Among the new saints who are now venerated by the Orthodox are not only Nicholas II and members of royal family- there are also exotic characters: in one place a mother declares her deceased child a saint, in another an unrecognized community insists on the sanctity of the “martyr of Ataulf of Munich,” better known as Adolf Hitler.
Online you can find icons of Ivan the Terrible, Grigory Rasputin and Joseph the Great (Stalin). The church is against the creation of such cults, which is called upon not only to preserve the traditions coming from the first Christian communities, but to separate them from the absurd.
Finding the rules
People of the older generation probably remember how the authors of Soviet anti-religious brochures loved to retell the lives of the saints, extracting from them fantastic stories that contradict common sense.
Indeed, in the lives of the saints there are plots that contradict historical facts and common sense. Strictly speaking, there is nothing wrong with that. Who in general said that what is told in the lives should be clearly correlated with a specific time and a specific place? Lives are not a historical chronicle. They talk about holiness, not about events. human life... It is in this that hagiography (that is, a description of holiness) differs from biography (a description of life).
To understand why there are so many different oddities in the stories about the lives of the saints, you will have to start from quite a distance.
The practice of venerating martyrs and righteous people is a tradition dating back to the first centuries of Christianity. Bye Christian church was a union small communities, there was no particular need to come up with any formal criteria by which the saints could be distinguished from just good Christians. But,
when a conglomerate of small communities turned into a complex hierarchical structure, it became necessary to formulate some general rules and compile lists of saints recognized by all communities.
Among binding rules canonization (church canonization) were such as the presence of popular veneration and recorded miracles that occurred during the life of the ascetic or after his death. However, for martyrs, that is, saints who preferred death to renouncing the faith, these conditions were not obligatory.
The emergence of formal rules and procedures always opens the way for abuse and the desire, so to speak, misuse of these rules. For example, there is a case when a certain Hieron, a wealthy farmer from Cappadocia, resisted the imperial envoys, who wanted to take him to military service... In the end, the rebel was tried and sentenced to have his hand cut off.
These events had nothing to do with persecution for the faith, however, in prison, Hieron made a will, according to which his sister was to perform about him church memory as a martyr. And he bequeathed his severed hand to one of the monasteries. The inheritance of the vain farmer was not wasted, and hagiographic literature was enriched with the curious "Martyrdom of Hieron with his retinue." True, this and similar lives still did not receive wide distribution.
Rationalization
After Ancient Russia adopted Christianity, and general church norms for the veneration of saints came here. But there was no strictly organized procedure for canonization in Russia for a very long time. Veneration could begin spontaneously, could to some extent be inspired by the authorities. Some of the ascetics were forgotten, and the cult disappeared, but someone continued to be remembered. In the middle of the 16th century, lists of saints were approved, which were venerated throughout the country.
But in the 18th century, they suddenly began to struggle with the appearance of new saints. The fact is that Peter I firmly believed that life in Russia could be built on rational foundations. Therefore, the emperor was suspicious of stories about all kinds of miracle workers, holy fools and other characters, he considered them deceivers and charlatans.
Peter's legislation directly demanded that the bishops fight superstitions and watch, "if someone does not show false miracles for filthy profits in the presence of icons, treasures, sources and so on." Everyone who was involved in governing the state knew that Peter was distrustful of miracles.
As a result, the Russian Church entered a period of a kind of rationalism, when hierarchs were most afraid of being deceived and allowing something contrary to common sense into church life. And since the behavior of the saints (be it a holy fool violating the rules of public morality or a martyr violating state laws) can in no way be called rational, canonization in Russia has practically ceased.
However, numerous petitions were sent from localities to St. Petersburg asking for the canonization of various ascetics. However, the Synod most often replied that the petition was not sufficiently substantiated. If the procedure for preparing canonization was launched, then it turned out to be so long and complicated that there was no chance of completing it. For example,
The Synod demanded that witnesses to miracles give their testimony under oath, like witnesses speaking at court hearings.
Cases of miraculous healings were checked by doctors, whose testimony was drawn up in the same way as the testimony of forensic experts.
The emphasized rationality of the Synod was opposed by the way of life of the people. Popular faith was anything but rational. Folklore traditions were combined here with performances that came from Byzantium along with Christianity, and the church sermon was supplemented by the stories of all kinds of pilgrims. Pilgrims went to the graves of local ascetics, beggars, and holy fools.
Sometimes veneration arose after the accidental discovery of unknown remains. All this was contrary to the religious policy of the state, but nothing could be done. The country was too big. Central authorities did not have physical ability to notice that pilgrims suddenly rushed to some remote village and the grave of an unknown beggar became the center of religious life.
The bishop, whose duty was to prevent local self-activity, could either turn a blind eye to this, or even unofficially support a new pious tradition. The necessary liturgical texts: someone wrote an akathist, someone wrote a service.
There was a lot of such, so to speak, "unofficial" holiness in Russia. And in the era of Nicholas II, there was suddenly a certain turn towards its legalization. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Synod sent out a questionnaire to bishops asking which saints were venerated in their dioceses. Based on this survey, a book was prepared with the long title "Faithful Months of All Russian Saints Revered by Molebens and Solemn Liturgies both Church-wide and locally, compiled according to reports to the Most Reverend Synod of all dioceses in 1901-1902."
This was a completely unprecedented experience for Russia. Contrary to all national traditions, the authorities did not prescribe to the silent subjects who should pray and who should not, but decided to figure out what was happening and legitimize the existing practices.
Rehabilitation of irrationality
The revolution mixed the cards and destroyed the opposition between popular and official Orthodoxy. This was due to the assertions of the Bolsheviks that their state was built on a rational basis and on a scientific basis. For our topic, it is not so important to what extent the Bolshevik utopia can be considered rational. The very fact of betting on rationality is essential. At the same time, everything connected with church life and - more broadly - with idealistic philosophy was declared reactionary obscurantism. The reaction to the declarative rationalism of the Bolsheviks was that educated Orthodox Christians became much more tolerant of the irrational.
