Russian saints. Saints of ancient Russia Communication on the topic of ancient Russian ascetics and saints

Introduction Main part ... 3

1. Prince Vladimir ... 3

2. Boris and Gleb ... 5

3. Sergiy of Radonezh ... 9

Conclusion ... 11

List of used literature ... 11

Introduction

Every society as well as every person needs a bright spiritual ideal. Especially acutely society is in need of him in the era of troubled times. What serves us, the Russian people, this spiritual ideal, the spiritual core, the force that has united Russia for a whole millennium in the face of invasions, unrest, wars and other global cataclysms?

There is no doubt that Orthodoxy is such a connecting force, but not in the form in which it came to Russia from Byzantium, but in the form in which it acquired on the Russian land, taking into account the national, political and socio-economic characteristics of Ancient Rus. Byzantine Orthodoxy came to Russia having already formed pantheon Christian saints, for example, such as Nicholas the Wonderworker, John the Baptist and others, who are deeply revered to this day. By the 11th century, Christianity in Russia was taking only the first steps and for many ordinary people of that time it was not yet a source of faith. After all, in order to recognize the holiness of the newly arrived saints, one had to believe very deeply, to be imbued with the spirit of the Orthodox faith. It is a completely different matter when before your eyes there is an example in the person of your own, a Russian person, sometimes even a commoner, performing holy asceticism. Here the most skeptical person with respect to Christianity will believe. Thus, by the end of the 11th century, a purely Russian pantheon of saints began to form, revered to this day on a par with common Christian saints.

The interest in this period of time in Russian history, interest in the historical role of the Russian Orthodox Church, and also the unpopularity of this topic among the students (with the exception of students of theological seminary), made me start writing a paper on this topic. In addition, this topic is more relevant than ever in our transitional time, when many talk about Orthodox ideals and values, often not adhering to them, when the emphasis is only on the visible side of worshiping God, and when many of us do not live according to the commandments that formed the basis of Christianity.

Main part

The turbulent Russian history has promoted many bright, extraordinary personalities.

Some of them, thanks to their ascetic activities in the field of Orthodoxy, thanks to their righteous life or deeds as a result of which the name of Russia gained greatness and respect, were honored with the grateful memory of their descendants and canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.

What kind of people were they, Russian saints? What was their contribution to history? What were their deeds?

Prince Vladimir

A special place both in Russian history and among the saints canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church is occupied by Prince Vladimir (? -1015 son of Prince Svyatoslav, Prince of Novgorod (from 969), Grand Duke of Kiev (from 980), in Russian epics he received the nickname, Red Sun, is this prince remarkable and how did he take his place in the pantheon of Russian saints?

To answer these questions, one should analyze the situation that developed in Kievan Rus by the end of the 10 beginning of the 11 centuries. During his lifetime, Prince Svyatoslav handed over the Kiev throne to his son Yaropolk, another son Oleg became the Drevlyan prince, and sent Vladimir to Novgorod.

In 972 - with the death of Prince Svyatoslav, civil strife broke out between his sons. It all started a hundred times that the Kiev governor, in fact, initiated a campaign against the Drevlyans, which ended with the victory of the Kievites and the death of the Drevlyane prince Oleg. When retreating, he fell into the fortress ditch and was trampled by his own warriors. Having learned about these events, Prince Vladimir gathers Scandinavian mercenaries, kills his brother Yaropolk and seizes the Kiev throne. If Yaropolk was distinguished by tolerance, then Vladimir at the time of the conquest of power was a staunch pagan. After defeating his brother in 980, Vladimir set up a pagan temple in Kiev with idols of especially revered pagan gods, such as Perun, Khors, Dazhdbog, Stribog and others. In honor of the gods, games and bloody sacrifices with human sacrifices were arranged. And Vladimir began to reign in Kiev alone, - says the chronicle, - and put idols on a hill in a terem courtyard: a wooden Perun with a silver head and a golden mustache, then Khors, Dazhdbog, Stirbog, Simargl and Mokosh ... And they brought sacrifices to them, calling them gods ... And the Russian land and the hill were defiled with blood "(under the year 980). Not only those close to the prince, but also many townspeople approving of this. And now literally a few years after the reign in Kiev, in 988-989 Vladimir accepts Christianity himself, and also converts his subjects into it. But how did a convinced pagan suddenly believe in Christ? It is unlikely that he was guided only by the understanding of the state benefits of Christianity.

Perhaps this was caused by remorse for all committed atrocities, fatigue from a riotous life. Metropolitan Hilarion of Kiev, the monk Jacob and the chronicler the Monk Nestor (XI century) named the reasons for the personal conversion of Prince Vladimir to the Christian faith, according to pointing out the action of the invoking grace of God.

In The Word about Law and Grace, St. Hilarion, Metropolitan of Kiev, writes about Prince Vladimir: “A visit from the Most High came to him, the All-Merciful eye of the Good God looked upon him, and his mind shone in his heart. He enlightened the vanity of idolatrous delusion and sought the One God, created all visible and invisible. And especially he always heard about the Orthodox, Christ-loving and strong faith in the Greek land ... Hearing all this, he was kindled in spirit and wished in his heart to be a Christian and to convert the whole Earth to Christianity. "

At the same time, Vladimir, as an intelligent ruler, understood that a power consisting of separate, eternally warring princedoms needed some kind of super-idea that would rally the Russian people and keep the princes from civil strife. On the other hand, in relations with Christian states, the pagan country turned out to be an unequal partner, with which Vladimir did not agree.

There are several versions regarding the question of the time and place of the Baptism of Prince Vladimir. According to the generally accepted opinion, Prince Vladimir was baptized in 998 in Korsun (the Greek Chersonesos in the Crimea); according to the second version, Prince Vladimir was baptized in 987 in Kiev, and according to the third - in 987 in Vasilev (not far from Kiev, now Vasilkov). The most reliable, apparently, is the second, since the monks James and the Monk Nestor agree to point to the year 987; the monk Jacob says that Prince Vladimir lived for 28 years after baptism (1015-28 \u003d 987), and also that in the third year after Baptism (i.e. in 989) he made a trip to Korsun and took him; the chronicler the Monk Nestor says that Prince Vladimir was baptized in the summer of 6495th from the creation of the world, which corresponds to the year 987 from the Nativity of Christ (6695-5508 \u003d 987). So, deciding to accept Christianity, Vladimir captures Chersonesos and sends messengers to the Byzantine emperor Vasily II with a demand to give the emperor's sister Anna to his wife. Otherwise, threatening to approach Constantinople. Vladimir was flattering to intermarry with one of the most powerful imperial houses, and along with the adoption of Christianity, this was a wise step aimed at strengthening the state. Kievans and residents of the southern and western cities of Rus reacted calmly to baptism, which cannot be said about the northern and eastern Russian lands. For example, to conquer the Novgorodians it even took a whole military expedition of the Kievites. The Christian religion was seen by the Novgorodians as an attempt to infringe on the ancient primordial autonomy of the northern and eastern lands.

In their eyes, Vladimir seemed like an apostate who had trampled on his primordial liberties.

First of all, Prince Vladimir baptized 12 his sons and many boyars. He ordered to destroy all idols, to throw the main idol Perun into the Dnieper, and to the clergy to preach a new faith in the city.

On the appointed day, a mass baptism of the Kievites took place at the confluence of the Pochayna River into the Dnieper. “On the next day,” says the chronicler, “Vladimir came out with the Tsaritsyn and Korsun priests, the Dnieper, and there were countless people. Enter the water and stood there alone up to the neck, others up to the chest, the young ones near the shore up to the chest, some held the babies, and even the adults wandered, the priests made prayers, standing still. And there was joy in heaven and on earth about so many souls being saved ... People, being baptized, went home. Vladimir was glad that he knew God and his people, looked at the sky and said: “Christ God, who created heaven and earth! Look at these new people and let them, Lord, know You, the true God, as Christian countries recognized You. Confirm in them a right and unswerving faith and help me, O Lord, against the devil, so that I may overcome his wiles, relying on You and Your power. "

This most important event took place, according to the chronicle chronology, accepted by some researchers, in 988, according to others - in 989-990. Following Kiev, Christianity gradually comes to other cities of Kievan Rus: Chernigov, Novgorod, Rostov, Vladimir-Volynsky, Polotsk, Turov , Tmutarakan, where dioceses are created. Under Prince Vladimir, the overwhelming majority of the Russian population adopted the Christian faith and Kievan Rus became a Christian country. The baptism of Rus created the necessary conditions for the formation of the Russian Orthodox Church. Bishops came from Byzantium, headed by the Metropolitan, and from Bulgaria, priests, who brought with them liturgical books in the Slavic language; churches were built, schools were opened to train clergy from the Russian environment.

Chronicle reports (under 988) that Prince Vladimir “ordered the chopping down of churches and erecting them in the places where idols had previously stood. And he set up a church in the name of St. Basil on a hill where the idol of Perun and others stood, and where the prince and the people performed for them. And in other cities they began to erect churches and determine priests in them and bring people to Baptism in all cities and villages. ”With the help of Greek craftsmen, a majestic stone church in honor of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos (Tithes) was built in Kiev and the holy relics of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Princess Olga were transferred to it. This temple symbolized the true triumph of Christianity in Kievan Rus and materially personified the “spiritual Russian Church”.

Many orders of Vladimir, designed to strengthen Christianity, were imbued with a pagan spirit. At first, Vladimir tried to embody the Christian ideal, refused to use criminal punishments, forgave the robbers, and distributed food to the poor. The merit of Vladimir is that, through the adoption of Christianity, he put Kievan Rus on a par with the powerful European states and also created the conditions for cooperation of Rus with other Christian peoples. The Russian Church became a unifying force for the inhabitants of different lands, since a multinational state, such as Russia was in those days, could develop not on the basis of a national, but on the basis of a religious idea. Orthodoxy brought with it to Russia many of the achievements of Byzantium, such as stone-making, icon painting, frescoes, chronicles, school and book correspondence. Thanks to the combination of these factors, Russia entered the community of civilized states, which served as an impetus for the spiritual and cultural development of Russia at the turn of the 10-11 centuries. Under Vladimir, defensive lines were built along the Desna, Osetr, Trubezh, Sula and others rivers, and Kiev was reinforced and built up with stone buildings. After his death, Prince Vladimir was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church. The day of his memory is celebrated on July 15.

Boris and Gleb

One of the first Russian princes, canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church, were the beloved sons of Vladimir, princes Boris of Rostovsky and Gleb Muromsky, who received the names Roman and David during baptism and who in 1015 died a martyr's death from their brother Svyatopolk, who deserved the nickname Okka by his act. Fratricide is undoubtedly a terrible sin, one of the first sins of mankind (remember the biblical brothers Cain and Abel). Really in Russia before that time there were no fratricides like Svyatopolk and those who were killed like Boris and Gleb? Yes, of course there were. The sin of fratricide also lay with Prince Vladimir, who killed his brother Yaropolk in 979 during the struggle for the Kiev throne. From the point of view of Christianity, Vladimir was forgivable, after all, a pagan, a dark man, especially since the subsequent actions of Vladimir that brought Russia to Christianity seemed to atone for all his sins committed by the prince when he was a pagan. Why exactly Boris and Gleb were canonized? Maybe it's because of their princely origin?

After all, it is still easier for the princes to get into the history of the common man, they undoubtedly had chroniclers who were able to record in writing the actions of the brothers.

The lives of the holy martyrs Boris and Gleb have survived to this day thanks to the Pechersk monks-chroniclers Jacob and Nestor. Nestor says about the brothers: Like two-bright stars in the midst of dark clouds, two holy brothers shone, including all the twelve sons of Vladimirov; He let everyone go to the inheritance given to them, but he kept them with him, as his beloved ones, for Gleb was still in childhood, while blessed Boris, although he was mature, his parent reluctantly parted with him. Boris was filled with the grace of God in his early years, and the reading of divine books was his favorite pastime. He loved the lives of the holy martyrs most, as if anticipating his own fate, and, reading them, he prayed to the Lord with tears: “My Lord, Jesus Christ, grant me also among Your saints, grant me to walk their footsteps, so that my thought will not be lifted up by the vanity of the world. this, but my heart will be enlightened with the understanding of Thy commandments; Do not deprive me of that gift, which you have vouchsafed for the rejection of those who pleased You, for You are the true God, have mercy on us and brought us out of darkness to the light. " So often he cried out to God, and Saint Gleb, sitting with his brother, listened earnestly to the reading and prayed with him, for he was inseparable from his blessed brother, constantly learning from him, and although he was still in childhood, his mind had already matured; following the example of his parents, he had mercy on the orphans and widows, because he saw that his beggarly father not only accepted the poor in the princely couple, but also sent them to look for them in their homes and deliver food to the sick who could not come themselves. Svyatopol was afraid that after the death of his father, the Kiev table, bypassing seniority, would go to Boris as one of Vladimir's favorite sons.

In 1015 the Grand Duke of Kiev dies. Hearing about the death of his parent, Svyatopolk galloped to Kiev from Vyshgorod and sat on the throne.

At this time, Boris was returning after a successful campaign against the Pechenegs,

when he was overtaken by the news of the death of his father and the introduction of his brother on the Kiev

Svyatopolk. But he did not yet know that his brother Glebuzhe was forced to flee from the intrigues of Svyatopolk. From the chronicles of Netor, we see how Boris reacted to these events: Boris sobbed and, shedding torrents of tears, prayed to God for the repose of his father in the bosom of the righteous. “Alas for me,” exclaimed, “my father, to whom I will resort and from whom I will be nourished with good teaching, why was I not here when the light of your eyes rolled back, so that at least I could be honored to kiss your sacred gray hair and with my own hands bury your honest body ! I would like to turn to my brother Svyatopolk, if I am still not fussing with worldly greatness. However, I will not resist him, I will go to my brother and distort him: "You are my oldest brother, be my father and master!" Better to be a martyr to my God, than to rebel against a brother; I will see, at least, the face of my younger brother, Gleb, my friend: the will of the Lord be done! "

Thus, we see that Prince Boris unquestioningly recognized the legality of Svyatopolk's reign. But Svyatopolk has already finally decided for himself to get rid of the brothers, so at night he gallops into his fiefdom to Vyshgorod, gathers people loyal to him and orders them to kill Boris.

On the one hand, the act of Svyatopolk seems a little illogical; Why would it seem to kill the one who swore allegiance to you? On the other hand, Svyatopolk understood perfectly well that the times were changing and the one who was loyal to

tomorrow you can claim your rights to the princely throne, but no one needs competitors. From this conclusion: a good competitor is a dead competitor.

So the faithful people reported to Boris about the impending assassination attempt on him, but the blessed one did not want to believe them: "Could it be," said the leon, "or do you not know that I am a younger brother and not disgusted with an older one?" Two days later, other messengers came to him, saying that his brother Gleb had already fled from Kiev; but the holy prince calmly answered: “Blessed be God, I will not run away and will not get away from this place, for I do not want to be an enemy to my elder brother; but as it pleases God, so it will come true! It is better for me to die here than on the wrong side. " Contrary to all logic, Boris dismisses his squad of about 8 thousand soldiers and goes to meet his killers. Here is what Boris replied to the proposal

go with him to Kiev and expel Svyatopolk from there: “No, my brothers, no, my fathers, let this not be so, do not anger the Lord and my brother, so that he does not raise sedition against you. It is better for me to perish alone than to destroy so many souls with me; I dare not resist my elder brother and I cannot escape the judgment of God, but I pray you, brothers, go home, and I will go to my brother and fall at his feet, and he, seeing me, will have mercy and undead, assured of my obedience. "

Boris sent one of his servants to his brother as the estate of the world, but Svyatopolk, keeping the messenger with him, hastened to send the murderers of the number. Boris, seeing that the messenger was not returning, set out on his own to go to his brother; On the way, he still met loyal people who were in a hurry to warn the prince that Svyatopolk had already sent murderers against him and that they were close. On the banks of the Alta, Boris ordered to put up a secluded tent and there he remained to await his fate, surrounded only by his own youths. Further, so that the picture of the murder was clearer, let us turn to the chronicles: “They, like wild beasts, rushed at the saint and thrust their spears into him. One of the upcoming young men rushed at his prince to cover him with his body, the murderers pierced him and, thinking that the prince was already dead, left the tent; but the blessed one, jumping up and down, still had enough strength to get out from under the tent; He raised his hands to heaven and raised a fiery prayer, thanking the Lord that he had vouchsafed him, unworthy, to be a fellowship of the suffering of His Son, who came into the world to save people: “I was sent by my father to protect his people from their enemies, and now I am wounded by my father's slaves ! But, Lord, forgive them their sin, and rest me with Thy saints, for now I commend my spirit into Thy hands. "

The hard-hearted were not moved by the touching prayer of their prince, who prayed to the Lord for them; one of them, even more cruel, struck him in the heart with a sword; Boris fell to the ground, but did not give up his ghost yet. Many youths were beaten around; from his beloved youth, George, a Hungarian native, who was looking to save him, covering with his body, they wanted to rip off the golden hryvnia given to him by the prince, and in order to remove the hryvnia as soon as possible, they cut off his head. The cursed wrapped the body of blessed Boris in the same tent whom they committed murder, and who was still breathing was taken to Vyshgorod, and meanwhile they sent with the message to Svyatopolk about the murder. But Svyatopolk, hearing from the messengers that his brother was still breathing, sent two Varangians to meet him in order to complete his murder, and one of them pierced him with a sword in the heart; so died the blessed one in the twenty-eighth year of his age, on May 24, having received the crown from Christ God the just. He was taken to Vyshgorod and laid up for a while in the Church of St. Basil.

A logical ending; a man all his conscious life striving to accomplish the feat of martyrdom and preparing his younger brother for it, has achieved his cherished goal. It is impossible to understand the saints with a sober mind, and this is not required, for this there is God's providence. And what about Gleb?

