber was standing over him with an axe in his hands. The rogue says, "I have raised my axe several times to finish you off, but I have not been able to do so. Some force is guarding you." And when he woke up, he used to read the 90th Psalm every day. It was the power of God that preserved his life."

Then I decided: I will read this psalm too. Then the Lord, perhaps, will save our lives from illness. But I will ask God that He preserve not only me, but also my brothers and parents, so that none of us even gets sick. I learned the words of the psalm by heart and read them daily, hiding somewhere in the bushes of the garden or alone in a room, but in order to remain alone with God at that moment. So we returned to Moscow in the autumn healthy, although we did not observe any hygiene: we ate berries from the bushes, did not wash our hands, etc.

And at the age of thirteen, I began to pray myself little by little. I was not satisfied with praying together. Evening rules were read quickly. Tired from lessons and reading, my head was inattentive and did not catch the sacred words. When I went to bed, I felt that I was missing something, as if I had some kind of hunger in my soul. I didn't pray; so, I will only say: "Lord, have mercy," but with all my heart I will say something to God... So I began to talk to God. And temptations already stood as a wall between me and the Almighty. I have already begun to go to church myself, I began to pray fervently for peace in my family. That's when Satan turned on me so much that he almost destroyed me. Later I learned that the holy ascetics also had such temptations. But they were already smart people, and I was a stupid girl. Heaviness on the heart, despair. His closeness to his father saved him. "Daddy! It's hard for me. I can't tell you anything, because you're a man, and I'm embarrassed even by my mother. Please, call the priest to my house..." Dad did not hesitate with this. And with what fear and shame I stood before the old priest. I could barely tell him everything that was happening to me. I was afraid of lectures, punishment. But like a weight fell off my shoulders, when I heard only a few gentle quiet words in response to my inarticulate babble: "God will forgive... Won't you do that again?" It's good that you repented, otherwise a mental illness would have begun..."

The Kingdom of Heaven to this priest (I think it was Father Boris from Maroseika), who was then hiding in Moscow, and then was in exile for many years somewhere in Kazakhstan.