The Bolshevik campaign to autopsy the cancer with the remains of the saints was supposed to undermine the people's faith in power, but often it turned out the other way around. In the photo - the autopsy of Alexander Nevsky's crayfish in 1922
For the first time, these changes appeared during the 1919 Bolshevik campaign for the autopsy of the relics. While state propaganda talked about the fact that instead of imperishable relics, dummies were found in tombs, believers - both peasants and bourgeoisie, and professors - passed from mouth to mouth stories that the body of the faithful prince Gleb (son Andrei Bogolyubsky) was soft and flexible and the skin on it could be grabbed with your fingers, it lagged behind like a living. And Grand Duke George's head, cut off in 1238 in a battle with the Tatars, turned out to be adhered to the body so that the cervical vertebrae were displaced and fused incorrectly.
If earlier a significant part of intelligent believers were rather cool about miracles, now everything has changed.
The persecutors were identified with rationality, and the members of the persecuted church rejected rationalism. Miracles have become an essential part church life... The stories about them helped the persecuted communities to survive and survive.
In the 1920s, believers talked about the renewal, that is, the miraculous spontaneous restoration of old blackened icons. Information about this even got into the reports on the situation in the country, which the punitive authorities prepared for the top officials of the state.
In the summary of the GPU, dating back to 1924, one can read that the counter-revolutionary clergy “made every effort to incite religious fanaticism by falsifying all kinds of miracles, such as the apparitions of saints, miraculous icons, wells, the massive renewal of icons that swept throughout the USSR, etc .; the latter, that is, the renewal of icons, was directly epidemic in nature and even captured the Leningrad province, where up to 100 cases of renewal were registered in October. "
The very fact that this information was included in the summary of the most important events that took place in the country testifies to the scale of the phenomenon. But this example is not unique.
“Renewal of icons and rumors about miraculous relics,” we read in a similar report for 1925, “are spreading in a wide wave; over the past month, more than 1000 cases were registered in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Bryansk, Orenburg, Ural, Ulyanovsk provinces and in the Far East ”.
I am quite deliberately citing here not the stories of believers, but the testimonies of the punitive authorities, who saw in all these miracles only deception. It is difficult to suspect GPU officers of protecting miracles, which means that it is impossible to doubt their testimonies.
Per Soviet years grew by at least three generations of people who have not been taught the basics Orthodox faith... Their ideas about what an ecclesiastical doctrine was based on some kind of semi-folklore tradition. And there is nothing surprising in the fact that Orthodoxy was associated with them not so much with the Gospel narrative as with miracles, wanderers, holy fools and found icons. The half-forgotten devotees, who were partly remembered in distant villages, now aroused not rejection, but great interest. The massive inclusion of new names in the church calendar was a matter of time.
At the end of the 70s, the Moscow Patriarchate began to publish new edition Minea, books containing services for every day church year... 24 voluminous volumes included great amount services to saints, which were not previously mentioned in liturgical books. What previously existed in a semi-underground regime has now become a general church norm.
New Martyrs and Confessors
With the beginning of perestroika, it became possible to begin the canonization of the new martyrs killed during the Soviet era.
In 1989, the Moscow Patriarchate canonized Patriarch Tikhon, and five years later priests John Kochurov (killed by the Bolsheviks in October 1917) and Alexander Hotovitsky (executed in 1937) were canonized.
Patriarch Tikhon, who was elected to the patriarchal throne in 1917, was the first to suffer in the 20th century at the hands of the Bolsheviks.
Then it seemed that the canonization of the victims of communist persecution opens new stage church history. But very soon it became clear that most believers were not interested in the history of persecution and repression.
I remember my shock when, about two years after the canonization of Alexander Hotovitsky, at the request of my Finnish colleagues, I went to that Moscow church, of which Father Alexander was the rector in the last years of his life. I wanted to find out if there were any old parishioners left here who could tell something about him. I came in off-duty hours and turned to the man behind the candle box with the question of whether there were any people left here who could remember their recently canonized abbot.
“Alexander Hotovitskiy ... - My interlocutor thought. - I have been working here for 15 years, but this has definitely not happened.” That is, the staff member of the temple had no idea that half a century ago the rector of this temple was a saint who had just been canonized.
In subsequent years, work on the preparation of materials for the canonization was very active. And there were more than enough problems here. Where can I get reliable information about people who died for the faith? It is clear that the main source here turns out to be investigative cases. On the basis of the interrogation protocols, it can be established that the person has not renounced his faith, has not betrayed anyone and has not slandered. But it is known that what is written in the protocols does not always accurately reflect what happened during the investigation. Testimony could be falsified, signatures could be forged, etc.
And what to do, for example, if an elderly priest from a remote Tula village did not renounce, did not betray, but signed a confession that he was a Japanese spy? Is this an obstacle to canonization?
Despite all the difficulties, they managed to collect materials and canonize about 2 thousand people who suffered during the years of Soviet power. Of course, this is a drop in the ocean, but it has now become impossible to continue this work. In 2006, a law on personal data was passed, which effectively blocked the access of researchers to investigative cases. As a result, the preparation of materials for new canonizations ceased.
According to mothers
The Church must always draw the line between holiness and occult practices, and also monitor the reliability of the information on the basis of which canonization takes place. Therefore, in all eras, there were rather strange local cults that were not recognized by the church authorities.
So, for example, in our time, pilgrims from all over the country go to the village of Chebarkul ( Chelyabinsk region), where 11-year-old Vyacheslav Krasheninnikov, who died of leukemia, is buried. The boy's mother considers her son a saint and works with inspiration to create his cult. According to the mother, several books were written on the miracles and predictions of Vyacheslav. The most popular, of course, are predictions about the end of the world.
Valentina Krasheninnikova considers her son Vyacheslav, who died at the age of 11, to be a saint and was able to convince many of this
They look something like this: “ Fallen angels(gray, Atlanteans) are engaged on Earth with the maintenance of the program installed in the core of the planet to collect human souls, and the Antichrist represents their interests among people, connecting each person to it through a seal (biochip).