It is not known where the young prince was at that time, no doubt already in his Murom region, for the chronicle says that as soon as he heard this bitter news, he immediately mounted his horse and hurried with the small forces to the Volga; but on the way a horse stumbled under him, and the prince broke his leg. With difficulty he reached Smolensk and from there he wanted to go down the Dnieper to Kiev, but, at the mouth of the Smyadyn, another, more truthful messenger from Novgorod came to him from his brother Yaroslav, “Don't go to Kiev,” Yaroslav sent him to tell him, “for my father has died, and our brother Boris was killed by Svyatopolk. " Gleb answered it this way: “O brother and sovereign! If you have received boldness from God, pray for serenity and despondency, so that I might be worthy to live with you, but not in this vain light. "

That is, it is obvious that Gleb was internally ready to commit the act of his brother. And now those sent from Svyatopolkaudytsy arrived along the Dnieper. Seeing the boat from afar, young Gleb swam to her, not suspecting anything evil. The prince's vain servants warned him not to fall into the hands of the enemy; like Boris, but Gleb did not want to quarrel with his brother and landed his entire squad on the shore, wishing to perish one for all, because he did not expect such an inhuman rejection. The murderers were delighted when they saw Gleb's boat and as soon as they caught up with it, instead of the usual greetings, they drew the boat to themselves with hooks and jumped into it from their courts with drawn swords. Then Gleb understood the cruel fate that awaited him, but he still thought with pitiful pleas to appease the villains. “Do not kill me, my brothers,” he exclaimed, “what offense did I inflict on my brother or you? If there is an insult, lead me to your prince and mine, spare my youth, do not reap the ear that is not yet ripe; if you thirst for my blood, am I not always in your hands? " When young Gleb begged the murderers to spare him, their leader Goriser gave a sign to the cook, who was sitting in prince, by the name of Torchin, to stab his prince; and, raising a knife, the servant cut Gleb's throat.

Immediately, the grave of the martyrs in the Church of St. Basil in Vyshgorod was marked by many miracles. After the church burned down, the graves were opened and everyone was surprised at the incorruptible bodies of the saints. The coffins were moved to a small temple that was attached to the church. The elder of the city had a lame son, whose leg was twisted and he could not walk otherwise than on a wooden support. The youth often came to the tomb of the miracle workers and prayed for their healing; one night both the passion-bearer Roman and David appeared to him and said: “Why are you crying to us?”; when he showed them his dry leg, they crossed it three times. Waking up, the boy felt healed and told everyone about his wonderful vision. Following this, another miracle marked the holiness of the martyrs: the blind man who came to their grave fell to the sacred cancer, putting his eyes on it, and suddenly ripened. All the miracles were reported to Prince Yaroslav, and after consulting the Smitropolitan John, he decided to build a church in the name of the martyrs and establish a day to celebrate their memory. Within a year, a five-domed temple was erected, richly decorated with icons from the inside. The relics of the saints were brought into the church and on July 24, the day of the death of Prince Boris was appointed to commemorate the memory of both holy brothers.

We can safely say that the reason for the canonization of Boris and Gleb is not that they fell victims of fratricide, but that they accepted their death. They accepted it with humility and faith as the early Christians did. Their faith was stronger than the fear of death. It seems to me that it was not even a belief in its ordinary understanding, but some kind of content with faith that we can meet in our time, except perhaps the Ufanatics-Muslims. Boris and Gleb showed all the Orthodox that only a faithful can overcome the most difficult trials sent down to us by fate.

Moreover, according to the canons of Christianity, martyrdom is a great feat. The Christian religion itself is based on the feat of martyrdom committed by Jesus Christ. A historical paradox: the sons of the equal-to-the-apostles Prince Vladimir the Baptist of Russia become the first Russian martyrs, that is, martyrs according to the canons of the very faith that Vladimir brought to Russia. In this regard, one can recall the persecution of Christians during the time of the Roman emperor Nero, that is where you can draw examples of martyrdom! Princes Boris and Gleb were rightly canonized precisely because of their feat of martyrdom, incredible fortitude and deep faith in the Lord.

Sergius of Radonezh

Another grandiose figure in the history of the Russian state and in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church is the Monk Sergius of Radonezh, in the world Bartholomew Kirillovich (1321-1392), who became a remarkable figure of the Russian Renaissance, the spiritual father of the unification and national liberation policy pursued by Prince Dmitry Donskoy.

The Monk Sergei was born into the family of the Rostov boyar Kirill. Some miracle happened before he was born. When the child was still in the womb, one Sunday the yogamat entered the church during the singing of the holy liturgy, stood with other women in the narthex, when they were supposed to start reading the Gospel and everyone stood in silence, the baby began to scream in the womb. Before the cherubic song began to be sung, the infant began to cry a second time. When the priest exclaimed: “Let us behold, holy to the holy!” - the baby cried out for the third time. When the fortieth day after his birth came, the parents brought the child to the church. The priest christened him Bartholomew. The father and mother told the priest how their son, while still in the mother's womb, shouted three times in church: "We do not know what this means."

The priest said: “Rejoice, for there will be a child a vessel chosen by God, a monastery and a servant of the Holy Trinity.” Unlike his brothers, it was hard for him to read and write, and from childhood he sought solitude. His parents were sad, the teacher was upset. He received book teaching, let's say, from God When he was sent by his father to look for cattle, he saw a certain monk in the field under an oak tree standing and praying. When the elder finished praying, he turned to Bartholomew: “What do you want, child?” Bartholomew said: “My soul wants to know how to read and write. but I cannot overcome the more. Holy Father, pray that I can learn to read and write. ”And the elder answered him:“ About literacy, child, do not grieve: from this day the Lord will grant you the knowledge of literacy. ”From that hour he knew literacy well.

Bartholomew's father owned a property in the Rostov region, but by the end of his life he fell into poverty. The reason for this was his frequent visits with the prince to the Horde, Tatar raids and tributes, and finally the last straw that completed the ruin was the pacification of Rostov by Ivan Kalita, who brutally suppressed the anti-Horde uprising. After these events, the family had to move to the town of Radonezh

Moscow principality. Cyril's sons, Stephen and Peter, married; Bartholomew, did not want to marry, but strove for a monastic life.

Deciding to become a monk, Bartholomew handed over his share of the inheritance to his younger brother and begged his older brother Stephen to go with him to look for a deserted place suitable for founding a monastery.

Finally we came to a desert place, in the thicket, where there was also water.

And, they began to cut wood with their own hands and carry the logs to the chosen place. First, the brothers built a cell and cut down a small church. The church was consecrated in the name of the Holy Trinity. 1342 is considered the year of foundation of the monastery.

At the same time, Bartholomew wanted to take monastic tonsure and therefore called to his wilderness the priest who tonsured him in the month of October on the seventh day, in memory of the holy martyrs Sergius and Bacchus. And the name was given to him in monasticism Sergius. Gradually, people began to flock to the monastery, wishing to share with Sergius the hardships of monastic life. In 1353, the Monk Sergius became the abbot of the monastery. Sergius possessed a rare combination of such qualities as noble birth, non-acquisitiveness, religiosity, and hard work.

During the reign of Ivan the Red, people began to settle near the monastery, built villages and sowed fields. The monastery began to gain widespread popularity. Gradually, through the efforts of Sergius, the monastery began to turn into one of the main centers of Russian Orthodox culture.

The number of disciples multiplied, and the more they became, the more they contributed to the monastery. The monastery became a significant figure with its own political weight with which even the great Moscow princes were forced to reckon. Sergius never stopped charity, and he punished the servants of the monastery, to give shelter to the poor and strangers and help those in need. The monastery also served as a transshipment base for the passing Russian troops.

Peasants and other people were fed from the monastery reserves during the years of crop failures and natural disasters.

In 1374 Sergius became a confidant of the Moscow princes, being one of the confessors of Dmitry Ivanovich Donskoy and the godfather of his sons. Why did Sergius take such a responsible and important post? There is no doubt that a statesman of such magnitude as Dmitry was, having conceived to free himself from the Tatar yoke, he needed a wise mentor, because in order for Russia to free himself from centuries-old slavery, it was necessary to concentrate not only military but also spiritual strength. It is natural that two great people of their era united their forces in a difficult time for their homeland. Dmitry understood that only a deep faith in victory could raise the Russian people against the Horde and the personification of this faith was undoubtedly the figure of Sergius of Radonezh. In 1380, Sergius admonished the prince with these words: “ You should, sir, take care of the glorious Christian flock entrusted to you by God. Go against the ungodly, and if God helps you, you victorious unharmed to your homeland with great honor will return. " Dmitry replied: If God helps me, Father, I will put up a monastery in honor of the Most Holy Mother of God, Further events leading to the defeat of the Horde on the Kulikovo field are known to us from history.

It is also known that in 1385 Saint Sergius traveled with a diplomatic mission to Ryazan, successfully coping with the prevention of a war between Moscow and Novgorod. By reconciling the Russian princes, Sergius contributed to the unification of the Russian state.

The monk died on September 25, 1392 and was buried in the established Immonastery and canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church. In April 1919, during the struggle with the religious consciousness of the masses, the relics of Sergius were publicly uncovered but surprisingly left in place.

The merit of Sergius is that he, as a significant figure of his time, made a significant contribution to the process of the liberation of Russia from the Mongol-Tatar yoke and the unification of the state. The historian RG Skrynnikov therefore noted: the Church would never have been able to acquire exclusive power over minds if ascetics did not appear among its leaders who served the idea without sparing their lives.

One of these ascetics was Sergius.

Sergiy was able to create and develop a new type of monastic community for the Russian lands of the 14th century, relying not on alms but on his own economic activities, which led to the formation of a rich and influential monastic corporation.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, in this work, it is simply impossible to compose a historical portrait of all Russian saints of that time. Therefore, in my opinion, as characters for my work, I chose the most prominent historical personalities, whose contribution to the political, spiritual and cultural life of Russia was the most significant. Russian saints are an integral part of Russian history, one might say the best part of it. If there were no scientific and historical works, history could be studied from the lives of Russian saints, for each of them is the greatest representative of his people and the era that demanded him.

List of references

Klibanov A.I. , Spiritual culture of medieval Russia, M. 1995

A. N. Kartashev , Essays on the History of the Russian Church in 2 volumes, M. 1990

Fedotov G.P. , Saints of Ancient Russia, M. 1991

Shakhmagonov F.F. Grekov I.B. , World of History, M. 1988

Lives of Russian saints. 1000 years of Russian holiness. Collected by Nun Taisia, Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, 1991

MoscowPsychological-Social

Institute

Faculty of Economics and Law

Discipline History of the Fatherland

On the topic, Saints of Ancient Russia,

1st year student

Kulika Evgeniya

For our readers: holy people in Russia with detailed descriptions from various sources.

Russian saints ... The list of God's saints is inexhaustible. With their way of life, they pleased the Lord and thanks to this they became closer to eternal existence. Each saint has his own face. This term denotes the category to which the Divine Pleasant is ranked upon his canonization. These include the great martyrs, martyrs, saints, righteous, unmercenaries, apostles, saints, passion-bearers, holy fools (blessed), faithful and equal to the apostles.

Suffering in the name of the Lord

The first saints of the Russian Church among the saints of God are the great martyrs who suffered for the faith of Christ, having died in grievous and long torments. Among the Russian saints, the first to be numbered were the brothers Boris and Gleb. That is why they are called the first martyrs - martyrs. In addition, the Russian saints Boris and Gleb were the first to be canonized in the history of Rus. The brothers died in the internecine war for the throne that began after the death of Prince Vladimir. Yaropolk, nicknamed the Cursed One, first killed Boris when he was sleeping in a tent, being in one of the campaigns, and then Gleb.

The face of the likes of the Lord

The saints are those saints who led an ascetic lifestyle, being in prayer, labors and fasting. Among the Russian saints of God, one can single out the Monk Seraphim of Sarov and Sergius of Radonezh, Savva Storozhevsky and Methodius Peshnoshky. The first saint in Russia canonized in this face is the monk Nikolai Svyatosha. Before accepting the rank of monasticism, he was a prince, great-grandson of Yaroslav the Wise. Having renounced worldly goods, the monk asceticised as a monk in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. Nicholas the Svyatosh is revered as a miracle worker. It is believed that his hair shirt (coarse woolen shirt), left after his death, healed one ailing prince.

Sergius of Radonezh - the chosen vessel of the Holy Spirit

The 14th century Russian saint Sergius of Radonezh, in the world Bartholomew, deserves special attention. He was born into a pious family of Mary and Cyril. It is believed that while still in the womb, Sergius showed his chosenness of God. During one of the Sunday liturgies, the unborn Bartholomew cried out three times. At that time, his mother, like the rest of the parishioners, was seized with horror and embarrassment. After his birth, the monk did not drink breast milk if Mary ate meat that day. On Wednesdays and Fridays, little Bartholomew starved and did not take his mother's breast. In addition to Sergius, there were two more brothers in the family - Peter and Stephen. Parents raised their children in Orthodoxy and severity. All brothers, except Bartholomew, studied well and knew how to read. And only the youngest in their family found it hard to read - letters blurred before his eyes, the boy was lost, not daring to utter a word. Sergius suffered greatly from this and prayed fervently to God in the hope of gaining the ability to read. Once, once again ridiculed by his brothers for illiteracy, he fled into the field and met an elder there. Bartholomew told about his grief and asked the monk to pray to God for him. The elder gave the boy a piece of prosphora, promising that the Lord would certainly grant him a letter. In gratitude for this, Sergius invited the monk into the house. Before taking the meal, the elder asked the boy to read the psalms. Shy, Bartholomew took the book, afraid to even look at the letters that were always blurry before his eyes ... But a miracle! - the boy began to read as if he already knew the letter. The elder predicted to the parents that their youngest son would be great, since he is the chosen vessel of the Holy Spirit. After such a fateful meeting, Bartholomew began to fast and pray constantly.

The beginning of the monastic path

At the age of 20, the Russian saint Sergius of Radonezh asked his parents to give him a blessing to take monastic vows. Cyril and Maria begged their son to stay with them until their death. Not daring to disobey, Bartholomew lived with his parents until the Lord took their souls. Having buried his father and mother, the young man, along with his older brother Stephen, set off to receive tonsure. In the desert called Makovets, the brothers are building the Trinity Church. Stephen can not stand the harsh ascetic lifestyle that his brother adhered to and goes to another monastery. At the same time, Bartholomew took monastic vows and became the monk Sergius.

Trinity-Sergius Lavra

The world-famous monastery of Radonezh once originated in a deep forest in which the monk once retired. Sergius was daily in fasting and prayer. He ate vegetable food, and wild animals were his guests. But one day several monks learned about the great feat of asceticism performed by Sergius, and decided to come to the monastery. There these 12 monks stayed. It was they who became the founders of the Lavra, which was soon headed by the monk himself. Prince Dmitry Donskoy came to Sergius for advice, preparing for a battle with the Tatars. After the death of the monk, 30 years later, his relics were found, which to this day perform a miracle of healing. This Russian saint of the 14th century still invisibly welcomes pilgrims to his monastery.

The righteous and the blessed

The righteous saints have earned God's grace through godly living. These include both lay people and clergy. The parents of Sergius of Radonezh - Cyril and Maria, who were true Christians and taught Orthodoxy to their children - are considered righteous.

The blessed are those saints who deliberately adopted the image of people not of this world, becoming ascetics. Among the Russian Pleasants of God, Basil the Blessed, who lived during the time of Ivan the Terrible, Xenia of Petersburg, who refused all the best and went on distant wanderings after the death of her beloved husband, Matrona of Moscow, famous for the gift of clairvoyance and healing during her lifetime, is especially revered. It is believed that I. Stalin himself, who was not distinguished by religiosity, listened to the blessed Matronushka and her prophetic words.

Xenia - fool for Christ's sake

The blessed one was born in the first half of the 18th century into a family of pious parents. Having become an adult, she married the singer Alexander Fedorovich and lived with him in joy and happiness. When Xenia was 26 years old, her husband passed away. Unable to bear such grief, she distributed her property, put on the clothes of her husband and went on a long wandering. After that, the blessed one did not respond to her name, asking to call herself Andrei Fedorovich. "Xenia is dead," she assured. The saint began to wander the streets of Petersburg, occasionally stopping by to dine at her acquaintances. Some people scoffed at the grief-stricken woman and made fun of her, but Xenia endured all the humiliations without a murmur. Only once did she show her anger when local boys pelted her with stones. After what they saw, the locals stopped mocking the blessed one. Xenia of Petersburg, having no shelter, prayed at night in the field, and then came back to the city. The blessed one quietly helped the workers build a stone church at the Smolensk cemetery. At night, she tirelessly laid bricks in a row, contributing to the speedy construction of the church. For all good deeds, patience and faith, the Lord endowed Blessed Xenia with the gift of perspicacity. She predicted the future, and also saved many girls from unsuccessful marriages. Those people to whom Xenia came, became happier and more successful. Therefore, everyone tried to serve the saint and bring her into the house. Ksenia Peterburgskaya died at the age of 71. They buried her at the Smolensk cemetery, where the Church built by her own hands was located nearby. But even after her physical death, Ksenia continues to help people. Great miracles were performed at her tomb: the sick were healed, those seeking family happiness successfully married and got married. It is believed that Ksenia especially patronizes unmarried women and already accomplished wives and mothers. A chapel was built over the blessed tomb, to which crowds of people still come, asking the saint for intercession before God and thirsting for healing.

Holy princes

Monarchs, princes and kings who distinguished themselves are among the faithful

a godly lifestyle that strengthens the faith and position of the church. The first Russian saint Olga is canonized in this category. Among the faithful, Prince Dmitry Donskoy, who won a victory at the Kulikovo field after the appearance of the holy image of Nicholas to him, stands out; Alexander Nevsky, who did not compromise with the Catholic Church in order to maintain his power. He was recognized as the only secular Orthodox sovereign. Among the faithful there are other famous Russian saints. Prince Vladimir is one of them. He was canonized in connection with his great activity - the baptism of all Russia in 988.

