Think about this, all who know the sins of bodily impurity behind you, come to your senses, repent and learn to serve the Holy God in purity and holiness. God! Save our young men. Give them the spirit of chastity, that they may be loved by Thee, as Thy great Apostle, the virgin John, was loved by Thee.

Saint John was one of the most zealous preachers of the Gospel. He devoted his whole life to this work, everywhere he proclaimed Christ: on the ship, and in prison, both chained and free, he knew only one thing – the preaching of the Gospel. But how could it be otherwise? This is his duty, this is his calling, this is his direct duty. Could the Apostle not speak of what filled his soul with the truth of which he was sincerely and deeply convinced? Can he who loves Him not speak of the Beloved? And we, brethren, do not have so little zeal for the spread of the faith in Christ, for the establishment of piety everywhere, that we ourselves have little faith, and are not ourselves imbued with the spirit of piety and Christian love? They call upon us to make all possible sacrifices for the cause of spreading the faith in Christ, and how lazily, slowly, and with what reluctance we respond to this work! We are obliged by our position to be mentors, guides on the path of good for others, and how lazily we instill this good, Christian in others! No, if a father himself is filled with Christian faith and love, he will not tolerate this faith and love not to instill in his children — he will talk to them unceasingly about love for Christ, about living according to His holy commandments, and about the duties of a Christian. If any boss or master, himself a deeply believing and sincerely pious person, he tries by all means to instill this faith and piety in his subordinates, and his conversation with them will be sweetest about life in Christ, and the greatest and most holy joy will be when he sees that his loved ones live in Christ, and his deepest sorrow is that when he sees the decline of faith, the lack of piety and the fear of God in his subjects. Oh, how useful such zeal would be in our time, when faith is so declining, vices and impieties are everywhere increasing!

God! Raise up such zealots for the glory of Thy name, and do not let Thy saints become lacking! Yes, it is a great deed to be zealous and spread of the light of Christ in every place, among people of all kinds, but even higher and more valuable is zeal for the salvation of those who have apostatized from the faith, who perish in schism, heresies, and in various gross vices and passions. And in this case, the Apostle serves as a model for us. Already in his old age, he went to a gathering of robbers in order to save their ataman, his former disciple, and by persuasion in the spirit of meekness, by a promise of forgiveness, and by assurance of God's mercy, he turned him to the good path. Oh, great is the power of zeal, the power of meekness, patience! What cannot be done with this force? And should not every Christian be animated by this power? When we see someone throwing himself into the water, into the fire, under the train, we hasten to save him, how can we not hasten to snatch our neighbor from the abyss of vices to which he has approached? How not to use efforts, all kinds of ways to bring him to reason, to beg, to turn him away from all evil? Do we not feel sorry for those who are perishing? Does not the heart ache, tears do not flow at the thought of their destruction? Why then do we remain immovable for the work of their salvation, and often do not want to say one word for their edification? We are afraid to disturb our usual peace, we are afraid of work, of podvig, we are ready for anything only because of our beloved self-interest, only because of it we are not afraid of any labor, we do not spare any of our efforts. But why do we at least not pray for the salvation of our perishing brethren? But we are often incapable of this either... Lazy to pray for ourselves, we are even lazier to pray for others. And the reason for this, again, is that there is no love in us – only indifference, coldness to the position of another, only concern only for our own peace – we would rather condemn our brother, laugh maliciously at him rather than pity, grieve and pray for him... Ah, brethren, how difficult it is to be saved without having Christian love in one's heart! How often should we remember the zeal for the salvation of the perishing, which was shown by the Apostle of Christ John! Let us do this, and then we will be ashamed of our own coldness towards the miserable spiritual state of our brethren. Brethren! What did John say and repeat most often and always, and especially in the last days of his life? "Children, love one another!" Let us say the same at the end of our conversation: love one another, live for one another's salvation, and love will save us. Amen.