Fallen angels are destroying people, the Antichrist helps them, and the world servicing government runs around running errands. "
Pilgrims tell about healings and bring earth and marble chips from the grave of the youth Vyacheslav. At the same time, of course, there is no talk of the official canonization of Vyacheslav Krasheninnikov.
Metropolitan Yuvenaly, chairman of the Commission for Canonization, spoke about this cult very sharply: magic rituals at the place of burial of this child, non-canonical icons and akathists - all this constitutes the basis of the activities of the followers of the Chebarkul false saint ”.
However, the official church position did not in any way affect the veneration of the youth Vyacheslav, and pilgrimages to him continue.
Another "unrecognized saint" is the warrior Eugene. We also owe our mother the beginning of the veneration of Yevgeny Rodionov, who was killed in Chechnya in May 1996. Private Rodionov and his partner Andrei Trusov were captured when they tried to inspect the car in which the weapon was being transported. The initial version of the disappearance of the soldiers was desertion, but later it became clear that they had been kidnapped.
Rodionov's mother went in search of her son. After overcoming a lot of difficulties and paying the militants, she learned the details of her son's death and found his burial place. According to the mother, they arranged a meeting with the killer of Yevgeny. The killer said that young man they offered to remove the cross and change the faith, but he refused, for which he was killed.
If it was possible to prove that Private Yevgeny Rodionov really refused to remove the cross, for which he was killed, this could serve as a basis for canonizing him
According to ancient rules, the situation when a person dies, refusing to change his faith, is an indisputable basis for canonization. But the Commission for Canonization refused to canonize Yevgeny Rodionov as a saint, since the only evidence of his feat is the story of his mother.
However, Yevgeny Rodionov's admirers are not going to give up. They make all kinds of petitions and collect signatures. For example, in 2016, at a round table meeting of the Izborsk Club, a letter was signed to Patriarch Kirill with a request to start preparing this canonization.
There are quite a few stories about such unrecognized saints (or pseudo-saints, if you will). There is nothing unusual about the emergence of these cults, and this has happened more than once throughout church history. The only new thing is the way of disseminating information.
Never before have pious legends and dubious myths generated by popular religiosity received such a huge audience as modern means of electronic communication provide.
Invasion of politics
In 2000, among other new martyrs, Nicholas II and members of his family were canonized. Members of the royal family were canonized not as martyrs (martyrs accept death for Christ, which in this case was not), but as martyrs. Passion-bearers accepted a martyrdom not from persecutors of Christians, but as a result of betrayal or conspiracy. For example, princes Boris and Gleb were canonized as martyrs.
Iconic images of the royal family can often be seen on posters and banners during various patriotic processions.
The wording of the canonization act was very careful and careful. This caution is understandable. The fact is that in the Russian Church there existed and still exists a movement, the adherents of which give the murder of the last emperor a very special meaning.
According to the Tsarists (as representatives of this movement are usually called), the monarchy is the only Christian form of government and any anti-monarchist actions are not so much political as spiritual in nature. In their opinion, in 1613 the Russian people made their choice by swearing an oath to the Romanovs. The whole subsequent history of Russia is perceived by the Tsarist people as a series of betrayals and deviations from monarchist ideas.
And in the death of Nicholas II, they see not a political murder, but a mystical act of atonement: similarly
how Christ atoned for original sin by his sacrifice, the last Emperor by his death he atoned for the guilt of the Russian people before the lawful, God-given tsarist power.
Therefore, in the opinion of the Tsarists, the Moscow Patriarchate was wrong in calling Nicholas II a passion-bearer: he is not a passion-bearer, but the Tsar-redeemer. The adherents of this movement are few in number, but they are very active and often end up in public space. A number of inappropriate speeches about the film "Matilda" were associated with this ideology.
The desire to protect the name of Nicholas II from anything that could compromise him naturally led to the idea that Grigory Rasputin was a righteous man, and all the dirt associated with his name is the slander of the enemies of the monarchy and the inventions of the “Jewish press”. Thus, a movement began for the canonization of "Elder Gregory".
After that, it no longer seems surprising that along with Rasputin, Ivan the Terrible was also a contender for canonization. According to the admirers of Ivan IV, he held Russia in the face of the impending chaos, for which he was slandered by the enemies of Russia.
The church authorities immediately reacted to these proposals sharply negatively. In 2001, Patriarch Alexy II publicly condemned the distribution of icons and prayers to Ivan the Terrible and Grigory Rasputin.
"Some group of pseudo-contesters of Orthodoxy and autocracy," said the patriarch, "is trying to canonize tyrants and adventurers on their own" from the back door, "to teach people of little faith to venerate them."
The admirers of Rasputin were not particularly impressed that Patriarch Alexy II publicly condemned the distribution of the icons of "Elder Gregory"
It must be said that Rasputin and Ivan the Terrible are not yet the most exotic contenders for the role of saints.
In 2000, one of the church groups in opposition to the Moscow Patriarchate canonized Ataulf of Munich, better known as Adolf Hitler. In some way, the interest in Hitler on the part of religious groups denying the Moscow Patriarchate is justified. As you know, Hitler's anti-communist declarations provoked the support of a part of Russian emigrants. The Russian Church Abroad also supported Hitler, hoping that he would rid Russia of communism.
The head of the German Diocese of the Russian Church Outside of Russia, Archbishop Seraphim (Lyade), in an appeal to the flock issued in connection with the German attack on the USSR, wrote: “The Christ-loving leader of the German people called his victorious army to new struggle against the atheists, for the struggle that we have been waiting for a long time - for the consecrated struggle against the atheists, executioners and rapists who have settled in the Moscow Kremlin ... Indeed, a new crusade has begun in the name of saving peoples from the power of the Antichrist. "
In some, sobering came quickly, in others, slowly. It is clear that after the end of World War II and Nuremberg trials such declarations were no longer possible.