Sovereigns - God's Pleasures

Princess Anna, the wife of Yaroslav the Wise, was also ranked among the noble saints, thanks to whom relative peace was observed between the Scandinavian countries and Russia. During her lifetime, she built a nunnery in honor of Saint Irene, since she received this name at baptism. Blessed Anna honored the Lord and faithfully believed in him. Shortly before her death, she was tonsured and died. Memorial Day is October 4, Julian style, but unfortunately, this date is not mentioned in the modern Orthodox calendar.

The first Russian saint princess Olga, baptized Helen, converted to Christianity, influencing its further spread across Russia. Thanks to her activities that contribute to the strengthening of faith in the state, she was canonized.

Servants of the Lord on Earth and in Heaven

Saints are such saints of God who were priests and for their way of life received the special favor of the Lord. One of the first saints to be numbered was Dionysius, the Archbishop of Rostov. Arriving from Athos, he headed the Spaso-Kamenny Monastery. People were drawn to his monastery, as he knew the human soul and could always guide those in need on the right path.

Among all the saints canonized by the Orthodox Church, Archbishop Nicholas the Wonderworker of Mirlikia stands out. And although the saint does not have a Russian origin, he truly became the patron of our country, always being at the right hand of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Great Russian saints, whose list continues to grow to this day, can patronize a person if he diligently and sincerely prays to them. You can turn to God's Pleasants in different situations - everyday needs and illnesses, or simply wanting to thank the Higher Forces for a calm and serene life. Be sure to purchase icons of Russian saints - it is believed that prayer in front of the image is the most effective. It is also desirable that you have a personalized icon - the image of the saint in whose honor you are baptized.

7 first canonizations of saints in Russia

The first Russian saints - who are they? Perhaps as we learn more about them, we will find revelations of our own spiritual path.

Boris Vladimirovich (Prince of Rostov) and Gleb Vladimirovich (Prince of Murom), at baptism Roman and David. Russian princes, sons of the Grand Duke Vladimir Svyatoslavich. In the internecine struggle for the Kiev throne, which broke out in 1015 after the death of their father, they were killed by their own older brother for Christian convictions. Young Boris and Gleb, knowing their intentions, did not use weapons against the attackers.

Princes Boris and Gleb became the first saints to be canonized by the Russian Church. They were not the first saints of the Russian land, since later the Church began to honor the Varangians Theodore and John who lived before them, the martyrs for the faith who died under the pagan Vladimir, Princess Olga and Prince Vladimir, as equal to the apostles enlighteners of Russia. But Saints Boris and Gleb were the first married elect of the Russian Church, the first wonderworkers of it and recognized by heavenly prayer books “for the new Christian people”. The chronicles are full of stories about miracles of healing that took place at their relics (a special emphasis on the glorification of the brothers as healers was made in the XII century), about the victories won by their name and with their help, about the pilgrimage of princes to their tomb.

Their veneration was immediately established as a nationwide one, prior to church canonization. The Greek metropolitans at first doubted the sanctity of the miracle workers, but Metropolitan John, who doubted most of all, soon transferred the incorruptible bodies of the princes to the new church himself, established a feast for them (July 24) and made a service for them. This was the first example of the firm faith of the Russian people in their new saints. This was the only way to overcome all the canonical doubts and resistance of the Greeks, who were generally not inclined to encourage the religious nationalism of the newly baptized people.

Rev. Feodosiy Pechersky

Rev. Theodosius, the father of Russian monasticism, was the second saint solemnly canonized by the Russian Church, and its first reverend. Just as Boris and Gleb forestalled St. Olga and Vladimir, St. Theodosius was canonized earlier by Anthony, his teacher and the first founder of the Kiev-Pechersky monastery. The ancient life of St. Anthony, if it existed, was lost early.

Anthony, when the brethren began to gather to him, left her in the care of the hegumen Varlaam, who he had appointed, and shut himself up in a secluded cave, where he stayed until his death. He was not a mentor and abbot of the brethren, except for the very first newcomers, and his lonely exploits did not attract attention. Although he died just a year or two earlier, Theodosius, but by that time he was already the only focus of love and veneration not only of the monastic, already numerous brethren, but of all Kiev, if not all of southern Russia. In 1091 the relics of St. Theodosius was opened and transferred to the great Pechersk Church of the Assumption of the Virgin, which spoke of his local, monastic veneration. And in 1108, on the initiative of the Grand Duke Svyagopolk, the Metropolitan and the bishops perform a solemn (general) canonization. Even before the transfer of his relics, 10 years later after the death of the saint, St. Nestor wrote his life, extensive and rich in content.

Saints of the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon

The relics of 118 saints rest in the Kiev-Pechersky Monastery, in the Near (Antonieva) and Dalnaya (Feodosia) caves, most of whom are known only by name (there are also nameless ones). Almost all these saints were monks of the monastery, pre-Mongolian and post-Mongolian times, locally revered here. Metropolitan Petro Mogila canonized them in 1643, instructing them to compose a general service. And only in 1762, according to the decree of the Holy Synod, the Kiev saints were included in the all-Russian mesyaslov.

We know about the lives of thirty of the Kiev saints from the so-called Kiev-Pechersk Paterikon. Patericons in ancient Christian writing were called summary biographies of ascetics - ascetics of a certain area: Egypt, Syria, Palestine. These Eastern patericans were known in translations into Russia from the first times of Russian Christianity and had a very strong influence on the upbringing of our monasticism in spiritual life. The Pechersk Paterik has its own long and complex history, by which one can fragmentarily judge about ancient Russian religiosity, about Russian monasticism and monastic life.

Rev. Avraamy Smolensky

One of the very few ascetics of the pre-Mongol period, from whom a detailed biography composed by his disciple Ephraim remained. Rev. Abraham of Smolensky was not only revered in his hometown after his death (at the beginning of the XIII century), but also canonized at one of the Moscow Macarius cathedrals (probably 1549). Biography of St. Abraham conveys the image of an ascetic of great strength, full of original features, perhaps unique in the history of Russian holiness.

The Monk Abraham of Smolensk, preacher of repentance and the coming Last Judgment, was born in the middle of the 12th century. in Smolensk from wealthy parents who had 12 daughters before him and prayed to God for a son. Since childhood, he grew up in the fear of God, often attended church and had the opportunity to learn from books. After the death of his parents, having distributed all the property to monasteries, churches and the poor, the monk walked around the city in rags, praying to God to show the way of salvation.

He took tonsure and, as obedience, copied books and celebrated Divine Liturgy every day. Abraham was dry and pale from toil. The saint was strict with himself and with spiritual children. He himself painted two icons on topics that most interested him: on one he depicted the Last Judgment, and on the other - torture during ordeals.

When, due to slander, he was forbidden to perform the priesthood, various troubles opened in the city: drought and disease. But at his prayer, a heavy rain fell for the city and residents, and the drought ended. Then everyone was convinced of his righteousness with their own eyes and began to highly respect and respect him.

From the life we \u200b\u200bsee an image of an ascetic, unusual in Russia, with a tense inner life, with anxiety and excitement, bursting out in a stormy, emotional prayer, with a gloomy repentant idea of \u200b\u200bhuman fate, not a healer pouring oil, but a stern teacher, animated, maybe prophetic inspiration.

Holy "noble" princes constitute a special, very numerous order of saints in the Russian Church. There are about 50 princes and princesses canonized to general or local veneration. The veneration of the holy princes increased during the Mongol yoke. In the first century of Tatar, with the destruction of monasteries, Russian monastic sanctity almost dries up. The feat of the holy princes becomes the main, historically important, not only national affair, but also church service.

If we single out the holy princes who enjoyed universal, and not only local, veneration, then this is St. Olga, Vladimir, Mikhail Chernigovsky, Feodor Yaroslavsky with his sons David and Konstantin. In 1547-49, Alexander Nevsky and Mikhail Tverskoy were added to them. But Mikhail Chernigovsky, the martyr, takes the first place. The piety of the holy princes is expressed in devotion to the church, in prayer, in the construction of temples and respect for the clergy. Love for poverty, caring for the weak, orphans and widows, less often justice is always noted.

The Russian Church does not canonize national or political merits in its holy princes. This confirms the fact that among the holy princes we do not find those who did most of all for the glory of Russia and for its unity: neither Yaroslav the Wise, nor Vladimir Monomakh, with all their undoubted piety, none among the Moscow princes, except for Daniel Alexandrovich, locally revered in the Danilov Monastery built by him, and canonized no earlier than the 18th or 19th century. But Yaroslavl and Murom gave the Church of holy princes, completely unknown chronicles and history. The Church does not canonize any politics - neither Moscow, nor Novgorod, nor Tatar; neither unifying nor specific. This is often forgotten in our time.

Saint Stephen of Perm

Stephen of Permsky occupies a very special place in the host of Russian saints, standing somewhat apart from the broad historical tradition, but expressing new, perhaps not fully disclosed, possibilities in Russian Orthodoxy. Saint Stephen is a missionary who gave his life for the conversion of the pagan people - Zyryan.

St. Stephen was a native of Ustyug the Great, in the Dvina land, which just in his time (in the XIV century) from the Novgorod colonial territory passed into dependence on Moscow. Russian cities were islands in the middle of a foreign sea. The waves of this sea approached Ustyug itself, around which the settlements of the western Permians began, or, according to our name, zyryan. Others, Eastern Perm, lived on the Kama River, and their baptism was the work of the successors of St. Stefan. Undoubtedly, both the acquaintance with the Permians and their language, and the idea of \u200b\u200bpreaching the Gospel among them refer to the adolescent years of the saint. Being one of the smartest people of his time, knowing the Greek language, he leaves books and teachings for the sake of preaching a deed of love, Stephen chose to go to the Perm land and missionary - alone. His successes and trials are sketched in a number of scenes from nature, not devoid of humor and perfectly characterizing the naive, but naturally kind Zyryan worldview.

He did not combine the baptism of the Zyryans with their Russification, he created the Zyryan writing system, he translated the divine service for them and St. Scripture. He did for the Zyryans what Cyril and Methodius did for all the Slavs. He also compiled the Zyryan alphabet based on local runes - signs for notches on a tree.

Rev. Sergius of Radonezh

The new asceticism that emerged from the second quarter of the XIV century, after the Tatar yoke, is very different from the ancient Russian. This is the asceticism of the desert dwellers. Taking upon themselves the most difficult feat, and, moreover, necessarily associated with contemplative prayer, the hermit monks will raise spiritual life to a new height, which has not yet been reached in Russia. The head and teacher of the new wilderness monasticism was St. Sergius, the greatest of the saints of ancient Russia. Most of the saints of the 14th and early 15th centuries are his disciples or “interlocutors,” that is, they experienced his spiritual influence. Life of St. Sergius survived thanks to his contemporary and disciple Epiphanius (the Wise), the biographer of Stephen of Perm.

Life makes it clear that his humble meekness is the main spiritual fabric of the personality of Sergius of Radonezh. Rev. Sergius never punishes spiritual children. In the very miracles of their reverend. Sergius seeks to belittle himself, to belittle his spiritual strength. Rev. Sergius is the spokesman for the Russian ideal of holiness, despite the sharpening of both its polar ends: the mystical and the political. The mystic and the politician, the hermit and the cynovite have combined in his blessed fullness.

Who: Nikolay the Pleasant.

What they revered for: He beat Arius for heresy, it happened during the Ecumenical Council, and according to the rules he was immediately deposed for a fight. However, on the same night the Most Holy Theotokos appeared to all the participants in the Ecumenical Council in a dream and categorically ordered that it be returned. Nicholas the Pleasant was a fiery, passionately religious man, he was kind, saved many people from unfair litigation. He is best known for giving gifts for Christmas. And it was like this: his neighbor went broke and was going to give his daughters in marriage to the unloved, old, but rich. When Nikolai the Pleasant found out about this injustice, he decided to give his neighbor all the gold of the church in which he was a bishop. He found out about it just before Christmas. Nikolai the Pleasant went to the church, collected gold, but there was a lot of it, in his hands he could not carry it away, and then he decided to pour everything into a sock, and threw the sock to a neighbor. The neighbor was able to pay off the creditors, and his girls did not suffer, and the tradition of giving Christmas gifts in socks has survived to this day.

It is worth noting that Nikolai the Pleasant is an infinitely revered saint by the Russian people. In Peter's times, the main argument in reluctance to trim beards was the following: "How can I appear without a beard in front of Nikolai the Ugodnik!" He was very understandable to the Russian people. For me, this is a very warm saint, I cannot explain and motivate this, but I feel very strongly in my heart.

Who: Spiridon Trimifuntsky.

What they revered for: He distinguished himself at the same Ecumenical Council as Nikolai the Ugodnik, proving the binary nature of Christ. He squeezed a brick in his hand and received sand and water, thus proving that there can be two natures in one. But much more interesting is another case connected with this saint. It is known that Gogol finally strengthened his Orthodox faith after his visit to Corfu. Gogol and his English friend got to carry out the imperishable relics of Spiridon of Trimifuntsky. During this move, the relics of the saint are carried on a special stretcher, in a crystal shrine. Observing the procession, the Englishman told Gogol that it was a mummification, and the seams were not visible, because they were on the back and covered with a robe. And at that moment the relics of Spiridon of Trimifuntsky moved, he turned his back to them and threw off the robes thrown over his shoulders, showing a completely clean back. After this event, Gogol finally fell into religion, and the Englishman converted to Orthodoxy and, according to unconfirmed reports, eventually became a bishop.

Who:Ksenia Peterburgskaya.

What they revered for:Everyone knows her story. She was the wife of the choir director of the royal choir. She loved her husband dearly, and when he died, she went out into the street in his clothes and said that it was Xenia who died, and not Ivan Fedorovich. Many took her for a madman. Later everything changed, she performed miracles during her lifetime. The merchants considered it a great honor if she went to their shop - because then the trade was much better.

I have repeatedly felt her help in my life. Whenever I come to St. Petersburg, the main purpose of my trip is not to visit the Hermitage or other museums and churches, but to visit the chapel of Xenia of Petersburg and the temple where she prayed.

Who: Basil the Blessed.

What they revered for: At one time, Basil the Blessed was the only person, except for Metropolitan Philip, who dared to tell Ivan the Terrible the truth, without thinking about how his fate might develop in the future. He possessed the gift of working miracles.

True, I personally did not touch anything with him, except for the views of St. Basil's Cathedral, but in my heart I feel that this is a great saint, he is very close to me.

Who: Praskovya Friday.

What they revered for: They pray to her for children. Once I was in Yugoslavia, I went there on Easter, and the Americans were just starting to bomb these territories. I visited the Praskovya Pyatnitsa monastery and prayed for the children, of whom I have many. There they gave me the simplest icon of it, so ordinary, cardboard. I brought her to Moscow. I decided to bring it to the church to show it, my friend carried it in his bag, since I had nowhere to put it. And the entrance to the temple was through a gate with a gate bell tower. I decided to climb the bell tower, and my friend moved on. Then I remembered that I had forgotten to take the Praskovya Friday icon from him, and called out to him. My friend took a step towards me, and at the same instant a hammer fell from the bell tower to the place where my friend had just stood. He fell with such force that he broke through the asphalt and entered it up to the very handle. This is how Praskovya Friday saved my friend.

Who: John the Warrior.

What they revered for: They pray to him to protect him from theft. I myself did not pray to him about protection from theft, but this is just my saint. This is a military man. At one time he was a major Roman military leader. He adopted Christianity, re-registered all property in the nascent church, thereby giving a strong impetus to the formation of Christianity. They did not dare to execute him, because he was a hero, but simply exiled him.

Who: Reverend Kuksha of Odessa.

For what they are revered: Favorite saint of Odessa citizens. Practically our contemporary, died in December 1964. He was so revered that on the day of his death, the authorities banned receiving messages about this on the telegraphs, so as not to provoke a flow of believers to Odessa. The Monk Kuksha was infinitely kind, bright and cheerful. He was not a martyr, but with his own words he could calm and soothe any mental trauma. He healed people before and after his death. Reverend Kuksha of Odessa is very close to my heart.

Who: Alexander Svirsky.

What they revered for: It is known that when the Most Holy Theotokos appeared to him and ordered him to go across the lake to build the Svirsky monastery, he stood on a stone and swam across the lake on the stone. I am very sympathetic to this poetic image. And so in my heart I feel that he can help me and will not leave me in prayer.

Who: Seraphim Sarovsky.

What they revered for: His story is known to everyone. He, along with Nikolai the Ugodnik, is a very close and understandable saint to the heart of the Russian man.

Who: 40 Martyrs of Sebastia.

What they esteem for: I'll tell their story in modern language. These were 40 contract soldiers, an invincible cohort, veteran warriors who faithfully served the emperor for many years, but converted to Christianity. At that time, the attitude towards Christians was extremely contradictory. And local officials found this fact extremely suspicious. In winter, they drove them into the lake so that the warriors would cool their hot minds, change their minds and renounce Christianity. The military did not want to give up their convictions, they remained standing in the lake until everyone died. One of them lost heart, got out of the water and went to bask in the bathhouse, which was heated on the shore, and there he died due to a sharp temperature drop and lack of God's protection. And the attendant, seeing the courage of the soldiers, considered it an honor to share their convictions and death. I really like the spirit of the collective feeling in this story.

Who: Feodor Ushakov.

What they revered for: This is the well-known Admiral Ushakov. Ushakov was an Orthodox man and an ideal military man who shared all adversity with his soldiers. Thanks to his courage, his faith in the power of Christ, he won many victories. He is recognized as a saint in Greece as well.

Who: Daniil Moskovsky.

What is revered for: Daniel Moskovsky is one of those people who in bloody times for Russia decided everything in peace. Did not participate in civil strife. When dividing his father's inheritance, he inherited a rather useless territory of the Moscow principality. During the years of his reign, he managed not to enter into intrigues, not to encroach on other people's territories, and when his own brother went to him with a war, he defeated him with a small army, and then let him in. And this elder brother, pacified by the nobility and peacefulness of Daniel of Moscow, when he was dying, bequeathed his principality to him, and as a result, Daniel of Moscow became the most powerful prince. With all my humility.