(From the teachings of the priest Fr. P. Shumov)

Troparion:

Apostle, beloved Christ God, hasten to deliver the unanswerable people; Thou hast received thee, Who has fallen on the forehead, and received Him, O theologian, pray and disperse the darkness of tongues (the darkness of pagan errors), asking us for peace and great mercy.

477. What is Unia

This word, union, is unfamiliar to an Orthodox Russian living within the boundaries of Great Russia. But how many sorrowful historical memories it evokes in the soul of a Little Russian, a Belarusian, a resident of Lithuania, Podolia and Volhynia! What a heavy burden the Unia still lies upon our poor brethren who live in Galicia, this ancient Russian land, which by the fate of God is still under the rule of the Latins, the Germans and the Hungarians! Here is a brief account of what the so-called union was, where it came from, and how it came about.

Even at a time when Russia did not know the true God, when our Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir was choosing a new faith for himself, ambassadors from the German papists came to him with an offer of their faith. But the wise Vladimir knew the lust for power of the Roman popes and coldly received these ambassadors: "Go home, our fathers did not accept the faith from the Roman pope." And then our ancestors received the holy Orthodox faith from the Greeks, and sacredly preserved it without any changes. Even the Tatars themselves, who filled Russia with terror and devastation, did not shake the holy faith of our pious ancestors. Suffering under the yoke of the Tatars, they had complete freedom to listen to divine services and pray in their native language in churches that shone with ancient splendor, according to rites unanimously preserved in all corners of Orthodox Russia. God apparently blessed the Russian land for its Orthodoxy: everywhere holy churches of God were built and holy monasteries flourished, strong ascetics came out of all classes, who remained steadfast in their faith in the midst of the most torments and worked miracles both during their lifetime and after death; God glorified their very bodies with incorruptibility and miracles. Our ancestors saw all this and glorified God, and more and more they were imbued with love and respect for their Orthodox homeland and began to call their land Holy Russia.

But in the fourteenth century it pleased God to subject the Russian land to a new test. Kiev with the southern regions from under the rule of the Tatars falls under the authority of Lithuania; the metropolitans of Kiev transferred their cathedra first to Vladimir, then to Moscow, and the Lithuanian prince (in the fifteenth century) established a special metropolis in Kiev, separate from the Moscow one. Then Poland, fearing this union of Lithuania with Southern Russia and the strengthening of the Orthodox faith, offered its crown to the Lithuanian princes: it hoped through this to subjugate both Lithuania and Russia and spread the Latin faith there. In 1569, Lithuania really united with Poland, and the Lithuanian kings became Polish kings. So Southern Rus fell under the rule of Poland. And Poland has always been the obedient daughter of the Roman popes, who in every possible way sought worldly power and especially spiritual domination over the entire Christian world.

Even before that, the popes of Rome had more than once sent their ambassadors to our great princes, persuading them to recognize the supremacy of the pope over themselves and promising them both earthly and heavenly rewards for this. But our princes understood well what a great treasure our holy Orthodox faith is, for in it is the pure holy truth of Christ without the admixture of human inventions; in it is the pledge of our national happiness, our freedom and the integrity of the state. The Popes of Rome imposed Latin rites and the Latin language in worship on all peoples who accepted the Latin faith, and demanded unquestioning obedience from everyone. Our princes saw that other Slavic tribes, which had submitted to the Pope of Rome, were gradually deprived of the opportunity to listen to divine services in their native language, were gradually imbued with disdain for everything native, lost their customs, even their language, and either merged into one with those peoples who were stronger than themselves, or became sworn enemies of their own brothers who did not submit to the Pope of Rome. There were once Slavs even in Italy, in Prussia, along the rivers of the Oder, the Labe, in Pomorie or Pomerania; but they accepted the Roman faith and merged with the peoples there, and there was no trace of them left. And Poland! How much evil it brought to its blood brothers - Russians! Even then our ancient princes understood this great evil, and therefore they answered all the flattering speeches and promises of the papal ambassadors with a resolute refusal.