After the fall of the USSR, on the wave of rejection of communist ideology, Hitler was also remembered. The leader of one of the unrecognized church groups Ambrose (von Sievers) began to call for his canonization. In 2000, the group's official journal wrote:
“The Catacomb Church has always professed and now professes that Hitler for true Orthodox Christians is God's chosen leader-anointed not only in the political, but also in the spiritual-mystical sense, the good fruits of whose deeds are still tangible. Therefore, true Orthodox Christians, of course, give him some honor as a kind of “external righteous man” who remained outside the Church, for his attempt to free the Russian land from the Jewish-Bolshevik invasion. Some time later, even the icon of Ataulf of Munich was painted.
Looking at the icon of Ataulf of Munich, it is hard to believe that this is not a parody and not an avant-garde action, created for the sake of shocking the audience.
In marginal patriotic journalism one can find calls to canonize Stalin as well. Supporters of this canonization believe that mass destruction churches and priests during the years of his reign was a kind of pedagogical method, with the help of which "God-loving Joseph" brought up the Russian people, mired in sins.
And according to another version, supporters of Lenin and Trotsky were to blame for the anti-church campaign, whom Joseph the Great dealt with during great terror... There are home-grown icons of Stalin, and prayers to him.
On the icon of the Matrona of Moscow, Stalin was depicted at least without a halo
All this marginal creativity in again shows us to what monstrous results are attempts to give political declarations the character of church doctrine.
Speaking about the elders in the Orthodox tradition, it is customary to consider this phenomenon as something like an amazing and impossible relic of antiquity today: Sergius of Radonezh, blessing Dmitry Donskoy for the Battle of Kulikovo; Seraphim of Sarov, giving wise advice to Alexander I ... Eldership is a living phenomenon of modern church life, and today the "Russian Seven" will tell you about the seven great elders of the 20th century.
Venerable Silouan the Athonite (1866-1938) - Holy Mount Athos
Both the great ascetics and the young monks who prayed in the cells of the monastery of St. Panteleimon on Mount Athos, agreed that the Monk Silouan the Athonite "had attained to the measure of the Holy Fathers."
The future great elder was born into a family of Tambov peasants in 1866 and from his youth dreamed of becoming a monk. The parents did not oppose the decision of their son, but insisted that first he pass military service In Petersburg. Immediately after the end of the service, Semyon - that was the name of the Monk Silouan before the monastic tonsure - went to Holy Mount Athos and entered the monastery of St. Panteleimon, also called Rossikon.
The Monk Silouan lived in the monastery for 46 years, but despite this he remained "undetected" for most of the brethren - he rarely received visitors and had little contact with the monks, but those who had the good fortune to contact him with their questions and problems always received consolation. support and the wisest answers are the answers of a person to whom the Will of God was revealed.
This is how St. Nicholas (Velimirovich) recalled the Monk Silouan: “He was not strict with other people's sins, no matter how great they were. He spoke of the immeasurable love of God for the sinner, and led the sinful person to the point that he severely condemned himself.<...>This marvelous confessor was a simple monk, but a rich man in love for God and neighbors. Hundreds of monks from all over the Holy Mountain came to him to warm themselves with the fire of his fiery love. But especially the Serbian monks from Khilandar and Postnitsa loved him. In him they saw their spiritual father who revived them with his love ... "
Venerable Nektarios (Tikhonov) (1858 - 1928) - Optina Hermitage
The Monk Nektarios (Tikhonov) was one of the most respected, charismatic and charming elders of Optina Hermitage. This amazing person, who undoubtedly acquired God's grace and possessed the gift of clairvoyance, not only helped his spiritual children in the most difficult life situations, did not just suggest to those who came to him with questions correct decisions, but also literally fell in love with everyone who had the good fortune to communicate with him.
Remembering the Monk Nektarios, his spiritual children say that he was both strict and affectionate, but always behind his words and teachings there was genuine perspicacity and incredible love to everyone who entered his cell. However, the elder himself was not inclined to consider himself an elder: “The elder Gerasim was a great elder, because he had a lion. And we are small - we have a cat ”- he repeated more than once.
The Monk Nektarios also spoke of his visionary gift with humility and even doubt: “I sometimes have forebodings, and it is revealed to me about a person, and sometimes not. And now there was an amazing case. A woman comes to me and complains about her son, a nine-year-old child, that he is no good with him. And I tell her: "Be patient until he turns twelve years old." I said this without having any premonitions, simply because I know scientifically that at the age of twelve a person often changes. The woman left, and I forgot about her. Three years later this mother comes and cries: "My son died, he was barely twelve years old." People, it’s true, say that, behold, the priest predicted, but this was my simple reasoning from a scientific point of view. Later I checked myself in every possible way - did I feel something or not. No, I didn't have a presentiment of anything. " However, no matter what opinion the elder himself held of himself, most of the spiritual children of the Monk Nektarios left Optina Hermitage with new hopes, dreams and aspirations - and this was precisely his merit.
Elder Zosima (in schema Zechariah) (1850-1936) - Trinity-Sergius Lavra
Elder Zosima, who worked at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, was gifted with very special spiritual gifts - both the Lavra monks and numerous pilgrims who came here from hundreds of cities were more than once surprised at how easily and freely he opens up both the past and the future of any visitor. Eyewitnesses say that the elder's visionary gift was simply fantastic - he could accurately predict what would happen to a person who came to him and how an unfavorable situation could be corrected.
The elder instructed his spiritual children not to treat prayer without due attention and constantly develop in himself the ability to pray with real benefits for the heart and soul. “I testify with my conscience,” said the elder, “that Venerable Sergius with raised hands, stands at the throne of God and prays for everyone. Oh, if you knew the power of his prayers and love for us, then every hour you would turn to him, asking for his help, intercession and blessing for those for whom our heart hurts, for the relatives and loved ones living here on earth and who are already there. - in that eternal life. "
Elder German (1844-1923) - Zosimova Hermitage
Confessor grand duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna and the sisters of the Martha and Mary Convent, the highest dignitaries of the state and many church hierarchs, Elder German did as much for the development and prosperity of the Zosimov Hermitage as, perhaps, no other monk from those who ascended here did for her. The fame of this amazingly perspicacious and philanthropic elder was so loud that thousands of Orthodox pilgrims from all over Russia flocked to Zosimova Hermitage, and not one left without good advice from a wise monk.