Who: Saint Boniface.

What they revered for: He was a slave at the court of a wealthy Christian woman. He lived with his mistress in a civil marriage and led an extremely riotous lifestyle. Then it was considered very honorable to have a reliquary in your home church. At that time, and this was already the decline of the Roman Empire, quite a few Christians were still executed. So he went on the orders of his mistress to look for the relics of the martyrs. He walked for a long time, did not find anything, but got to the execution of Christians and during this execution he decided to declare himself a Christian and sacrifice himself for his mistress. Then his relics were transferred to this woman. And after some time she left the worldly life and devoted herself to God. Such is the story.

Baptism of Rus, its influence on the further development of the spirituality of the Russians. Saints. Virtues and sins. Saints in Russia. Some saints of the Russian people: Ilya the Prophet, St. George the Victorious, Nicholas the Wonderworker, Boris and Gleb.

Introduction. About holiness

1.canonization

2. virtues and sins

Saints in Russia

1. Some saints of the Russian people:

a) Elijah the prophet

b) St. George (George the Victorious)

c) Nicholas the Wonderworker

d) Boris and Gleb

Conclusion.

“If the world can be saved, then it will be saved by spirituality. Politicians, bankers, soldiers, businessmen, even writers and artists are not the most important people. We need saints. The most significant personalities are not those who understand the world, but those who can give the world something from outside, who can serve as a conduit of God's mercy ... God does not force humanity to survive, but at least in every generation there are enough saints to show us such an opportunity. The saints lead society, and the spirit world of a separated future will not only be a better place, but a much safer place. "

Lord Rhys - Mogg

"Independent".

Saints are mythical or historical persons who are attributed to piety, righteousness, godliness, mediation between God and people in various religions (Christianity, Islam).

The veneration of the saints was legalized by the local cathedrals of the 4th century - Gangres and Laodicea. The doctrine of the veneration of saints was developed by church writers of the 4th century (Ephraim the Syrian, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa and others). The Church fought against opponents of the cult of saints - Paulikians, Bogomils, Albigays, Hussites, and others. The Seventh Ecumenical Council (787) declared an anaphima for all those who refuse to venerate saints. The church has established for every saint a day of his memory. Initially, individual Christian communities had their own saints, then reckoning among saints, the introduction of the cult of a new saint was centralized through canonization (the inclusion of a person in the chilo of saints). In Russia, canonization was introduced in the 16th century and placed under the control of the tsar, and since the time of Peter I it was carried out in accordance with imperial decrees on the proposal of the synod.

Among the saints were included "martyrs", "ascetics", "victims for the faith", as well as many popes (Gregory I, Leo III, etc.), princes (for example, Vladimir Svyatoslavich, Alexander Nevsky, Boris and Gleb), sovereigns ( Charlemagne, French King Louis IX and others).

· The Church created the biographies of the saints - the lives of the saints. The Lives of the Saints are biographies of clergy and secular persons canonized by the Christian Church. The lives of the saints began to take shape in the Roman Empire as legends about Christian martyrs (martyrology). Then (from the 4th century) 3 main types of collections of the Lives of the Saints are created: calendar collections for the year -

· "Menaion" (extensive lives for church services);

· "Synaxari" with short Lives of the Saints, arranged in a calendar order;

· “Paterics” (Lives of the Saints, chosen by the compilers of the collections).

The Byzantine Simeon Metaphrast (106) revises the Lives, giving them a moralizing panegyric character. His collection of Lives of the Saints becomes a model for hagiographers (saints) of the East and West, who, creating images of ideal "saints", move further away from the real circumstances of their lives and write conventional biographies. The lives of the saints incorporated a number of narrative plots and poetic images, often pre-Christian (myths about snake fighting, etc.), as well as medieval parables, short stories, anecdotes.

The lives of the saints passed into Ancient Russia with the beginning of writing - through the southern Slavs, as well as in translations from Greek. language. The original lives of the first Russian saints - Boris and Gleb, Theodosius of the Caves (11th century) - began to be compiled. In the 16th century, Metropolitan Macarius expands the "host" of Russian saints and supervises the compilation of their lives, which are united in the "Great Cheti - Menaia" (12 volumes).

Images of Saints (icons) are the subject of worship in the Christian religion. An icon (image, image) in the Christian religion (Orthodoxy and Catholicism) in a broad sense is the image of Jesus Christ, the Mother of God and the saints, to whom the church attributes a sacred character; in a narrow sense - a work of easel painting, which has a cult purpose. In Orthodoxy, picturesque images on a tree prevail. The sanctity of the icons is symbolized by a halo (radiance in the form of a circle around the head).

Stories of heroic deeds, a virtuous life and courageous death were prized by believers and spread among them. In fact, this process began already in the time of the New Testament (to Hebrews 11, 12). Hence the desire arose to honor these men and women. This desire reveals the germs of canonization - the procedure by which certain people are officially canonized.

Christianity knows many virtuous lives and heroic deaths; modern Christians draw their faith and inspiration from the stories of such people. Therefore, the Christian calendar contains days dedicated to individual saints, canonized by the church. A special honor is given to the disciples of Christ, but there are many others.

People are canonized because of their holiness. Holiness means giving up sin, overcoming temptation, and nursing Christian virtues.

Over time, Christianity developed the idea of \u200b\u200b7 deadly sins: vanity, envy, anger, despondency, avarice, gluttony and wastefulness. The Bible does not limit the number of sins to this number, but definitely speaks of their "mortality". "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:23). Sin is a serious matter. It is rooted in hostility or indifference to God, to His truths and the standards set for us. According to Jesus, sin can enslave us to such an extent that we cannot be freed from it (John 8:34). But thanks to the atoning sacrifice of I. Christ, we can receive forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit sanctifies us - gives us strength for struggle and overcoming.

“Salvation” means the freedom to become fully human. I. Christ points to the world in need of our help, he calls for love and service in His name and power.

Christian obedience allows the opening of the Holy Spirit so that a person can grow in faith, hope, and love. These three virtues above all are the hallmarks of holiness.

Vera.

In a sense, faith is universal. Christians are called "believers" not because they alone live by faith, but because they live by faith in Jesus Christ. Faith is not a substitute for reason; in fact, it has a different basis in its mind.

Hope.

* Christian hope means confidence in the future

* Christian hope is joyous. Saints are often thought of as inaccessible, majestic figures whose appearance should remind us of death and suffering. But on the whole, the New Testament breathes joy, and people who live close to God are joyful and serene.

Love.

Love ("agape") - selfless, sacrificial love of Jesus Christ, showing deep compassion for those in need and especially for those who have been rejected by society. By his death on the cross, he proved that love can be heroic.

Love is the highest sign and the main condition of holiness, whether we are talking about a formally canonized saint or about a person living in obscurity. This is the most important quality. The Apostle Paul ends his great hymn of love with the following words: “And now these three abide: faith, hope, love; but love is the greatest of them. " (to Corinthians 13:13)

According to Christian doctrine, the saints are people of high righteousness who glorified themselves by serving God. By this righteousness, they “acquired grace”: the human nature, darkened by sin, was purified and transformed in them, but originally created in the image and likeness of God, they acquired eternal life. It was believed that the saints had already embodied the plan of Jesus Christ about man: for the sake of atonement for human sins, he sacrificed himself: "God became man so that man might become God."

The Old Testament already tells about such people, about saints. Following the story about the creation of the world and the fall of Adami and Eve, it tells about the beginning of the restoration of the connection between man and God, about people who by their righteousness served this restoration. These people were revered as saints in Christianity.

The New Testament, which told about the incarnation of God for the sake of people, about bringing them a saving doctrine, speaks about many people who truly approached God. As Christianity spread throughout the world, many people became famous for their righteousness, were considered to have received grace, and were numbered among the saints.

The martyrs who died for the faith during the persecution of Christians were revered as saints in Russia; the hierarchs of the church, who approved its doctrine; monks who renounced worldly temptations for the sake of serving God. Together with the saints inherited by Ancient Russia with the adoption of Christianity, she also had her righteous. In their newfound height, the saints are the bond between God and people, their intercessors and intercessors before him.

People strove to approach the saints, to comprehend them, to convey their prayer to them. For this purpose, the memory of the saints was carefully guarded: everything that was said about them in the Old and New Testaments, in the ancient stories and apocrypha, filling this said, was comprehended. Information was carefully collected about those of them who became famous for their righteousness after the spread of Christianity (sometimes they began to do this even during the life of a righteous man), and when a glorified person was canonized after death, he was canonized, on the basis of this information a life was compiled, which helped understand what his righteousness was. And, helping this understanding, the saints were sure to be remembered, put on church services.

The same goal of comprehension, approaching the saint, in whom he hoped, to whom a person turned with prayer, was to be served and served by his images - icons. Striving for this goal, for the expression of the truth about the depicted, the features of his appearance were carefully preserved over the centuries, once drawn from his lifetime images, or from ancient verbal descriptions - a living, concrete human personality was embodied by the icon of the saint. The icons of the Saint made visible, preserved in human memory that about the saint that the word communicated about him: the text of the Bible, the text of the Gospel, the lives written in honor of the holy hymns, services.

There were a great many saints venerated in Russia. But among this multitude there were those who were especially loved and revered by the people - among them those who were told about by the Old and New Testaments, and those who became famous after the spread of Christianity, and those who "shone in the Russian land." Let us consider some of those saints for whose intercession the people most strongly hoped: Elijah the Prophet, St. George, Nicholas the Wonderworker, Boris and Gleb.

Accepting Christianity, Ancient Russia also took the church calendar from Byzantium, where one day a year (or several) was dedicated to each of the Saints. The calendar ("saints") became the basis that united the names of Orthodox saints, the experience of a peasant - a farmer, an artisan - of all strata of the population with primordial Russian rituals and holidays. The Byzantine saints were transformed beyond recognition in the Slavic consciousness. So, for example, Saint Athanasius the Great was the archbishop of Alexandria, who fiercely and fiercely defended the Christian church from heretics. In the Russian "saints" he became Afanasy Lomonosov, because on January 18, the day of veneration of the saint, there were the most crackling frosts, from which the skin peeled off the nose. The harsh prophet Elijah (the prophet is the one who was given the gift of divination, the forerunner of the future enlightened by God. God took the righteous Elijah alive to heaven. On this day, before Elijah and his disciple, the prophet Elisha, the waters of Jordan are parted, a chariot of fire that takes Elijah away, and he disappears into the sky) turned into a bread god - "Elijah the prophet is a bread god", the peasants used to say and the wooden village churches called him after him. Over time, the Byzantine saints became so Russianized that their Greek origin was hardly recognized.

Saint George, George the Victorious - one of the revered, beloved saints of Ancient Russia.

St. George belongs to the holy martyrs - to that type of holiness, as they say, which took shape in the first centuries of the existence of Christianity. The fact is that at the very origin of Christianity, the Roman authorities treated it with contemptuous indifference. But then everything changed. Even during the life of the apostles, persecutions fell upon Christians, which were distinguished by terrible cruelty, especially under the emperors Nero (37-68) and Diocletian (243-318). Christians were crucified on crosses, subjected to sophisticated torture, thrown in circuses to be torn apart by wild animals. And extraordinary, immortal was the firmness with which the persecuted endured these torments - a firmness that was rooted in the very religion they professed, for which they died. After all, this religion gave them the belief that man's existence does not end with his earthly life, that, having atoned for sins in this life by suffering, man acquires the right to the Kingdom of Heaven. Suffering was understood as the path to this kingdom. It likened, brought a person closer to Jesus Christ, who voluntarily suffered for people. The martyrs who perished in persecution were deeply revered by Christians as “having acquired grace in faith,” which strengthened their human nature and allowed them to endure the intolerable. The Church canonized them as Saints.

Endured torment and death for faith and st. Georgewho actually lived in the 3rd century A.D. The first life of St. George appeared in the 5th century, then it was processed more than once. In Russia, the version of the life that developed in the 11th century was mainly used.

This life tells that St. George was a Christian, although he comes from a noble family. When persecution broke out under Diocletian, George renounced his wealth and title and went to the emperor to defend his faith. By the power of his faith, St. George converts Empress Alexandra to Christianity, but Emperor Diocletian puts him in prison. George is subjected to monstrous tortures, each of which is enough to break the will of a person or just kill him: they kill him, "flogged in the air" (the suspended body with such a section has no support), poured molten tin into his throat, put him on a red-hot metal bull , torture with a wheel (spin tied to a wheel, pressing against pointed peaks). George was stabbed with spears, but the spears bent; poisoned, but he remained alive, tore his body to pieces, crushed bones and threw into a well, but he remained unharmed, finally, he was sawn and boiled in a cauldron, but he was resurrected. George endures all this, drawing strength from faith, from the grace of God he has acquired. Then, by order of the emperor, they kill him again (cut off his head).

In the life itself, in the story of the miraculously endured torture, the motive of the victory of George, who became a saint pleasing to God, clearly sounds.

The halo of terrible torment made him one of the most popular saints: cities, countless churches and monasteries bore his name; the image of St. George was printed on coins, depicted on coats of arms. The ecclesiastical life of the holy Martyr George was so blossomed by the folk fantasy that it became like a fairy tale.

In the country of Libya, it is said in the Life, there lived an idolater king. For sins, God sent a terrible serpent to the city, which began to destroy the inhabitants of the Libyan country. To appease the monster, they gave him to be devoured by boys and girls. The queue reached the king's daughter, there was nothing to do, and she went to the lake where the snake lived. At this time, George was passing by the lake, he stopped to give the horse a drink. "Run, - lord, - the princess warned him, - the dragon is already close." But George did not even think of running. About the battle of George, or Yegor, as he was called in Russia, the pedestrian kaliks - wandering singers - performers of spiritual songs - told about the battle.

Yagory ran into a fierce serpent,

On the fierce serpent, fierce, fiery.

Like fire from a company, fire from ears,

From the eyes to her, fires are pouring fast.

Here Yagorya wants to be consumed

George, feeling that the serpent is stronger than him, as stated in his life, began to pray: "Lord, give me your strength so that I can cut off the dragon's head, so that everyone will know that you are with me, and glorify your name forever and ever." ... In folklore interpretation, George's prayer sounded like a fairy tale.

Yagoriy spoke the light:

In, fierce snake, fierce, fiery!

Even though you eat me, you won't be full

The piece is not even, snake, you will choke.

After such fierce words, the serpent humbled himself, obeying Saint George.

The folklore image of the warrior-hero became one of the most beloved in Ancient Rus. He was revered by grand dukes and simple soldiers, peasants and artisans. Icon painters were ordered to have large hagiographic icons, but more often the Miracle of St. George. This theme in Iconography represented the moment of the saint's victory over a monstrous serpent: a young man on a rearing snow-white horse pierces a monster with a golden spear.

There is also another, expanded iconographic version of the "Miracle": a young warrior on horseback and a princess, followed obediently by a humble serpent, are met on the city walls by the king, queen, the inhabitants of the Libyan country saved by George. Folk poems told about this in a very fabulous way:

And she leads the snake on her belt,

Like a milking cow.

The same motif is quite often found in icon painting: a young princess leads a snake on a leash - a belt.

Saint George, in the national calendar he is Yuri, Yegoriy, had many worries:

Yuri, get up early

Unlock the ground

Let the dew out

For a warm summer

To a violent crop,

Health for people ...

The people revered in Saint George both the glorious warrior, the defender of the Russian land, and the master of Russian nature. The icons of St. George always look unusually festive, bright and colorful.

Many other Byzantine saints also changed beyond recognition on the Russian land. Saint Nicholas went down in church history as one of the strictest defenders of dogma, a ruthless persecutor of heresy; this is how the Byzantine painters represented him - an inexorable severe ascetic. On Russian soil, he became Nikolai, an assistant in all good undertakings, a great worker.

Saint Nicholas, Miracle Worker of Myra – Saint Nicholas is a revered saint of the Russian Church, one of the most beloved saints of the Russian Church.

Saint Nicholas belongs to the holy hierarchs, i.e. to the saints who during their lifetime were saints - bishops, metropolitans, who held the highest positions in the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church, and gained holiness in serving her. This type of holiness developed when the Christian religion became more and more widespread and its church hierarchs were glorified, when, from a persecuted doctrine, Christianity became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire and spread widely beyond its borders.

It was at this time that the life of St. Nicholas fell. A native of Asia Minor, he witnessed both the persecution of Christians and the leading position that the Christian church occupied under the Emperor Constantine the Great. He was a bishop in the city of Myra in Lycia (hence his name), a miracle worker, i.e. worked miracles, a saint of God, as they said about him in Russia. There are many Lives of Nicholas the Wonderworker. In Russia, the life written in Greek was also known. by the writer Simeon Metaphrast, and the lives, created, supplemented in the Slavic lands and in Russia itself. On their basis and on the basis of festive chants dedicated to Nicholas, the idea of \u200b\u200bNicholas the Wonderworker was formed and firmly entered into the national consciousness, akin to it.

His life appears only as a service to God and the Church. Saint Nicholas did good, performed miracles for the sake of people with the help of God's acquired grace. In the stories of the accomplished St. Nicholas of good deeds firmly sounds a thought that is very important for Christianity: good should be done not in expectation of a reward, not to satisfy vanity, but out of genuine love for one's neighbor; it is best to create it namelessly, while remaining unrecognized.

Lives tell that already during his lifetime the appearance of St. Nicholas spoke of his holiness, pointed to the transformation that had taken place in him. “The ancient tradition that has come down to us,” writes the Greek author. life, - presents Nicholas as an old man with an angelic face, full of holiness and the grace of God. A certain brilliant radiance emanated from him, and his face shone more than Moses ”(according to the Bible, the face of Moses shone after he received the tablets of the Covenant from God).