But when Southern Russia fell under the rule of Poland, the Orthodox faith there began to be threatened by a great danger. The Poles, especially the Jesuits (this is the name given to the Latin monks, who all their lives promise to serve the Pope of Rome unquestioningly in order to spread his power, without considering any means), began to humiliate the pastors of the Orthodox Church in every possible way, tried to make Russian bishops such people who were secretly friends with the Poles, deceived other bishops and nobles with cunning caresses, did not give the Orthodox nobles any rights. and the common people were oppressed in every possible way, and all this in order to introduce into Russia their own customs, their own language and their own Latin faith. Many of our nobles, even from the descendants of Grand Duke Vladimir, then converted to Latinism, betrayed the Orthodox faith and their native people, if only to preserve their rights. But the common people did not succumb to such a complete apostasy, they ardently loved their Orthodox faith and treasured its rites.

To the great misfortune for Southern Russia, there was then in Lutsk Bishop Kirill (by the name of Terletsky), who disgraced himself with the most outrageous vices: he was accused of bigamy, murder, counterfeiting, patronage of thieves... He was put on trial by the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople. The impious bishop, seeing no salvation for himself, decided to give himself over to the protection of the pope; moreover, he began to incite other bishops to his side, and among them there were those for whom worldly gains turned out to be dearer than the purity and holiness of the Orthodox faith. And so these bishops, who had betrayed Orthodoxy, began to convene councils (in 1594-1596) in Brest, Lvov, Kiev, again in Brest, and finally decided: to recognize the Pope of Rome as the head of the Christian Church, but in order to leave the church rites as before and to perform divine services in the Slavonic language. By this they hoped to attract the common people to the side of the Latin faith. Other Orthodox bishops and Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich of Ostrog rebelled against this decision. At the same time (1596), in the same Brest, they formed a great Council of the Orthodox, rejected union with the pope and made a vow: to stand firmly for Orthodoxy unto death. But all their efforts were in vain, the patronage of the Polish king did not prevail, and the union with Rome took place. It is this union with the Roman pope that is called the Unia in Latin, and those who are united from the Orthodox are called Uniates.

As you see, all this was the work of deception, the work of our enemies, the Poles and the Jesuits, and because of this much evil happened for Southern Russia. The Kiev Metropolia, through the intrigues of the Jesuits, remained without an archpastor for 25 years; St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev fell into the hands of the Uniates, the Pechersk Lavra barely escaped from them; a multitude of Russian people were drawn into the Unia and thus torn away from their brothers, family, Fatherland, faith and Divine services... True, at first the Roman clergy recognized the rites of the Uniates as sacred, but then little by little they began to change these rites, to introduce short read (without singing) masses instead of the ancient liturgy, to replace vocal singing with the sounds of organs, to rebuild churches according to the Latin model, to introduce Polish and Latin instead of the Slavonic language. And what oppression the Orthodox were subjected to is hard to believe in our time... No one was spared, the clergy, the people, adults, children, men and women were equally persecuted... The Russian people were declared apostates, serfs; Russian cities and villages were occupied by Polish troops; Poles sat in all government places and did whatever they wanted, Russian churches were forcibly converted into Uniate ones, the Latin clergy traveled everywhere for supervision and forced people to carry themselves from church to church, harnessing them to carts of 12 people or more. And the churches of those who did not join the union were at the mercy of the Jews. The Jews, these implacable enemies of Christianity, these universal vagabonds, took church keys and bell ropes to their taverns and charged money for every church service, especially for baptisms, weddings, funerals, and on every occasion they brazenly laughed at our holy divine services. The apostate bishops themselves, Kirill Terletsky and Inatius Potsey, raided the Orthodox, carried out robberies, murders, and violence of all kinds. Potsey and his gang invaded holy churches, stripped altars with his own hands, robbed church utensils, beat and imprisoned Orthodox priests...