Elder German taught his spiritual children to be strict with themselves, explaining this by the fact that being strict with oneself is an opportunity to gain God's mercy. “... only because the Lord has mercy on me, because I see my sins: my laziness, my negligence, my pride; and I constantly reproach myself for them - here the Lord helps my weakness ... ”- he said.
Elder Simeon (Zhelnin) (1869-1960) - Pskov-Pechersky monastery
In the 50s of the XX century, the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery near the border with Estonia became one of the most visited monasteries in Russia. Military and civilians, poor and rich, happy and unhappy people travel here on trains, fly on airplanes and stand in huge queues - and all this in order to see and ask for advice and help from a single person - Elder Simeon.
Eyewitnesses and spiritual children of the elder say that not a single person left his cell restless, not a single one doubted the advice of a wise monk. However, like the Monk Nektarios, Elder Simeon did not consider himself God's chosen one. “Yes, I’m not a seer at all, the Lord gives his chosen ones a great gift of insight, but here longevity helps me - I went into the house earlier than others, and I know his order better. People come to me with sorrows and doubts, but an agitated person is like a child, he is all in the palm of his hand ... A misfortune happened to a person, so he loses the accuracy of his spiritual eyes, falls either into despondency, or into insolence and bitterness. And I know the worldly circle well, and I have lived a long life, and myself by the Lord's power is protected from troubles and temptations, and how can I, in the measure of my small strength, not support my brother, a companion on the earthly road, when he was tired before I did. .. "- he said.
Elder John (Alekseev) (1873-1958) - New Valaam
Elder John (Alekseev) was the confessor of New Valaam and took care of the pilgrims who came here. Contemporaries remember Fr. John as a deep and incredibly sensitive person who knew how to console everyone who came to him with problems or questions.
Much of the spiritual heritage of the elder has come down to us in the form of letters - the elder John did last days wrote to his spiritual children about how to learn to live according to the commandments and find peace of mind. Here is a fragment of one of these letters: “Try not to condemn anyone for anything. What you don’t want, don’t do that to others. Remember that for every idle word we will give an answer before God at the Last Judgment. You cannot serve two masters. Make peace with your rival so that he does not put you in prison. So that there is no enmity with anyone, otherwise prayer will not please God, it will even serve in sin. How then will God have forgiveness for our sins when we ourselves do not forgive? "
Archimandrite John (Krestyankin) (1910-2006) - Pskov-Pechersky monastery
One of the most famous elders of the 20th century, Archimandrite John (Krestyankin) became the spiritual father for hundreds of thousands of people not only in Russia, but also far beyond its borders. 6 years have passed since the elder's death, but his books on the construction of confession and prayer, as well as collections of letters and teachings, are still passed from hand to hand and are printed in huge print runs. Many churched people who are still only moving towards the comprehension of Orthodoxy discovered this religion precisely thanks to John (Krestyankin).
Archimandrite John was a resident of the Pskov-Pechersk monastery for about 40 years, and all these years the number of pilgrims coming to him with their questions and problems grew. Eyewitnesses say that over the years it became more and more difficult for the elder to move from his cell to the temple or the dining room, and the reason for this was not his age - the reason was that the pilgrims surrounded Father John as soon as he went out into the street and literally did not allow him to step step.
This is how Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) recalls Father John: “... his love for man, faith and hope for the Providence of God were so great that people, coming to him even with seemingly insoluble problems, left his father’s cell filled with not just consolation, but new strength to life. This was another rarest feature inherent in Father John: he spoke as having authority from God to give vitality and lead after Christ ... "
In Old Testament times, Victor and Natalya Rozhnovs might have been called righteous. Now such definitions have gone out of use, society does not really strive for spiritual exploits, and therefore it is difficult to say in one word who the Rozhnovs are.
They got married in 1994, that is, exactly 20 years ago. The beginning of their marriage was spent in hardships and anguish. The factories in Kineshma at that time gave up their ghost, and those that were still wheezing could offer people only disinterested work. Where to go? To Moscow. Victor and Natalya went to sell bed linen in the capital. But the nomadic life, which then stretched out for many years, was not so burdensome as the realization that they would not have children from marriage. It will not be guaranteed, the diagnosis, the verdict.
Thousands of families in such situations very quickly indulge and indulge in despair. What is the point of holding on to each other, when there is no prosperity, and there are no children (consider happiness) either? Dog life. According to the plot of some ancient legend, a good deity would sooner or later intervene in the matter and reward the tested spouses with the ability to conceive, as, for example, in the case of Abraham, whose wife Sarah became pregnant at 90 years old. Or, as in a children's fairy tale - from a bud beautiful flower Thumbelina would appear, the snow statue would come to life - the Snow Maiden, in extreme cases, the log would speak - Buratino. Alas, biblical times with their grand miracles remained only in the form of sacred texts, and fairy tales are fairy tales. But...
This happened on Christmas 2000, or rather, the morning after the holiday, January 8, - says Natalya Rozhnova. - We, as usual, came to the market, we look, but there is no one, the market is empty. Only one stall is open and that is because the seller had a birthday. We went there to warm up. Frosts at that time were already Epiphany, minus 30. We are sitting in a stall, we look, a girl with a very little girl comes up to the window, asks for hot tea. The seller refuses her, but we are indignant, we say: she is with a child! She in any, answers us: "She walks here for a week, tired." We went out and invited the girl to take her daughter to her place until evening, so that she should be properly warmed and fed. She agreed, gave us a birth certificate for the girl so that the police would not detain us with someone else's child. We agreed that we would meet here in the evening and dispersed. They took the girl to a rented apartment, which, out of savings, was shared with another family who had also come to work. As I remember now, the puffers on Liza's legs - the girl's name was Liza - from the frost made them look like mica. I remember how they warmed and washed her. We bought her some fruit, but she didn’t eat anything that day. And in the evening, having already decided to bail the mother, they returned to the market. They waited, waited, but she never came. For two months then, from morning to evening, we looked out for her. Useless. We went to the police station, took Lisa with them. They answer us: come back in three weeks, we will solve the problem. We thought that if they don’t take a girl from us right away, then they won’t take it. And don't go next time. Only in the summer did we accidentally meet Liza's mother in the metro. My Victor grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. We agreed on a time and place to finally return the child to her, but she again deceived us.