The holiness of the Mirlician bishop, according to the lives, is also confirmed by his death. When the time came for him to die, he sang songs of waste and joyfully waited for his departure to another world. When his body was brought to the city temple, it began to ooze myrrh; and after his death, healings took place at the grave.

Lives known in Russia also mention an event that took place several centuries after the death of the saint. Asia Minor, including the city of Myra, where St. Nicholas, in the VIII century were conquered by the Muslim Arabs. And in 1087, an Italian merchant managed to transfer the remains of the saint - his relics - to the Christian land, to Italy, where they were buried in the cathedral of the city of Bari and where they are still given due veneration.

In memory of St. Nicholas had two holidays: December 6 (19) in honor of his presentation - the death (this holiday in Russian is usually called "Nikola winter") and May 9 (22) in honor of the transfer of his relics to "Bar-grad" - in Russian it is called "Nikola Veshniy"). In the hymns of these holidays, what the lives of the saint told were expressed in a clear and precise form. "The rule of faith and the image of meekness" is called the hymns of St. Nicholas, they call him a "quick in help" saint of God.

To match St. Nicholas were the apostles Peter and Paul and even the Mother of God herself.

Saint Peter to walk for the plow,

Saint Paul to drive the oxen,

Blessed Virgin of truth to wear,

Wear it, ask God,

Ugly, God, rye, wheat,

Usyakuyu plowman.

The Byzantine martyr in the popular mind became the goddess-spinner Paraskeva Friday, the patroness of trade, bazaars; she is a wedding planner, a benefactor of women.

The twin brothers Flor and Laurus were famous as holy horse breeders, it is no coincidence that the Archangel Michael was also represented on the icons with their images, holding two stately horses on the lead, he taught Florus and Laurus horse breeding.

Boris and Gleb remained in the memory of the people as holy warriors and great workers. The brothers Boris and Gleb are real historical figures, the heroes of the story "The Murder of Borisov", which was included in the Russian chronicle under 1015. Boris and Gleb were the sons of the great Kiev prince Vladimir, who was nicknamed "Red Sun" in the epics for his gentleness and clarity of mind. The eldest son of Prince Boris reigned in Rostov, the youngest - Gleb got Murom. After the death of Vladimir Svyatoslavich (980-1015), the squad wanted to put Boris on the Kiev throne. Svyatopolk, Boris's half-brother, killed both Boris and Gleb, hoping to take the father's throne by force. Popular memory branded his name with the nickname "The Damned". After the burial of the murdered brothers, there was a rumor that miracles were working at their tombs: "Walk to the lame, to the blind to see." "Healing gifts", as the people believed, they gave not only to individuals, but to "All Rustea of \u200b\u200bthe earth."

Prince Yaroslav obtained the canonization of the brothers from the Byzantine patriarchs; Boris and Gleb became the first Russian national saints, and not only Russians: their cult was recognized in Byzantium, the Czech Sazava monastery. The Legend of Boris and Gleb was translated into Armenian in the 13th century.

Boris, when he was killed by Svyatopolk the Damned, was 26 years old, Gleb even less. Boris "is tall in stature, thin in stature, handsome in face, good-looking, small beard and mustache, for he is still young", - written in the interpretation of the icon-painting original. According to the interpretation, the icon painters portrayed Boris. Gleb, remembering his tender age, wrote beardless; they dressed brothers in princely robes embroidered with gold, decorated with gold fibulae - clasps with precious stones, lalas and yahonts. The brothers hold a sword and a cross - symbols of their princely power and martyrdom.

Thus, in the world, many people, as Christianity spread, were canonized, as they were glorified for their righteousness and were considered to have received grace. Over time, a pantheon of national saints emerged in Russia: saints, martyrs, reverends, righteous. Among them are warrior princes, boyars, church and secular politicians who laid down their lives for the Motherland and the spiritual unity of the people: Alexander Nevsky, Metropolitans Alexei and Peter, Sergius of Radonezh and many others. Revered among the saints and people from the lower classes - "foolish", such as, for example, Basil the Blessed, Procopius Ustyug; under the guise of visible madness, they spoke the truth to the powers that be, and, as fellow citizens believed, saved by the power of prayer from troubles and misfortunes.

Lives told about the "miracles" of the saints; hagiography (hagiography) is a part of the great literature of Ancient Rus. On its basis, an iconographic tradition has developed. Icons, as a rule, were painted many years after the death of the hero of the life in the "image and likeness" of an already famous saint. The icon painter did not set the task of specific similarity, remembering that all people, and even more so saints, as the Bible says, were created "in the image and likeness" of God. The hallmarks of hagiographic icons represented feats from hagiography, that is, specific historical events in the consciousness of medieval man.

The hagiographic icons of Russian saints are the embodiment of the spiritual ideals of the Russian people in visible images by the picturesque means of Russian history.

List of used literature:

Likhachev D.S. Man in the literature of ancient Russia. - M., 1970.

Ranovich A. How the lives of the saints were created. - M., 1961.

Young D. Christianity. - M., 1999, p. 189-208.

Taktashova L.E. Russian icon. - Vladimir, 1993.

Barskaya N. An Plots and images of ancient Russian painting.- M., 1993.

Uspensky L.A. Theology of the Orthodox Church Icon. - M., 1989.

Sergeev V.N. Andrey Rublev. - M., 1981.

Alpatov M.V. Old Russian painting. - M., 1978.

S.I. Smirnov

[...] The oldest Russian monasteries were urban. At the same time, even the most ancient Russian monasticism did not have the character of anchorite or hermitism. True, there were ascetics of the hermit image, but there were too few of them, they did not own the business of organizing Russian monasticism, an organization that bore a Kinoviotic or cenobitic character according to the charter of the Studian monastery in Constantinople.

Such monasticism - urban and social, could not but reckon with the Russian world and, as we shall now see, actively served both the public and the private needs of worldly people.

The fathers of Russian monasticism, the Monks Anthony and Theodosius of the Caves, were ascetics of various types: the first, the Athos tonsured, was a contemplative hermit, the second, Anthony's tonsure, combined outstanding practical and organizational talent with contemplation and great deeds. As soon as a small brotherhood of 15 people was formed in the cave, the Monk Anthony, accustomed to solitude, did not tolerate excitement and fuss, went into a seclusion in one of the cave cells. He renounced the leadership of the brethren, put another person in his place as hegumen, and until his death (1073) did not interfere in the monastic life2. It was not Anthony who organized the glorious Pechersk monastery, nor did he organize Russian monasticism. Even the life of this hermit, which undoubtedly was written, was not preserved to us by Russian monks. The organizer of Russian monasticism was the Monk Theodosius. The time of his reign (1062-1074) is undoubtedly the best time in the history of the Pechersk Monastery, and at the same time in the history of Russian monasticism of the first period. [...] This is an exceptional, rare person who amazes with the versatility of gifts and that extraordinary balance of forces and properties that creates the harmony of a saintly person. A great ascetic who longed for the highest feat - death for Christ and for the truth, an unfaltering prayer book, "obedient, meek and humble", a zealous, but never angry monk, a seer and a seer, he was at the same time a talented and practical administrator in the highest degree of a warm-hearted person, responsive to human grief and to everyday needs. None of these properties was predominant, displacing others. In his relationship to the world, Theodosia introduces that integrity of his personal gifts, which also marks his monastic abbot activity. Here are the wonderful words that the chronicler characterizes this side of the great ascetic's activities: "The abbess holding Theodosius in her belly, the ruling flock entrusted to him by God, are the monks, not only are they united, but also by the worldly grieving for their souls." This concern for the salvation of the laity is expressed in various ways. First of all, the ascetic considers it the duty of a monk to pray for the laity: "to labor in vigil and in prayers to pray for the whole world without stopping."

The second duty of a monk is to be a teacher, even a shepherd of the laity. Teachfulness was manifested in the exposure of worldly untruths. In Kiev, under Feodosia, there was a princely feud between the children of Yaroslav. The brothers-princes deprived Izyaslav of the Tver table, and Svyatoslav was put in his place. Then the Abbot of the Caves forbade the commemoration of the new prince in the church, sharply refused to go to the prince's dinner and began to denounce the offender. With his message to Svyatoslav, where his act is compared with the fratricide of Cain, and the prince himself is equated with the ancient persecutors, the humble Abbot of the Caves aroused the prince's wrath. The brethren asked Theodosius to leave their denunciations, the boyars, coming to the monastery, said that the prince would subject the hegumen to exile or imprisonment, but the ascetic was not at all afraid of these threats and dangers, on the contrary, he denounced Svyatoslav with greater jealousy. Seeing, however, the futility of his reproofs, the monk resolves to "pray to him that he may return his brother to the region." When Svyatoslav learned about the change in the mood of Theodosius, he himself went to the Pechersky Monastery, humbly asks the abbot for permission to see him here and explains to him that he had not come to the monastery before, fearing the abbot's wrath, fearing not to be accepted. In response to this, Theodosius utters the significant words: "What better, good lord, our anger against your state will have time; but behold, it behooves us to denounce and speak to you hedgehog for the salvation of your soul, you should have listened to that one." [...] Having reconciled with Svyatoslav and at the insistent request of the brethren, adding his name to the name of the legitimate prince at litanies, Theodosius did not stop, although again without success, insisting to Svyatoslav that he should give up the Kiev table to his elder brother.

Theodosius' teaching in relation to worldly people is expressed even in personal soul-saving conversations with them, which are mentioned many times in the life of the ascetic, and, probably, in church teachings addressed to the laity.

But he bore a relatively layman's duty and a more complex, purely pastoral. The Monk Theodosius was the spiritual father of the laity. Hearing about the good life of the Pechersk brethren, princes, boyars (and their families) "I come to the great Theodosius, who confesses his sins" 7. In ancient times, confession in our country was combined with the election of one or another priest to the spiritual or repentant fathers. And to become a spiritual father then meant to take upon his soul the work of saving his spiritual children, to teach them and guide them on the path of salvation, in every step of their religious and moral life, to be almost an old man for the laity. The confessor often had to call spiritual children for conversations or visit their homes. As a repentant father, the Monk Theodosius especially cared about "his spiritual sons, comforting and chastising (teaching - ed.) Those who came to him, other people (another time) coming to their homes and giving them blessings." Obviously, such conversations of Theodosius with spiritual children in the monastery or in secular homes were not uncommon, usually included in the program of his pastoral activities. The chronicler paints a touching picture of the cordiality that reigned here. Having once visited the boyar family of Yan Vyshatich and Mary, who were especially beloved by him for their pious and friendly life, the Monk Theodosius conducted an instructive conversation with his masters, his spiritual children, spoke about alms to the poor, about the afterlife and the hour of death. The noblewoman - the hostess remarked: "Who knows where they will put me?" And the Monk Theodosius answered his spiritual daughter that she would be put in the same place where he was. (The prediction really came true: the noblewoman was buried in the great Pechersk church opposite the tomb of Theodosius) 8. The spiritual children formed an integral family around the Monk Theodosius, and, probably, before his death, he handed over the repentant boyar children to his successor in the abbess, Stephen. [...]

The third form of service to the world, which the father of Russian monasticism showed by his example, is intercession or, as it was usually called in Ancient Rus, sorrow. Once a poor widow, offended by the judge, came to the monastery and accidentally met an ascetic. She turned to him with the question - is the abbot at home? Theodosius remarks: "Why do you need him, he is a sinful man." The woman's answer is curious: "Even if we are sinful, we do not know; only we, as if you can save me from sorrow and misfortune, and for this, I have come, as if it will help me to offend existence without righteousness from the judge." Upon learning of her case, the monk took great pity, promised to convey her request to the abbot, reassured the defenseless one that he would save her from trouble, and sent her home. The woman went home, and the monk went to the judge, and she received what she was deprived of by the biased judge. [...]

The fourth form in which service to his world was manifested is charity. According to his ideals, the Monk Theodosius, as a true monk, was a non-covetous person: he did not want to have excess property in the monastery and did not place his hopes on the estate. But he did not refuse to accept offerings from the laity to the monastery, even contributions from villages [...]. The Monk Theodosius, could hardly achieve that the brethren did not have private property, i.e. so that it fulfills the elementary requirement of the sociable charter. Not without difficulty, he could observe the following prescription of Theodore the Studite: "You will not accumulate gold in your monastery, but you can distribute all kinds of surplus to those in need at the gates of your courtyard, as the holy fathers did." 10 - a prescription that, as the reader sees, recognizes charity is an indispensable duty of the monastery, since there is an excess of every kind in it. The donations and contributions of wealthy laity to the monastery enable the Abbot of the Caves to do good to the laity, but to those who do not have. The Monk Theodosius was very merciful. The sight of the poor and beggar in thin clothes aroused in him a feeling of pity and caused tears of compassion. His compassion turns into business, and the charity of the monastery takes on an organized character. Behind the monastery fence the monk built a courtyard with a church, and in this courtyard cripples, beggars and sick people were received. They received full support from the monastery, for which a tithe of its income was spent. In addition, every Saturday Saint Theodosius sent a cart of baked bread to the prisoners. So the Pechersky Monastery becomes a benefactor.

But this was not enough for the poor Theodosius. He was the protector of widows, the helper of the orphans, the refuge of the poor; he taught and consoled those who came and gave them "a hedgehog for their needs and food." [...] In the "Word of St. Theodosius on patience and love," the monk instructed the brethren, referring to the example and words of the Apostle Paul (2 Thess. 3: 8-10): "From our labors we should feed the poor and strange, and not stay idle, moving from cell to cell.If it was not for the good people who fed us, what would we do, hoping for our labors? And if we say: for our singing, for fasting and for vigilance they bring us all this, then we are for those who bring we won't even bow once! " The monk refers to the Lord's parable of the virgins (Matthew 25: 1-13) and interprets it in this way: “The wise kept virginity and adorned their lamps with alms and faith, therefore they entered the chamber of joy without any obstacle. Why are other virgins called foolish? Because, observing the virgin seal imperceptible, humbling their flesh with fasting, vigils and prayers, they did not bring oil, that is, alms, in the lamps of their souls, for this they were expelled from the palace, they began to look for those selling alms to the poor (let's pay attention to interpretation of the words - "selling oil"), but did not find: the doors of God's philanthropy were closed. And it is indecent (should not) for us, beloved, - continues Theodosius, - to keep in ourselves what God sends for the benefit of our souls and bodies from good people , and do not serve to strangers. " This is confirmed by the texts of Scripture (Acts 20:35; Ps. 40: 2; Matt. 5: 7). [...]

Such is the ministry of the Monk Theodosius to the modern Russian world. We dwell on it in detail not without reason. It is impossible to look at the activity of Theodosius as a matter of a private monk, which is not at all necessary for others. He is the father of Russian monasticism, according to the admission of our ancient monks themselves, "hegumen or archimandrite of all Russia", "the head of the Mnish rank in Russia", "the first head of the common life in the Russian land" 12. Putting him in such a place, our ancient monasticism should have seen (and really saw) in his person an obligatory example, and in the activities that we described, an obligatory program of their service to the world.

And so it was. The Pechersk Monastery has not forgotten the precepts of its founder. Hegumen Stephen connected the courtyard for the adopted beggars, which fell between the two halves of the monastery, into one system of buildings, however, without breaking the fences, which separated these parts from each other13.

As is known, the general rule in all its severity did not last long in the Caves Monastery, and together with its weakening, the organized charity of the monastery probably fell. We think so because we have examples of such dependence of phenomena. The pechersk brethren are now divided into rich and poor, the rich are the subject of attention and respect, the poor are neglected. But now private charity is developing in the monastery: the best monks give out to the poor everything they have. Nikola the Svyatosha, a monk prince, himself ate nothing except the monastery food, although he had a lot of his own. He distributed all his to the strange, the poor and to the church building14. The Monk John distributed all his possessions to the poor. The Monk Gregory, who had only books, sold them, and distributed the proceeds to the poor. The Monk Mark Pechernik did not take anything from the monks, for whom he prepared places for burial, but if someone gave it himself, he did not refuse, he took it in order to give it to the poor. The Monk Alipy Ikonnik divided into three parts what he received for his work: one part went to alms. During the famine, the Monk Prokhor Lebednik with his own hands prepared bread from quinoa, which miraculously turned into real, and salt from the ashes. The modest monk of the Caves is opposing the Grand Duke Svyatopolk Izyaslavich, who [...] banned the import of salt from Galicia in order to take advantage of the high cost of salt. When it really rose in price and the people had to pay big money to the monopolists, the Pechersk Monastery distributed salt for free. It drives down the price and frustrates bad designs15. The virtue of charity was highly valued in the Pechersk Monastery: to give to the poor meant to give to God16.

In the monastery itself, nursing was organized for the brethren, at least monks are mentioned "in that dispensation - to serve the sick." However, the monks of the Caves did not shy away from helping the sick laity. The Monk Agapitus, a unrequited physician, had the gift of healing. "And it was heard about him in the city, like someone in the monastery of healers. And I will come to him painfully and be healthy."

From the Pechersk Monastery, at times, one can hear the voice of denouncing the powerful of the earth. The avaricious and rapist, the aforementioned prince Svyatopolk found his accuser in the Pechersk abbot John (from 1088 to probably 1103). Obviously, this abbot considered it his indispensable duty to denounce the violence of the authorities, perhaps being guided by the example of the Monk Theodosius, and was not afraid of the persecution and imprisonment to which Svyatopolk subjected him. The Pechersky Monastery showed its social activity in spreading Christianity, obviously, not counting missionary work as a matter of foreign monasticism. A famous Pechersk missionary and martyr among the Vyatichi is the Monk Kuksha with a disciple. There are many reasons to think that the monks of the Caves were the disseminators of Christianity in the Suzdal land or in the Zalesye, that is, in our land19.

[...] Our information about monasticism for the first period of Russian church history is too scanty, but nevertheless it is enough to see that the program of service to the world, drawn by Theodosius, remained unchanged and generally binding for all Russian monasticism in the first centuries of our church life. The fact that the monks of that time were educated in relation to the laity is beyond doubt. About the Monk Varlaam of Khutynsky, a representative of no longer Kiev, but Novgorod monasticism, his ancient life testifies: "And from everywhere the princes and boyars and ubozi gather to him; he is never lazy by the Lord for the sake of teaching people." The following subjects of the saint's teachings concern worldly life, worldly relationships. Monks were often confessors of the laity, primarily among princes and princesses. We have every right to assume that they, much more often than the white priests, occupied the prominent and advantageous position of the prince's confessor21. Russian boyars, as far as we know, also did not shy away from monks and chose them as their confessors22. To confession in monasteries, to the confessors of the hieromonk, "smerds, who live in the villages" (ie peasants) also went to confession 23. To what extent the spiritual practice of a monk among the laity was extensive, this can be evidenced by the example of the Monk Abraham of Smolensk. Due to the outstanding teaching of the ascetic, "the whole city" - boyars, slaves, women and children - went to confession to him. The laity abandoned their former confessors and chose the teaching Abraham as their spiritual father. [...]

Appeal to mercy, intercession for the unfortunate convicts, grief, Russian monks considered their business. The abbots of the Kiev monasteries grieve before the Grand Duke Svyatopolk for the unfortunate Prince Vasilko Rostislavich, as soon as they learned about the blindness that threatens Vasil'k24. Before the same Svyatopolk, the metropolitan and the abbots grieve for Prince Yaroslav Yaropolkovich and beg for his freedom25. Metropolitan Constantine and the "abbots of all" intercede, and with success, before Yuri Dolgoruky for the outcast prince Ivan Rostislavich Berladnik, who was threatened with death26. The intercession of the Monk Varlaam of Khutynsky saved the life of one convicted criminal whom the Novgorodians were going to throw off the bridge in Volkhov27.

During the period of princely strife, monks are also peacemakers. The highest hierarchy of Ancient Rus considered this matter their duty. But we see: sometimes together with the metropolitans and bishops, then instead of them the abbots of the ancient Russian monasteries atone the warring princes, calm down the diverging passions. In 1127, when the metropolitan was not in Russia, Gregory, the abbot of the Kiev Andreevsky monastery, revered by both princes and the people, kept the Grand Duke Mstislav Vladimirovich from bloodshed. Refusing the war on the advice of the hegumen, Mstislav violated the kiss of the cross. And Gregory with the cathedral of the clergy took upon himself the princely sin of perjury. The prince listened to them28. To what extent the abbots of Kiev monasteries took part in the matter of mutual princely relations, this is best evidenced by the words spoken by Monomakh and Svyatopolk to Prince Oleg of Chernigov: "29. [...]

II

From the middle of the XIV century in the history of Russian monasticism new, previously unheard-of phenomena have been noticed. An intensified monastic movement arises and arises where there were few monasteries and monasticism was weak: in the Suzdal land and in the Trans-Volga region. Over a hundred years, from 1340 to 1440, up to one and a half hundred new monasteries were built, whereas earlier for the entire Kiev period, about 70 of them were known, and in the century that has elapsed after the Mongol invasion (1240-1340), 30 were added. Sergius, his disciples and interlocutors, is the most brilliant time in the history of our monasticism. Russian monasteries now have important features. Most of them were formerly built on the estate of princes and boyars, and not by tears and fasting of ascetics, the predominant number of them were monasteries. Now more often monasteries are built by the monks themselves. This means that in the past monasticism was mainly implanted artificially, now it is growing organically. In this regard, there is another important difference between the Russian monasteries of the compared periods. "Until the half of the XIV century, almost all monasteries in Russia arose in cities or under their walls; since that time, monasteries that have arisen far from cities, in a remote forest wilderness, waiting for an ax and a plow," as professor V.O. .Klyuchevsky. From the middle of the XIV century. for the first time our monasticism acquires a desert character, the appearance of a hermit. But has it changed internally? Did you set yourself new tasks, did you outline other ideals unknown to ancient times? Perhaps, in concern for personal salvation, the desert monks freed themselves from those duties of serving the world that Russian urban monasticism carried from the 11th to the half of the 14th centuries? No, our monasticism has not changed internally in the least, it has not set new tasks, has not inscribed ideals that were previously unknown to itself, and has not abandoned the obligation to serve the world it has abandoned.

[...] From the middle of the XIV century. a curious phenomenon is observed in Russia, which is explained entirely by the historical conditions of the Mongolian time, a phenomenon unknown to local conditions in the East. It is usually called monastic colonization. Moving away from people into the impenetrable wilderness, which in fact is called the desert in the Old Russian language, the hermit does not long asceticise alone, "united in unity", visited only by animals. As soon as a rumor about him spreads among the people, then glory will sweep with a light feather, as his future cohabitants and companions gather in the forest desert to the small cell of the silent one, one after another. With an ax and a hoe (spade), they work with their own hands, applying labor to labor, cutting wood, sowing fields, building cells and a temple. The monastery is growing. And to the noise of the age-old forest, to the wild howling and roar of wolves and bears, now a new, though at first, a weak sound - "the ringing voice" joins. And as if to this call of a new voice, to the greeting ringing of the monastery beat, the peasants came to the monastery. They cut down forests without hindrance, lay roads in previously impassable wilds, build courtyards and villages near the monastery, raise virgin soil and distort the desert, do not spare it and turn it into clean fields [...].

The described movement was caused by the greatest ascetic of the Russian land, the second father of our monasticism, the Monk Sergius of Radonezh, who, in the words of his biographer, was "hegumen of many brethren and the father of many monasteries," and according to the chronicler, "the head and teacher of all monasteries, like in Russia" thirty. [...]

The biographer in the personality of St. Sergius was struck by a feature that he mentions three times: equal love for all. "Byashe bo love God with all your heart and your neighbor, as if you yourself; loving everyone and doing good to everyone, and doing everything good for him; and love for everyone, and all love for him is name and good to him" 31. Equal love for all is the first circumstance that prevented the ascetic from being indifferent to the world.

A bookish man of his time, perhaps even outstanding in this respect, the Monk Sergei was guided in his ascetic activity by the lives and examples of the ancient organizers and lawmakers of Eastern monasticism. And here he found what corresponded to his own aspirations. He was amazed in the ancient ascetics not only by the feats of their personal improvement, struggle and victory over evil spirits, but also by serving people - healing the sick, deliverance in troubles and mortal dangers, help on the ways and at sea. In the life of the Monk Anthony the Great, the father of hermit monasticism, as well as in the lives of the hostels - Pachomius, Euthymius, Savva the Sanctified, Theodosius Cinoviarchus and others, he saw examples that oblige the monk to charitable work. The named ascetics presented themselves to the Monk Sergius in the following form: healers of diseases, "the representatives who lack abundance, an inexhaustible treasure for widows and orphans" 32. [...]

The significance that Saint Sergius had for his time, for the political life of Russia at that time, is absolutely exclusive, so to speak, unique; moreover, it is well known33. And this gives us the opportunity to turn directly to what the great ascetic himself did for the benefit of the world, bequeathing to the brethren of the monastery, and through her to all Russian monasticism, to do this after himself and after him.

One covetous man, who lived near the monastery of St. Sergius, offended a poor man - "an orphan" (apparently, a servant), took away from him, and then killed a hog. The orphan seeks protection from the Radonezh abbot. The ascetic summons the offender, forces him to promise to give money for what was taken away and miraculously forces him to fulfill his promise34. Telling this incident of sorrow, Epiphanius the Wise calls the monk Serie a merciful, a comforter of the mournful, an intercessor of the poor and a helper of the poor. But the merciful ascetic, who had the disposition of "merciful, kind-hearted, poor-loving and strange-loving" 35, not only personally helped the poor, disadvantaged people; he made his monastery serve him. The biographer tells about the introduction of a hostel in the Radonezh monastery, about the establishment of monastic ranks, about the multiplication of monastic brethren and an increase in stocks in the monastery. Then he reports on the charity of the monastery. During the lifetime of the Monk Sergius, the Trinity Monastery probably did not own fiefdoms, therefore the main source from which the means of charity were drawn were the sacrifices of the laity. [...] In winter, in severe frosts and severe snowstorms, travelers who came to the monastery lived as long as the bad weather lasted, receiving full support from the monastery. This is not enough. The commandment of Saint Sergius also embraced the care of the sick. "The strangers and the beggar, and from them in sickness, who lived for many days in contented rest and food, but whoever demands it, is not scanty according to the commandment of the holy elder, and to this day it is so." When a large road from Moscow to Rostov was laid near the monastery and there was a lively movement, especially many travelers stopped by the monastery of St. Sergius. Princes and governors came here with detachments of troops, and everyone received food and drink. With joy, as the biographer assures us, the "servants in the monastery" served everyone in abundance36. [...]

In his words of praise to the Monk Sergius, a long series of epithets applied to the saint, the same Epiphanius the Wise, describes the ascetic as a public figure [...]. Some epithets are justified by the above life data, others provide new material, and all together they depict the extensive, many-sided and even systematic activity of the ascetic among the laity. This activity was aimed at restoring truth and justice in society by exposing robbers and rapists, intercession for offended widows, ransom for captives, debtors and slaves, to alleviate the plight of the poor - alms, the sick - by leaving, to implanting mercy (sorrow) in a Christian society, mutual peace , Christian humility, sobriety. [...]

In the monastery of St. Sergius, such a memory of the founder was preserved more vividly than anywhere else; for a long time his commandments were kept more or less firmly here. When the Monk Nikon (+1427), Sergiev's successor as hegumen, was dying, in his teaching to the brethren he spoke a lot about "silence, the mother of virtues," then apply the rivers about "philanthropy: if there is powerfully, no one coming vanity should let go of the hand, but not how you will hide Christ in disdain, one from those who ask you to appear in the form "(ie, so that it does not happen to you through ignorance to despise Christ, who appeared in the form of a beggar) 37. Is it not clear that the Monk Nikon shared the views of his holy mentor regarding the obligatory nature of poverty? Feeding the beggars, supplying them with the necessities was a constant task of the Radonezh monastery. And not so much reckoning with the availability of its reserves, as responding to the degree of the people's, worldly need, the Sergiev monastery either strengthened or weakened its charity. In the difficult years of the Time of Troubles, the monastery of St. Sergius became famous not only for its patriotic activities, but also for its wide charity for the people, devastated by the turmoil, despite the fact that the ruin had a strong effect on the economy of the monastery itself. "The clothes were naked," says Simon Azaryin about the Trinity Lavra, "a strange repose, a beggar and a smooth feeding, bending warm consolation from filth, strange and wounded, and of course a dying leave from this world with the parting words of an eternal belly, while the dead have been buried."

As early as the 15th century, close to the time of the Monk Nikon, the Vvedenskaya Church was built under the monastery mountain "on Podil", which is called Pyatnitskaya in honor of the Great Martyr Paraskeva. The church served as a parish church for the servants and chaplains of the monastery who settled along the Konchura River. Near the Church of the Introduction, almost along with its construction, a charity house arose for the poor, more precisely for the crippled - "bed" - for those sick beggars who are unable to go to collect alms. This charity house was also called an almshouse or a hospital: and the entire group of buildings - two churches with an almshouse - was called Podolny Monastery. A local historian describes the connection between the Lavra and the Podolny monastery, which has sheltered near it, with such interesting features: "(their) parish priests performed the divine services; and the care of the strange, the poor and the sick lay with the duties of monks. [...]

The Bogomolets, who came all the years to worship the relics of the miracle worker, "are innumerable," as Simon Azaryin, the cellarer of the Trinity Lavra, reports. And these visitors, if not countless, then uncounted, were all revered as guests of the Monk Sergius and his monastery, received from her full support during the pilgrimage, gifts and the necessary food for the journey. [...] The gifts with which the most distinguished guests were honored were probably significant. At least visiting Greek hierarchs were condemned in the 17th century. for the fact that they go to the Trinity monastery to receive gifts, they did not even drop in to other monasteries, where such gifts were not given. It is not known whether gifts were given to ordinary guests of the monk. But there is no doubt that all the pilgrims were fed from the bounty of the monastery. The people assumed that there is such a copper pot in the monastery, which cooked, without excess and lack, just as much lean food as was needed for the uncounted thousands of guests who came to the monastery for the holiday40. This is how the commandment of love of strangers was fulfilled in the monastery before. [...]

Profitable and honorable in Ancient Russia was the position of a princely or grand ducal confessor. For ordinary people, she served as a faithful step on the career ladder, which they ascended to the episcopal seat, and therefore was the subject of searches and harassment. But for a true ascetic of Christ, who was not looking for anything, was never a gold-bearer and wanted to remain forever in poverty, this honorary court position sometimes served as a source of conflict and grief. An interesting fact is told in the life of the disciple of the Monk Cyril of Belozersk, the Monk Martinian (+1483). Vasily the Dark made him abbot of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery and chose him as his spiritual father. At that time, one boyar passed from the Moscow prince to the service of Tver. Vasily was sorry and vexed to lose his servant, and he sought means to return him to himself. He turns to the Monk Martinian and asks him to assist in the return of the boyar to Moscow, promising him honor and wealth. With the assistance of the ascetic, the boyar returned, but was treacherously taken into custody. Having learned of what had happened, the monk appears to the prince "with great sorrow." "And speak: dachshund, autocratic prince great, and you learned to judge righteously? Why did you sell my sinful soul and send it to hell? Why are you the boyar of the one who was called by me and my soul, you commanded shackles and transgressed your word?" The monk deprives the prince of the blessing and his reign and imposes his spiritual prohibition. Then he immediately leaves for the monastery. Vasily was embarrassed and admitted his lie. [...] He removes the disgrace from that boyar and, "giving him eyes," made him his confidant. In the monastery, the Grand Duke asks for forgiveness and permission from his spiritual father. The Monk Martinian blessed the prince with an honest cross "and forgiveness was taken from him himself." After that, Prince Vasily began to love his spiritual father more than before, he did not offend him in any way, he listened to everything and honored him. Such heroism, which noticeably surprises the biographer of the Monk Martinian, was sometimes required of the prince's confessor. [...]

Sorrow and charity were perhaps the most favorite forms of service to the world on the part of the ascetics of that time. About the Monk Demetrius Prilutsky (+1392), his life says: "Never did the blessed one change the rules of prayer, but he applied labor to labor, mixing fasting with alms, accepting strange and feeding those who demand." The location of the monastery on the high road to the White Sea contributed especially to the development of strange love. [...] The sorrow of the ascetic is spoken of "from violence, from evil judges who are possessed by misfortune, delivering with their word." The monk also protects the slaves from the violence of the masters, without stopping at exposure. A rich man sent food and drink to the Prilutsk monastery. Demetrius did not accept the gift and said to the benefactor: "Take this to your house, he brought it to us, and, even the essence of slaves and orphans in your house, feed those, so that they will not perish with hunger and thirst and nakedness, and those surplus (that will remain) of our report poverty, that you may be merciful and the Lord God will impute to you in righteousness. "

The Monk Paul of Obnorsk (+1428) was one of the most remarkable ascetics of Ancient Rus. Of the disciples of the Monk Sergius, he, to a greater extent than anyone else, was inclined towards silence, towards hermitism, towards complete solitude. He had to set up a cenobitic monastery and manage it, but the ascetic remained a hermit, coming to the monastery only for worship on Saturdays and Sundays. The strictest asceticism of Pavel Obnorsky is characterized by the words of his life: "his whole life was fasting," "an everlasting fast, an incessant prayer" 43. It is all the more interesting to know how this hermit-contemplator viewed the monastic's duties in relation to the laity. The biographer notes that the Monk Paul "is gracious to those who come to him and is instructed." He was not, of course, the spiritual father of the laity only because he did not have a holy dignity. Even in the world, the monk was distinguished by love of poverty45. He charged his monastery with charity as an indispensable duty and expressed this in his charter, the content of which is set out in his life. [...]

The Monk Cyril of Belozersky (+1427) is a representative of various types of Christian asceticism. Temporarily he played the fool, or accepted the feat of silence. But besides that, the Monk Cyril was the organizer of the famous communal monastery, which in the Trans-Volga region had approximately the same significance as in other places the monasteries of the Caves and Trinity-Sergius. [...] The Belozersk Monastery during the life of the founder became the feeder of its land in times of famine [...] 46. The charitable activities of the monastery were manifested even after the death of the saint. Hegumen Christopher (1428-1433) "redeemed many from the captives, planted packs (settled) in their places" 47. Under the next abbot Tryphon (until the middle of the 15th century), when the monastery was building a church and its financial resources were strained, there was a great famine in the region. Many began to come to the monastery looking for food. Here, no one was denied and especially carefully fed hungry children. But the thrifty cellarer, "diminished by faith," began to fear that the monastery would not have enough funds for everyone: to feed the brethren themselves, to support the workers and to feed the hungry; the service ranks of the monastery began to reduce the distribution of alms. Then stocks really started to decrease rapidly. The hegumen decided to feed all those who came, and in the Belozersky monastery 600 people and more were fed daily until the new bread48. Grozny wrote to the Kirillov Monastery in his famous message: "Kirillov so far infiltrated many countries in smooth times" 49.

One of the disciples of the Monk Sergius is a missionary, an affirmator of Christianity among the two believers of the already baptized region - this is the Monk Abraham of Chukhloma (+ 1375 or later). The population closest to his deserted monastery held on to pagan superstitions, believed and turned to the Magi. They began to bring their patients to the ascetic, as to the sorcerer, for treatment. He teaches them to "leave the magic charm" and performs several miraculous healings. The miracles of the Monk Abraham affirm the two faiths in Christianity, so that some of them are even tonsured in his monastery50. And among the interlocutors of the Monk Serie there emerged a missionary who had not yet been repeated in Russia, a true apostle of Christ, Saint Stephen of Perm (+1396), who in the monastery prepared himself for his service and in the rank of hieromonk laid the foundation of Christianity among the Zyryans. The writings of Saint Stephen are too well known to be described here51. [...]