In the early 2000s, Victor and Natalya finished their wanderings, returned to Kineshma, and by that time Liza had completely become related to them, became their daughter. We managed to identify it in Kindergarten№23 at AZLK, then, without any problems, she went to school №18. Parents could not get enough of her, in the same school they were considered the first among the parents who, as they say, “actively participated, helped”, etc. Until suddenly in 2009 Lisa's real father showed up.
To tell the truth, we found him ourselves then, we wanted the best, thought that it would be useful for Lisa to get to know her relatives by blood, ”continues Natalya. - Pavel, her father, began to come to us, and soon asked permission to take Liza to his place in Kostroma for the weekend. We agreed, but that on Sunday evening she was already at home. To go to school in the morning.
And again the Rozhnovs became victims of deception. Only if the last time they met a deceiving mother, in fact, threw a child to them, then this time it turned out exactly the opposite.
Pavel did not bring Lisa either on Sunday or the next day, ”recalls Natalya. - I just sent an SMS: "Liza will stay in Kostroma." Her whole class then reared up, the whole school. Lizina, the classroom teacher, delivered an ultimatum to the school principal so that she would not give her father the documents when he came to pick them up. The director did not do that, and in protest, Irina Aleksandrovna resigned. We tried to argue with Pavel, I, for example, asked him: “Why haven't you been looking for your daughter all these years? My Victor would have turned the whole of Russia upside down. Why then did he let his wife go (about whose fate, by the way, no one knows anything now) with his child to wander around Moscow? Why didn't you worry about your daughter then? At that time, anything could happen to her in Moscow. After all, in the first days, as we got it, we treated her for scabies. " He did not answer a single question. But he completely hid Lisa from us. We went to Kostroma many times, but the door was never opened for us. This separation was especially hard for my dad. He was then partially paralyzed, he began to speak badly. I remember him stamping his foot and shouting: “Bring Lisa back! Nobody else is needed! Bring Lisa back! " Soon dad died like that. He was a good man, just and kind, although he suffered a trauma in childhood; his father shot himself with a hunting rifle right in front of him. And Lisa and I are now texting on the Internet. Her father lives with another family, and she lives with her grandmother. No matter how much we fought, the law is on their side. I often reproach myself for not throwing away her birth certificate from the beginning. Liza would be just a foundling, and no one would ever take her away from us.
Artem, Katya, Arseny, Nastya
The Rozhnovs remember the story with Liza as a great tragedy for them. However, after five years, they discovered the truth for themselves - the tragedy that happened changed them, gave impetus and strength to start a new life. After separation from Liza, the Rozhnovs turned to the guardianship authorities and adopted a baby boy. They named him Artyom. Two years later, they adopt a baby girl - Katya. And two months after Katya something terrible happened.
On the very eve of 2012, the Ivanovo region was startled by the news of an accident near Vichuga, when Andrianov's spouses, Alexander and Anna, were killed. The enormity of the accident was compounded then by the behavior random people who first stopped at wrecked car... Instead of providing the driver and passengers with first aid and calling an ambulance, they began to remove gold jewelry from the victims. Almost in front of the eyes of the children who rode in the back seat and survived.
Alexander Andrianov was Natalia Rozhnova's brother. The Rozhnovs took his surviving son, one-year-old Arseny, into their family. His older sister Anastasia began to live with her grandmother, by now she has already finished school. Arseniy is now four years old, he is disabled.
Last month, the Rozhnovs adopted a girl, Nastya, who is two years and seven months old. In total, they already have four children. Moreover, over the past few years they have been staging their own puppet theater performances throughout the city and in other cities of the region. Completely free of charge, and even bought gifts for young viewers. Natalya jokingly blames her husband Viktor that with such extravagance they will eventually let themselves into the world.
The Rozhnovs staged their first performance right in their apartment, inviting neighbors' children to it. Then they began to tour kindergartens. Every summer they adapt their parents' house to the theater, which is located on Budyonny. This is now, probably, the brightest, most cheerful house in the whole Kineshma. The whole vegetable garden around him is lined with homemade figures of cartoon characters.
Last summer, a boy peeks at us through the fence, - says Natalya. - I invited him, and he turned out to be German, his family came to visit relatives from Germany. Then we met his mother, they began to visit us all the time. Mom confessed to us that this does not happen in Germany, they do not hold anything unselfish in high esteem.
In 2013, the Rozhnov family was recognized in Kineshma as the “Family of the Year”. Since then, they have no longer wanted to participate in such competitions.
Yah! - Natalya shrugs it off. - We waited for an hour until they came from the administration to give awards. The children were tired and bored. And when they arrived, they handed us a tiny coffee pot, which we keep in junk, we don't unpack it. I'm not talking about the fact that the gift is cheap, I'm about the fact that the children had to give something, they were waiting. Or how last time staged a play for twenty disabled children in Zavolzhsk. Then I came too local administration, handed me a bouquet of flowers and a certificate. Why do I need these flowers and a letter? I don't need anything at all. The children would be brought something. It is sad, of course, that the authorities are behaving this way. Or take benefits for adopted children. The fact that they are small is a separate conversation, but the main thing is that because of these benefits you have to humiliate yourself, report for every penny, attach receipts from the store, prove to the state that food was bought for the child. Or take disabled children. They give, say, free tickets to the circus for them, but how to bring a child to the show? Fathers are constantly at work, and mothers have to carry children in their arms. Or our correctional kindergarten №22. It employs wonderful professionals, wonderful people, and the kindergarten itself is such a beggar! I thought that I would never ask anyone for anything, but I am now looking for sponsors for the kindergarten, because I can no longer look at this poverty.
Taking their fourth child in February, the Rozhnovs admit that they now plan not to adopt someone else. And then they correct themselves that every time it is like this - everything, they say, is enough, and soon they again follow the next little man. They are convinced of the "seditious" truth that the more children there are, the easier it is with them.