The Monk Dionysius Glushitsky (+1437), who can be recognized as a representative of the stream of monasticism coming from the Moscow region, is one of the outstanding ascetic philanthropists: "the love of poverty is more substantial than the greedy one. To his disciple the Monk Gregory of Pelshhem, he gives a remarkable instruction: "Create your mind with all the diligence of the one God to seek and diligently in prayer. And let us move even more to help the poor and orphans and widows, until the time is right, do good" 52. During the lifetime of the Monk Dionysius, "that land was smooth during the summer." A lot of people come to the monastery of the monk for bread, "doing b (saint) alms without meagerly asking. They come to the monastery of the monk. The monk does not have any cold, but the bolma gives." The monastery's economist points out to the ascetic the depletion of supplies. But the latter, "reviling the economy," gives instructions on charity without any calculation [...] 53. In the words of praise, the Monk Dionysius is called, among other things, "the slave-liberator" [...]. And this feature is admirably confirmed by the following interesting story from the life of the Monk Dionysius. [...] They clothed one young man as a wanderer, and he, calling himself a slave, asked the saint for 100 pieces of silver for ransom from servitude together with children. The monk gave the money, and the brethren returned it to him, saying that he was in vain to do the deceivers. But the Monk Dionysius gives the money to the young man, and he instructs the brethren to be merciful, to give not only to everyone who asks, but also to everyone who does not ask, forbids repeating his temptations and encouraging him to be unmerciful.

The aforementioned disciple of Dionysius, the Monk Gregory of Pelshem (+1441), completely assimilated the instruction of his teacher and fully realized it. "When the beggar comes to gladness, we gladly receive them" 55. While instructing the strangers and monks, the ascetic puts both of them among the commandments of the Lord, i.e. mandatory prescriptions - "mercy on the poor" 56.

The monasteries of the Novgorod-Pskov region, which stood outside the direct influence of St. Sergius, did not differ in their service to the world from other Russian monasteries, of course, because they kept the common, primordial precepts of Russian monasticism. [...]

The most famous of the Pskov monasteries that arose in the 15th century. - the monastery of the Monk Euphrosynus (+1481), was distinguished by the amazing severity of the charter and the life of the brethren, so that one priest, who got into the monastery for the evening service and forcibly stood by it, replied: "So he (Euphrosynus) is with his brothers, like iron with iron" ... But the monastery was also famous for its charity. [...]. It should be noted that, organizing charity in the monastery, the Monk Euphrosynus puts it in an inseparable connection with the cenobitic rule, which forbids a monk from personal property, reasoning as follows: what a monk would spend on himself should go to the benefit of the poor. It is also noteworthy that the ascetics of the East served as an example in this matter for the Russian ascetic. And as the monastery of Euphrosynus grew rich from the donations and contributions from the villages, its charitable activities also developed. "The holy beginning of the bolma of charity to do the poor and the strange resting, like a child-loving father" 57. [...]

III

In the midst of Russian monasticism, recreated by the Monk Sergius, two opposite trends developed in the 15th century. By the end of this century, they were well defined. Their supporters were sharply divided into two parties [...]. At that time, each party was headed by prominent representatives, gifted, bookish, well-known ascetics. The Josephites are the Moscow party, which received its name from the Monk Joseph of Volotsk, representatives of practical monasticism, supporters of the co-ordinate monastery. Belozersk Elders - Trans-Volga party, created by Nil Sorsky, representatives of contemplative monasticism, supporters of the skete image. Monastic ideals, views on the tasks of monasticism and on its obligations to the world are different for each party.

The disciple and tonsurer of Paphnutius Borovsky, who had as his teacher a disciple of St. Sergius, Nikita Vysotsky, St. Joseph (+1515) considered monasticism a social force, the advanced ruling class in the Church. But the social significance of the Russian monastery during Joseph's time rested on the wealth of land, on the patrimony, and the ascetic comes to its defense. Monastic estates attract among the brethren "honest and noble" people who are not accustomed to the black work, future hierarchs, the support of the Church, and therefore they must exist. This is the line of thought in the famous words of the Volotsk ascetic, spoken by him at the council of 1503: "If the monasteries will not have villages, what kind of an honest and noble person should he cut his hair?" Defending the monastic patrimony and the ownership of the peasants, the Monk Joseph is a preacher of "money-grubbing", the monastery's right to accumulate wealth (but, of course, not the private property of a monk, which is intolerable from the point of view of the charter). Between different arguments in justification of monastic acquisitiveness, he cited the following: a monastery is obliged to do good, but charity needs funds, that is, land wealth. Therefore, he can and should own fiefdoms.

That is why the Monk Joseph of Volotsk becomes one of the most energetic preachers - both in theory and in practice - of monastic philanthropy in all its main forms: love of strangeness, misery and caring for the sick [...] 58. So, it is perfectly permissible and desirable for a monastery to acquire property for charitable activities, while a monk is to work for the sake of "strange and sick repose" is directly salutary. [...]

The Monk Nil Sorsk (+1508), tonsured at the Cyril-Belozersk Monastery, who traveled to Athos, held a completely different view of monasticism. His ideal is purely contemplative. The Monk Nile did not consider monasticism a social force and therefore did not entrust it with the mission of leading the church life of the people, which would oblige the monk [...] to violate his "carelessness" (freedom from worries) and "silence" (freedom from everyday vanity and human conversations ). He led the monk from the world into the desert, into solitude, recognizing the great danger to his soul from one treatment with a secular rank. Considering, however, complete hermitism the lot of the perfect and saints, and the hostel inconvenient for silence, Nil Sorsky introduces in Russia an average - a skete way of life, which he calls the "royal path". A skete is a small monastic community of two or three people who have everything in common - food, clothing and labor and obey each other59. "The attraction of villages and the maintenance of many estates", i.e. estates and the accumulation of wealth, involving monasticism in intercourse with the world, the ascetic-contemplator considered completely unlawful to the monastery. At the council of 1503, none other than the Monk Nile raised the question of the confiscation of estates from monasteries. He forbade the monks to accept even charity from the laity, except in extreme need. He ordered the monk to be kept by the labors of his hands, and sketeous poverty became a tradition in his monastery. It is therefore not surprising that the ascetic did not recognize material alms and charity in general as a monastic duty. Silence and non-covetousness freed the monk from this [...], since he is without lies and, boldly looking into his face, can say: I have not [...]. A non-covetous monk could easily replace charity with other deeds, if he was one of the experienced ones - exhortation and consolation to his brother in grief and need, if a novice, then with uncomplaining patience of insults. However, the Monk Nile prescribes to accept a wanderer seeking shelter and to provide him with bread, prescribes love of strange - the simplest form of charity. [...]

The disciples of the Monk Nile could not renounce the traditional Russian judgments about "saved charity" and be consistent. Vassian Patrikeev, who describes the purpose of monasticism in accordance with his elder, and leaves the duty of church charity to the bishops, however, writes that the words of Christ: "If you want to be perfect ..." : "poverty, alms and all brotherly love and compassion, for this and unceasing prayer with temperance and vigor" 60. [...]

The Monk Paphnutius Borovskiy (+1477), in whose monastery the Monk Joseph Volotskiy was tonsured, "one of the most curious characters in Old Russian monasticism", as noted by Professor V.O.Klyuchevskiy61. Paphnutius inherited one trait from his teacher - outstanding spiritual experience, the ability to use mercy and severity, where one or the other is needed. According to Joseph, the Monk Nikita "despised the one who wants to be" and told the secret thoughts of the brethren. "Byasha is generous and merciful, always befitting, and cruel and in vain, always demanding" 62. Paphnutius was a confessor of both the brethren and the laity and was known for his experience in imposing penances. [...] Paphnutius's conversation both with monks and with the worldly was always simple and alien to human pleasing. He always spoke according to God's law and did what he said in deed. [...] The Monk Paphnutius showed independence and impartiality in relation to his spiritual children, no matter what high office they held. Yuri Vasilievich, Prince Dmitrovsky, brother of Grand Duke Ivan III, was the spiritual son of the Borovsky ascetic "and for a long time he came to his father with his soul." Prince Yuri himself told in what mood he usually went to confession: "if I go to confession to Father Paphnutius, and my legs give way." The biographer adds: "The prince is only by far the virtuous and God-fearing" 63, and we will add: so fearless and strict towards spiritual children was the Monk Paphnutius.

The Borovsk ascetic considered charity to be the duty of the monastery. During the famine, he himself impregnated a multitude of people - "all the surrounding people", "as if up to a thousand for every day and many gather." There were no stocks left in the monastery, but in the following summer, through the prayers of the saint, "and tears for the sake of the poor, the multiplication of the Lord's gift by the fruit" 64. It was the custom in the monastery to feed and "establish" guests, including lay visitors65. When the ascetic was dying, his disciple, who left excellent notes about the last days of the teacher, asks for the command to write a will about the monastery building. And the monk gives this testament. In it, he prescribes obligatory charity for the monastery and, at the same time, the unalterable observance of the monastery charter and church rule. "Do not shut up the meals from the stranger (the stranger), you will pray for charity, do not let go of the prayers of the necessary vain ... and you create "66. The student asks the dying teacher about the place of his burial. Having appointed this place, the Monk Paphnutius added, "But don't buy the coffin of an oak tree, buy some thorns for that six money, but strip the beggars; but wrap it in a splint, and after digging it under the country, put it."

The school of the Monk Paphnutius of Borovsky had a noticeable effect on his disciple, the Monk Joseph of Volotsk. Joseph is above all an outstanding confessor. Having settled in the Volokolamsk limits, he quickly became famous. The severity of life, kindness in the church service, wide reading together with an amazing memory and resourcefulness ("God-inspired writing is all in memory of the end of the tongue"), attractive appearance, along with a modest, purely monastic posture and skill in handling - all this attracts the attention of the local aristocracy to an ascetic who himself gave birth. "And many princes and boyars come to Abbot Joseph for repentance" 68, i.e. choose him as their spiritual fathers. Among the princes who were the spiritual children of the Monk Joseph are known: Boris Volotsky and Yuri Dmitrovsky Vasilievich, brothers of the Grand Duke Ivan III, and Ivan Borisovich Volotsky. Some of the Volokolamsk boyars, "those of the prince's chamber", of the governors "and honest soldiers" also asked Joseph to be their spiritual father69. Women also sought to confess to him. Although the Volokolamsk monastery, like the Borovsk monastery, was not admitted to the wives, this did not prevent the princesses and boyars from having Saint Joseph as their spiritual father. A peculiar relationship was established between the Volokolamsk abbot and his spiritual daughters: women confess their sins in writing and gladly accept the saint's answer, those who did not know how to write told their sins to their house priests and sent them to Joseph. The ascetic answered the written or oral requests of his spiritual children of both sexes and wrote letters to them. The "Epistles of Joseph about penances to the nobles who live in the world, his spiritual child" that have come down to us serve as a monument to the written communications of the Monk Joseph with the spiritual children. They testify to how strict was the penitential discipline to which good confessors subjected lay people who fell into grave sins, how high and indisputable the power of the spiritual father was.

The Monk Joseph was an outstanding saddener - "a weak compassionate" In his epistles and personal conversations with the noble laity, he interceded for the serfs and serfs. He writes to the nobles, instructing them to "give away what is raptured in truth", exhorts them to "have mercy on the poor and the poor, and let them go madly with human consolation"; slaves who "melt with hunger and guard naked," be content, "so that they do not cry out of hunger and nakedness." At the same time, he asks the masters not to forget that they are one flesh with slaves, baptized with one baptism, redeemed with one blood, and together they will stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ72 [...].

But the main merit of the Monk Joseph before the Volotsk country is helping the population in lean years. It happened that bread was not born for several years in a row, and "strong smooth" came. Bread became terribly expensive, and the people ate leaves, bark and hay - "food is one for cattle." Snack roots and crushed wood rot - "evil animal food" - especially contributed to the development of gastric diseases. The hungry people left their homes and dispersed in different directions. A huge crowd gathered at the gates of the monastery. All were 7000 people except small children. "Joseph then opened his granary according to the ancient patriarch of the same name" (imitating the biblical Joseph). He ordered to feed all, and placed the small children in a strange shelter for feeding. There were more than 50 starving children, and some of them were only two and a half years old. Poor peasants brought "otrochat" to the monastery and left them here. When the monk gave orders to summon their parents, not a single one appeared, all abandoned their children. I had to build a house behind the monastery and feed the children. "Behold these children, you can not even breed, nourishment (saint) with a merciful womb and care for them, as you yourself breed." Now the quiet abode has turned into a marketplace. Every day, many poor, poor and hungry peasants received baked bread in it. Up to 400-500 people were fed daily. Displeasure rises in the monastery. The kelare comes to the abbot with a statement that there is no rye left even to feed the brethren. The abbot calls the treasurer and orders him to buy bread with money. "The treasurer does not tell money." Then the monk gave orders to borrow money, buy rye, but feed the starving. [...] The monastery really quickly became impoverished: bread, money, clothes, cattle - everything was distributed and nothing remained. The matter quickly changed when the "sovereign" Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich intervened. Having learned that the monastery feeds so many people - he buys, borrows and starves himself, the Grand Duke "suddenly came" to the monastery, established the brethren with brought supplies, and for the starving he released 1000 quarters of rye, the same amount of oats and 100 rubles of money; in case of new need, he allows him to take from his village as much grain as is required. The example of the Grand Duke was followed by some of the sovereign, followed by the boyars and wealthy Christians. For his part, the ascetic convinces the sovereign princes to help the starving people73. The monastery now easily fed the hungry. A fruitful autumn has come, and the hungry have gone home. [...]

Needless to say, the Monk Joseph was love of poverty and gave to those in need without refusal? On the Dormition day, the temple holiday of the monastery, more than a thousand beggars gathered on it. They were fed and awarded each with a "silver coin". The ascetic commanded to do this alms even after his death, so that the monastery would not become impoverished "until the century." The Monk Joseph of Volotsk is an outstanding benefactor even among the Old Russian ascetics.

At his monastery, sick lay people were cared for. "The brush that remained at the meal is passed on in one of the lives of the monk his order, not to keep it in the cellar room, but to give this to the poor and sick to the excommunicated (separated) house. Look (judged) him and that: as if I am weak to humanity and rude (to the poor mob) need to be raised (should be helped) and help "75. "The excommunicated house of the poor and sick" is something like a hospital and an almshouse. It was arranged by the Monk Joseph, realizing the urgent need of charitable assistance to the poor people. Where was this house located? Probably in the ancestral village of Joseph in Spiridonov, it was in the Vvedensky monastery, which the monk set up, as it is believed, on the model of the Podolsky Vvedensky monastery at the Trinity Lavra. In addition to the home for the sick and the poor, there was a so-called "God's house" - a deep common grave in which the dead were buried with unknown death. From the main monastery Spiridonovo is located in two fields - about three miles, and the Vvedensky monastery received from Joseph everything it needed for maintenance. [...]

The Monk Korniliy Komelsky (1537), tonsured at the Kirillo-Belozersk Monastery, in the direction of his ascetic ideals, however, closely converges with the Monk Joseph of Volotsk. His charitable activities, described in detail in his life, as well as his economic activities, will to a large extent remind us of the activities of the Monk Joseph. Arranging his deserted abode, Cornelius turns into a farmer and plows open a cornfield in the forest: "Begin to be hard ... the forest is cut, sowing fields and coming, receiving and passing feeding" 76. He did not give up this activity, and having established a monastery, and then when he received villages and repairs for him with all the land and with the peasants. The ascetic, together with the brethren, continued to cut the forest and sow the fields precisely for the purpose of charity: "Yes, not only do they eat their own bread, but they feed the poor as well" 77. And when building up his monastery, he does not forget to build an almshouse for the laity. "Created the same, says the biographer, and the almshouse outside the monastery for the strange and beggar to rest" 78. The Life notes a small, but characteristic detail concerning the short stay of the ascetic in Moscow. The Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich, a great admirer of the monk, often invited him to the table, and sometimes sent food from his table to the house. "He is giving tai to the poor and the weak" 79. The charity of the Korniliev Monastery was broad and generous. On the temple holidays of the monastery, numerous beggars were given alms from hand to hand - each one money, a prosphora and a roll. It happened that the monastery had no money for one holiday. The Monk Cornelius prayed to the Lord that he would send His mercy "to His brethren - to the poor." And in the morning, on the very day of the holiday, the Grand Duke sends alms to the monastery "twenty rubles and a ruble." The monk lovingly endowed the poor with princely alms, as if sent for them from God. On another feast the Monk Cornelius distributed the usual alms to those who approached him "I do not see my faces, but only the hand of the stretched out daiasha." Taking advantage of this, some beggars came up for alms twice, others up to five times. The officers told the ascetic about this, and he replied: "Don't touch them, they came for this." On the same day, he received a vision. The splendid elder the Monk Anthony the Great, whose feast the monastery was celebrating, took him out to the field, showed him the prosphora on one side, and the loaves on the other, and said: "Here are your prosphora and loaves, which you gave to the poor." The elder ordered Cornelius to substitute his clothes and began to lay prosphora and rolls; there were so many of them that they fell to the ground. After this vision, the Monk Cornelius gives his brethren the commandment to perform inexhaustible alms, not only during his life, but also after death. There was a famine in the Vologda land. Bread became very expensive and there was nowhere to buy it. People began to come to the Monastery of Cornelius "from many countries ... strangers and poverty", and from the surroundings they were tormented by hunger. The monk, without refusing to anyone, gave generous alms every day. Many brought their babies and left them under the walls of the monastery. The ascetic accepts them all, sends them to a special home, and there they were fed and rested. In this difficult time, the resources of the monastery did not become scarce80. In his last teaching to the brethren, the Monk Cornelius orders that on the day of his remembrance the beggars should be fed with the remnants of the fraternal meal: "Always do my memory, and give this remnant of this fraternal meal to the brethren of Christ — to the beggars."