It's difficult with one child, - says Natalya, - and when there are many of them, then they are more interested in them, they are passionate about each other, learn from each other. If people who do not want multiple children refer to finance, then they are wrong, they are deceiving themselves. Financial question is the last thing here. The main thing is to love children.
But what do we call the Rozhnovs? In fact, they go to church all the time, they are Orthodox Christians. The righteous of the XXI century? It seems too pretentious. However, "what is in my name to you?" Modern society is such that there is an overabundance of arrogant names, titles and nicknames in it. Therefore, we will not try on the magic of words for the Rozhnovs. Such as they are worthy of numerous narratives, and not loud epithets.
Alexandra Petrovna Ivanova.She was born on January 6, 1931, in the village of Zapodorye, Velikoluksky district, Pskov region. She reposed in the Lord on June 28, 2007 in the village of Leontievskoye, Kalyazinsky district, Tver region. Buried in the village of Krasnoe, Kalyazinsky district, near the temple in honor of the Kazan icon Mother of God.
The hard labor of Christ for the sake of foolishness went through, she was endowed by the Lord with the gift of clairvoyance. Outwardly, this gift was expressed in the fact that a small, inconspicuous old woman approached a person in the church and asked some ridiculous and incomprehensible questions. As a rule, the person dismissed in bewilderment and walked away from the strange grandmother, trying to quickly get rid of the unpleasant meeting from his head, as an annoying accident. It was not there. The words spoken by a strange, inconspicuous grandmother, for some reason, did not go out of my head, they bothered, the person began to understand that they were directly related to him, and his attitude to them depends future life... Simply put, Alexandra denounced a person for his secret sins, about which it would seem that no one but him could know. She did not denounce directly, but in parables, allegorically, so that even if there were many people around, no one except the one to whom she was addressing did not understand their meaning, and even then not always immediately, and sometimes after a considerable time. Also, along with this reproof, usually in the same inflow form, Alexandra predicted what punishment awaits a person for his sins, and what needs to be done to avoid this punishment, how to correct the consequences of sin. Those who doubted the divine origin of this gift were often enlightened by the Lord, many saw visions in their dreams, in which the Lord showed the eldress as if in the image of a saint, as they are depicted on icons. Such visions were mainly sent to the doubters. And the very nature of such a feat should have excluded any suspicion of demonic charm. The task of the demon is to destroy a person, draw him into sin and drown him in the abyss of despair. The efforts of Alexandra Petrovna were aimed at helping a person to realize sin, repent and free themselves from the power of sinful passions. The task, that is, the demonic, is exactly the opposite. “By their fruits you will know them” (Matt. 7:20).
A family.
Mother and brother of Alexandra Petrovna.
Alexandra Petrovna was the eldest child in a large family. She had two sisters, Maria and Tatiana, and three brothers, Ivan, Dmitry and Leonid. Dmitry died in infancy. Alexandra's mother, Anna Alexandrovna, was married three times, the children of Alexandra, Maria and Ivan from the first marriage with Peter Mikhailovich Ivanov, Tatyana and Dmitry from the second, with Vasily Ogirenko, whom Alexandra Petrovna loved very much and even sometimes used to say in childhood: “I don’t want to be Petrovna, I want to be Vasilievna. " The name of Anna Alexandrovna's third husband is unknown, she was not married to him for long, already in Bezhetsk.
Pyotr Mikhailovich was imprisoned even before the war, allegedly he stole some spikelets from the state farm, and Vasily, Alexandra's stepfather, along with all the men who remained in the village, were executed by the Germans, tortured, and then burned alive. When the Nazis destroyed the village, Anna Alexandrovna had to wander with her children in search of housing. In the end, after long wanderings, they settled in the city of Bezhetsk, Tver region.
Since Alexandra was the eldest, she had to work from an early age to help her mother support her family. Because of this, she was left without education. Alexandra's sister, Tatiana, recalls that from childhood Alexandra was very serious, focused, loved solitude and prayer. She loved the church very much. Almost all the salary, and later the pension, was donated to the church, because of which there were conflicts with the mother and sisters, who considered this a manifestation of the disease and tried in every possible way to prevent it. In the end, the conflicts led the sisters to put Alexandra in a psychiatric hospital, from where they sometimes took her, but then again and again asked the doctors to place her for treatment. It ended with the fact that Alexandra herself asked to go to a boarding school, where she was registered in 1996. Shortly before her death, she was transferred from the boarding school to the regional hospital near Kalyazin, where she spent the last years of her life and died in the Lord.
Bezhetsk period of the life of Alexandra Petrovna.
In her youth, Alexandra Petrovna and her mother often visited holy places, lived for a long time in the Pskov-Pechersky monastery and the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, worked there, helped with the housework, which she often talked about. She was the spiritual child of the great elder of the 20th century, the father of Archimandrite Pavel Gruzdev. She often remembered him, told how he blessed her with a rosary and commanded to read the rule from them, since she was almost illiterate. Probably he blessed Alexandra Petrovna for Christ's difficult deed for the sake of foolishness, which he himself went through.
It is worth noting here that in general in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church in the middle of the twentieth century, a special place was occupied by the holy fools and the blessed. This was due to the fact that at the beginning of the twentieth century, the godless godless power, most of the most worthy representatives of the clergy and monks were shot or sent to prison. At this terrible time, the feat of spiritual nurturing of children Orthodox Church lay on the shoulders of the most inconspicuous and unrepresentative special interest for the godless power of people, blessed and Christ for the sake of the holy fools.
(grave of the blessed elder Gabriel, christ for the sake of the holy fool in Bezhetsk)
In Bezhetsk there was a whole galaxy of great servants of God, for Christ for the sake of the holy fools, among whom there was a kind of spiritual continuity, when one left, another immediately came to his place. For example, Alexandra Petrovna was in close spiritual communion with another Bezhetsky holy fool, Nikolai, who, according to her stories, often spent the night with her, and she supplied him with clothes and food.
blessed Nicholas, fool for Christ's sake
During her life in Bezhetsk, Alexandra Petrovna also underwent the feat of eldership. Special attention she devoted to the clergy and monasticism, helping with spiritual advice, prayers and edification. Many priests and monks of the city of Bezhetsk recall with love and gratitude the bright image of Alexandra Petrovna.
The late Mother Ambrose, abbess of the Bezhetsk Convent of the Annunciation, often recalled the following incident: she had a great temptation, strong enemy thoughts about leaving the monastery and moving to another place. And so, somehow she stayed in the church, on the feast of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, and spent the whole night in prayer so that the Lord would instruct her whether to leave this place for her or not? Towards morning, the doors of the church opened, Alexandra Petrovna came in and said that she could not leave here, that she could not leave this holy place and the holy monastery, she had to endure everything, no matter how hard it was. At the same time, mother received spiritual consolation, enemy thoughts left her.
SchemeGumenia Ambrose
Once in Bezhetsk, the blessed eldress Maria from the Novgorod region was staying, many Orthodox residents of Bezhetsk often visited her, went for advice and prayer. Likewise, Alexandra Petrovna often visited the eldress. Here some visitors, dissatisfied with Alexandra's antics, complained about her to Maria and said that she was sick. To which the old woman always answered: "she is not sick, but for Christ's sake, she is a holy fool, do not offend her."
Battered eldress Maria Novgorodskaya
It often happened that Alexandra Petrovna predicted events that later came true exactly, sometimes soon, and sometimes many years later. Everyone who communicated with Alexandra noted the amazing gift of clairvoyance that she possessed. As mentioned above, we direct her to help a person realize sins and get rid of the power of passions and demons. If a person did not immediately understand her, then she turned to him again and again, until she achieved the desired result.
She did not always speak in parables and behave like a fool, sometimes she communicated simply. For example, there was such a case. Once Alexandra ascended the kliros and, as usual, began begging for alms from the singers. One grandmother began to scold her: "Why are you all begging for money from us, shame on you, you get a pension!" And Shura just like that, quietly says: "Why are you scolding me, I will buy a candle with this money, I will pray for you!" That grandmother lowered her head and fell silent, she felt ashamed!
However, the passage of the exploit of Christ for the sake of foolishness in our time is not at all the same as the passage of it in the Middle Ages. Here we read, for example, about the exploits of St.Basil the Blessed and we are moved, but imagine in our time, you come to Red Square and see dirty, naked man throwing stones at the walls of churches, will this now cause you tenderness? Most likely, such a picture will cause modern people only horror and disgust. And it is possible to predict the consequences of such an act for the holy fool himself without being perspicacious - placement in a psychiatric hospital.
Unfortunately, Alexandra Petrovna did not escape this fate. As already mentioned, Shura took almost all of her pension to the Church, besides, she asked for alms and all this money she also spent on the church. This greatly annoyed her family, who, deciding that this behavior was a manifestation of a mental disorder, began to take her for treatment at a local hospital. But even when they took her home, they treated her very badly. Subsequently, Alexandra herself asked to be transferred to a boarding school and the hospital staff, without even notifying her relatives, sent her to the Romashkino PNI, near Kimry, where Alexandra Petrovna spent the rest of her life almost completely.
Romashkino.
Former Holy Trinity Monastery in the village of Romashkino.
PNI "Romashkino" is housed in the destroyed Holy Trinity Monastery, the main Trinity Cathedral of which is completely destroyed, and the wards of the sick are located in the abbot building. At the time of Alexandra Petrovna, there were about a hundred people who were under guardianship, the staff was very friendly, the guardians were treated like relatives. The boarding school had its own farm, the food was good. Nearby, in the village of Ilyinskoe, there is a church where the wards, with the permission of the chief physician, Anatoly Maksimovich, in Sundays several people were released to the service. Alexandra Petrovna liked living there and was happy with everything. But the director of the boarding school was not always pleased with her antics and hooliganism, which she, due to her foolishness, continued to perform there as well. It all ended with the fact that his patience ran out and in 2003 she was transferred to the regional hospital, located in the village of Leontievskoye, near Kalyazin.
LeonTyevskoe.
The last lifetime photo of Alexandra Petrovna in Leontievsky
Here Alexandra Petrovna already had to accept the next feat, crowning her harsh, long-suffering life, the feat of martyrdom. The attitude towards the sick here is completely different from that in the boarding school for the wards, a significant restriction of freedom in comparison with the boarding school, very poor nutrition and conditions of detention. “They keep it on bread and water,” as Shura herself said. With all this, her spirit always remained joyful and calm. According to the apostle's words, “always rejoice, pray ceaselessly, give thanks for everything” (1 Thess. 5:16). The last photographs clearly show the injuries received, a broken nose, and an eye that was completely closed. Here they found her cancer, breast cancer. Besides, in Last year Alexander's life was completely blinded. Alexandra Petrovna died on June 28, 2007, the funeral service was performed on the fourth or fifth day after her death, in the church in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, in the village of Krasnoe. When the body was brought to the church, the rector, the confessor of the Tver diocese, Father Leonid, bent over the body and smelled it. Despite the fact that the body lay in the morgue for four days, and the morgue in the hospital was just a concrete shed and the body lay there on a blanket, right on the floor, there was no smell of decay or cadaveric spots on the skin, but in the yard it was the end of June, the very middle of summer. The funeral was attended by only two people, the priest who performed the funeral service and the driver who accompanied him. Even Father Leonid at this time was absent for some kind of business. Alexandra predicted the place of her burial in advance. When they asked her, long before her death, where she would like to be buried and offered to take her to Bezhetsk, she replied: “I will not go anywhere, I will be here, the Monk Makarii registered me!”. The grave of Alexandra Petrovna Ivanova, the great ascetic of piety of the XX-XXI centuries, is located near the chapel of the Monk Makarii, the Kalyazin miracle worker.
The funeral service in the temple of the Kozan Mother of God
Grave of Alexandra near the border of the Monk Makarii Kalyazinsky
Kingdom of Heaven, eternal rest!