The charter of this ascetic presupposes the charity of the monastery as its obligatory work. Prohibiting unauthorized alms for every private monk, so that under this pretext the severity of the community would not be violated, the Monk Cornelius instructs the workers to take everything they have done to the treasury, "they give alms below," "alms in the monastery and beggarly love are the common essence." 82

The Monk Daniel Pereslavsky (+ 1540), tonsured at the Borovsk monastery, also a zealous benefactor. He was the spiritual father of the laity and successfully acted by condescending treatment of sinners, "admonishing with good and merciful discourse" 83. Further in the life it is said: "The strangers, who come to the monastery of that one, have peace in his cell, priimakha. Those who have died by various troubles and have been defeated by the beast to be devoured, and these are collected on your frame and in the Bozhedom tomb you put with proper singing and Divine Liturgy to serve for them "84. The burial of the dead with an unknown death was the main type of charitable care of the Pereslavl ascetic. On the site of the "Bozhedom tomb" for the commemoration of the dead, he first erected a church, and then opened his own monastery here. His second feat is caring for the sick. "Once outside the monastery, three men are klosny (crippled) and sickly velmi at the fence. They were defeated. They were commanded to be taken to the monastery and to rest them. Loving misery leads to the needy (unfortunate) people and sick people and from animals hurt, squalor," for the sake of the poor, for the sake of nourishing them or healing them, I will send them to the monastery. He gladly takes them to the monastery, feeding them, and giving them medicine "85. Thus, it will not be a big inaccuracy to say that the monastery of the Monk Daniel turned into a hospital and an almshouse. There was a famine in Pereslavl. There was not enough bread even at the auction. In the monastery of the Monk Daniel there were then many brethren "and the laity were enough," and therefore the monastery reserves were quickly depleted. The monk was informed that there was not enough flour, not enough for a week, and about eight months remained until the new bread. The ascetic "himself came to the granary and the sight of flour is not enough, more than three chains. 86 And then when he comes to him, the widow is wretched and at least die from the hunger and from her children. The Holy One, fill the bag of flour and let go. And ordered the cellar with the remnants of flour to those who come that greedy And it was like that: eating in monasteries and in their village people with a remnant and until the new bread is endless by the grace of God and the prayers of the Monk Daniel "87.

[...] Trans-Volga ascetics or Belozersk elders are unknown for their charitable activities. And it is understandable: in their desert hermitages and separate forest cells there were no funds for this; among them, as an exception, almost an isolated one, was a rich monk - Prince Vassian Patrikeev. [...] The Trans-Volga Party put forward a whole series of accusers-saddens. The Monk Martinian, who fearlessly denounced his spiritual son Vasily the Dark, grieving for the disgraced boyar, was Belozerets, a disciple of the Monk Cyril. [...] Hegumen Porfiry, the Trans-Volga hermitage, forcibly placed by Vasily III in the Trinity abbots, grieves before him for the treacherously captured Novgorod-Seversky prince Vasily Shemyachich, the last appanage prince in Russia, who died in a Moscow prison. The Grand Duke did not listen to the courageous denunciator-sadder, became angry and deprived Porfiry of the abbess. And he, shaking the dust from his feet, in poor clothes and on foot, went to his coveted desert beyond the Volga. Theodorite, the tonsured Solovetsky, who at one time asceticised in the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery and in the Porfiev Hermitage, grieved before the Terrible for Prince Kurbsky, his spiritual son, who had fled to Lithuania, but, of course, without success. [...]

The reader sees that we did not bring our historical information to modern history, to the end of the 17th century, but together to the end of Ancient Russia; and in space from the XI century. until the middle of the 16th century. missed many holy names, did not review a whole series of lives. This, of course, is true: the author did only what he had time to do. But he collected and stated here the main thing. In the middle of the XVI century. the history of Old Russian monasticism actually ends. The next century and a half added a number of ascetic names, but did not give new general phenomena. And in the space of the period taken, the author dwelled on the main moments in the history of Russian monasticism: he did not miss either Theodosius of the Caves, or Sergius of Radonezh, or Joseph Volotsky, he did not keep silent about Nil Sorsky.

On what aspects of its life did the ancient Russian world see help from the holy monasteries, from the monks who shone forth in the Russian land? Yes, decisively at all. On the religious and moral - in prayer, teaching, clergy and missionary work of ascetics, on the social and political - in grieving for the convicted, in denouncing rapists and peacemaking of warring princes; on the economic side - in monastic charity of various types. The dormitories or desert dwellers - Russian ascetics - all served the world, whoever they could, then with a teaching word to the dark people, then with the nationwide exposure of the Moscow autocrat, then with a piece of bread for a dying child left under the monastery wall by their hungry parents, then feeding thousands of starving people, then by caring for the sick and crippled poor and setting up almshouses for them at monasteries [...].

1. Golubtsov, Sergius, protodiac. Trinity-Sergius Lavra over the past hundred years. Monasticism and its problems. Events and faces. Charter of the Lavra. (Review and research). M., 1998.S. 63.
2. [...] The life of Theodosius, abbot of the Caves, writing off Nestor, according to the harate list of the XII century. Moscow Dormition Cathedral (hereinafter: Life of the Monk Theodosius) // Readings in the Society of Lovers of Russian History and Antiquities, M., 1899, Book. 2. P. 54. Also see: Paterik Kiev-Pechersk. Ed. Yakovleva. - Monuments of Russian literature. Odessa, 1872, p. 19. (hereinafter: Yakovlev). Leaving the brethren, the ascetic said: "Live about yourself and I will make you an abbot, but I myself want to be one in this mountain, as if I had been used to living in seclusion." - Chronicle according to the Laurentian list (hereinafter: Laurentian Chronicle). 3rd edition of the Archaeographic Commission, St. Petersburg, 1872. S. 154. Cf .: Yakovlev. P. 74.
3. Laurentian Chronicle. P. 205.
4. The word of St. Theodosius about patience and love // \u200b\u200bScientific Notes of the Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, 1854. T. P. Ch. 2. P. 204-205.
5. Life of the Monk Theodosius. S. 75-77; Yakovlev. S. 51-53.
6. The latter can be judged by the teachings of the laity, inscribed with the name of the Monk Theodosius, although their authenticity is disputed by some scholars.
7. Laurentian Chronicle.
8. Laurentian Chronicle. P. 205
9. The life of the Monk Theodosius. S. 73. [...]; Wed Yakovlev. S. 38-39.
10. Testament to the abbot. - Migne J.-P. Patrologiae cursus completes. Series graeca (hereinafter: R.M.). Paris, 1857-1866, Vol 99, col. 1821, # 21; see translation in the book by E.E. Golubinsky. History of the Russian Church. M., 1880, T. I. Part 2. S. 683.
11. The life of the Monk Theodosius. S. 75-76; Wed Yakovlev S. 41.
12. Praise to the Monk Theodosius. - Yakovlev. P. 64; The life of the Monk Abraham of Smolensk // Orthodox Interlocutor, 1858, no. S. 142, 383; Kirill Turovsky. - Monuments of Russian literature of the XII century. (hereinafter; Monuments of Russian literature of the XII century). Edition of K.F. Kalaydovich. M., 1821.S. 126-127; Novgorod Chronicle, 2nd and 3rd. - Complete collection of Russian chronicles. SPb., 1879, T III. P. 79.
13. The life of the Monk Theodosius. P. 95; Yakovlev. P. 62.
14. Yakovlev. P. 101. Perhaps the Monk Nicholas took upon himself the duty of grief. At least, to the dying ascetic, his doctor addresses the following words: "and who will nourish many children who demand, and who will step for the offended, who will have mercy on the poor?" In the same place. P. 103.
15. Yakovlev. S. 123, 137, 152-158.
16. In the same place. P. 123.
17. In the same place. S. 130, 183.
18. In the same place. P. 156.
19. For details, see our article "The Significance of the Pechersk Monastery in the Initial History of the Russian Church and Society" // Theological Bulletin, 1886, October and a separate print.
20. Feoktist, Abbot of Pechersky, spiritual father of Prince David Igorevich and his princess (Chronicle according to the Ipatiev list, hereinafter - the Ipatiev Chronicle. Edition of the Archeographic Commission, St. Petersburg, 1871, 1112, p. 197); Adrian, abbot of the Vydubetsky Mikhailovsky monastery, spiritual father of the great prince Rurik Rostislavich (Ibid., 1190, p. 448); Simon, abbot of the Vladimir Nativity monastery, confessor of the Grand Duchess Mary, wife of Vsevolod III (Laurentian Chronicle. 1206, p. 403; cf. Chronicler of Pereyaslavl Suzdal. Edition of Prince M. Obolensky. M., 1851, p. 108); Pachomius, abbot of the Rostov monastery of St. Peter, confessor of Prince of Rostov Konstantin Vsevolodovich (Ibid. 1214, p. 416); Cyril, abbot of the Vladimir Nativity monastery, confessor of Prince Vasilko Konstantinovich (Ibid. 1231, pp. 433-434). In addition to the named ones, one can also name, presumably, the monk, Jacob, who wrote a letter to his spiritual son Demetrius (according to the assumption of His Grace Macarius - to Grand Duke Izyaslav Yaroslavich (Metropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov). History of the Russian Church. St. Petersburg, 1857, T. II. S. 156, 339-342).
21. Only one princely confessor from Balti is known positively for the entire period; priest Semion, the spiritual father of the Grand Duke Rostislav Mstislavich (Ipatiev Chronicle. 1168, pp. 362-364) and, presumably, John, the confessor of Prince Vsevolod Yuryevich (Laurentian Chronicle. 1190, p. 387).
22. The Abbots of the Pechersk Saints Theodosius and Stephen, as it was mentioned, were the confessors of the Kiev boyars. The monk of the Zarubskaya cave Georgy writes a message to his spiritual son, a noble young man (Sreznevsky II Information about little-known and unknown monuments. St. Petersburg, 1864, Issue 1. P. 54-57).
23. Questioning Kirik. - Russian Historical Library. T. VI. S. 47-48.
24. Laurentian Chronicle. P. 250; Ipatiev Chronicle. 1097, p. 170.
25. Laurentian Chronicle. P. 265; Ipatiev Chronicle. 1101, p. 181.
26. Ipatiev Chronicle. 1157, p. 335.
27. Life of the Monk Barlaam. Published by the Society of Ancient Writers. SPb., 1879.S. 10-11.
28. Laurentian Chronicle. P. 282; Ipatiev Chronicle. P. 210. Here are examples when monks, together with representatives of the higher hierarchy, acted as peacemakers: the abbot of the Spassky Monastery on Berestovo Peter, together with Metropolitan Kirill and Bishop Porfiry II of Chernigov in 1230 (Laurentian Chronicle, p. 433); Ephraim, abbot of the Mother of God Monastery, together with Porfiry I, Bishop of Chernigov, went for peace to Prince Vsevolod of Vladimir, and he detained them for two years (in 1177 - Ipatiev Chronicle, p. 411); Michael, abbot of the Otrocha monastery, together with Bishop Ignatius of Smolensk in 1206 (Laurentian Chronicle, p. 40).
29. Laurentian Chronicle. 1096 p. 222.
30. The life of the reverend and God-bearing father of our Sergius the Wonderworker and a word of praise to him, written by his disciple Epiphanius the Wise in the 15th century. (hereinafter: Life of Saint Sergius). Published by the Society of Lovers of Ancient Writing, St. Petersburg, 1885, p. 43; Complete collection of Russian chronicles, published by the Archaeographic Commission. SPb., 1859, T. VII. P. 62.
31. Life of the Monk Sergius. P. 35; Wed A word of praise. S. 150, 155-156.
32. Life of the Monk Sergius. S. 74-75.
33. See the speech of Professor V.O.Klyuchevsky at the same academic celebration in memory of the anniversary of St. Sergius (Theological Bulletin, 1892, November) - Significance of St. Sergius of Radonezh for the Russian people and state.
34. Life of the Monk Sergius. S. 138-139.
35. A word of praise. P. 148.
36. Life of the Monk Sergius. S. 108-109: cf .: Simon Azaryin. "The Book of the Miracles of St. Sergius" (hereinafter: Simon Azaryin). Published by the Society of Ancient Writers. SPb., 1885.S. 14.
37. Life of the Monk Nikon. Published in Moscow in 1646, sheet 188 rev.
38. Simon Azaryin. P. 18.
39. Simon Azarin. S. 3-4.
40. Herberstein S. Notes on Muscovy / Per. from lat. Anonymova SPb., 1866 p. 68.
41. Life of the Monk Martinian of Belozersky. Manuscript of the Volokolamsk Library, no. 564. L. 234 ob.-236.
42. In the same place. S. 63. In the words of praise to the Monk Demetrius, it is said: "Rejoice in charity, you steward ... Rejoice your mind to the Lord, having your heart and nailing your heart in prayers day and night, rejoice to the sick doctor and the quick visitor, rejoice to the widows, the feeder, to the orphans and the poor and strange and a bloodless quiet haven "(Ibid. pp. 75-76) The Monk Euthymius of Suzdal (+1404) is also known for his charity. However, his later biographer, characterizing the ascetic from this side, literally copies the quoted extracts from the life of the Monk Dimitry Prilutsky, only with the necessary editions / (Life of the Monk Euthymius. Manuscript of the Volokolamsk Library No. 628. L. 66v.- 67). In the words of praise (Ibid. L. 76v., - 77v.), Similar borrowings from the praise of the Monk Demetrius.
43. Life of the Monk Paul. Manuscript of the Volokolamsk Library No. 659. L. 195, 208.
44. In the same place. L. 192 ob.- 193.
45. In the same place. L. 204. "Giving alms to the beggars with zeal, byashe is more gracious."
46. Life of the Monk Cyril. Manuscript of the Volokolamsk Library No. 645. L. 480v.- 481.
47. For the sake of the pious hegumen, Prince Yuri Dmitrievich Zvenigorodsky once lets go all full. In the same place. L. 458 and about.
48. Ibid L. 462 about - 463
49. Historical acts, collected and published by the Archaeographic Commission. SPb., 1841, T. I. S. 383.
50. Life of the Monk Abraham. Manuscript of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra No. 625 (hereinafter GB RF, fund 304, Main collection of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra library - ed.) L. 310, 311v., 321v.- 323. The ascetic teaches the brethren before death - " Do not forget the strange love "(Ibid. L. 330)
51. In the further presentation, we will not talk about the ancient Russian monastic missionaries. Let us only now remind the reader that the participation of monasticism in the spread of the Christian faith in our north until the 17th century. was much more significant than the involvement of the hierarchy [...]
52. Life of the Monk Dionysius. Manuscript of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra No. 603. L. 35 This instruction is literally repeated in the life of the Monk Gregory of Pelshhem - the Great Minea-Chetia, collected by the All-Russian Metropolitan Macarius (hereinafter referred to as the Great Minea-Chetia). Edition of the Archaeographic Commission, St. Petersburg, 1868 September 30, stlb. 2273.
53. Manuscript of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius No. 603. L. 38-39.
54. In the same place. L. 36v. - 37v.
55. Great Menaion-Chetia. September 30, stb. 2278. Wed .. A word of praise. Stlb. 2294. The charitable activity of the ascetic is described in the following words of his life, almost literally, with the above words from the life of the Monk Dimitry of Prilutsky, which can even be recognized as typical hagiographic.
56. In the same place. Stlb. 2278. [...]
57. In the same place. P. 77. The Monk Euphrosynus bequeathed to the brethren not to forget their love for strange things after his death.
58. The life of the Monk Joseph of Volotsk, compiled by an unknown person, published by K.I. Nevostruev // Readings in the Moscow Society of Lovers of Spiritual Education, M., 1865, Vol. 2.S. 117-118.
59. For the foreword to the book of the blessed father Nil Sorsky (his student Innokenty Okhlebinin), see: The Tradition by His Disciple about the Skete Residence of the Monk Nil Sorsky (hereinafter: Tradition by the Student) Published by Kozelskaya Optina Hermitage M., 1849. S. XXI.
60. The message of the monk Prince Vassian Patrikeyev // Orthodox Interlocutor, 1803, no. Pp. 108, 185 and 207.
61. Klyuchevsky V.O. Old Russian Lives of Saints as a Historical Source. P. 207.
62. The answer to the disgraceful ones is the Great Menaion-Chetia. September 9, stb. 559.
63. Life of the Monk Paphnutius. P. 136.
64. In the same place. P. 141.
65. In the same place. From 140.
66. Innokenty's notes. S. 446-447.
67. In the same place. From 451.
68. Life of the Monk Joseph C 22.
69. Ibid, pp. 95-97, 141, cf. Collection of state letters and treaties kept in the State Collegium of Foreign Affairs M, 1813, Ch 1, No. 132 S 343 (Spiritual Prince Ivan Borisovich).
70. Klyuchevsky V.O. Old Russian Lives of Saints as a Historical Source. S. 113-114.
71. See our essay Old Russian confessor: Research on the history of church life. S. 56-61, 106-115.
72. Khrushchev I. Research on the works of Joseph Sanin, the Monk Hegumen of Volotsk St. Petersburg., 1858 pp. 90-94, 99; Smirnov S. Old Russian confessor S. 114-115.
73. A letter from the Monk Joseph to Prince Yuri Ivanovich of Dmitrov has survived. The ascetic convinces the prince to feed the people in times of famine, set the price of bread and punish those who sell it dearly. (Additions to historical acts, collected and published by the Archaeographic Commission. SPb., 1846, T. I, No. 216).
74. Klyuchevsky V.O. Old Russian Lives of Saints as a Historical Source. S. 49-52, 113-135, 174-175.
75. In the same place. P. 144.
76. Life of the Monk Cornelius. Manuscript of the library of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra No. 676. L. 513 rev.
77. In the same place. L. 530.
78. In the same place. L. 516.
79. In the same place. L. 527 rev.
80. Life of the Monk Cornelius. Manuscript of the library of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra No. 676. L. 520 rev. - 522 rev.
81. In the same place. L. 537. The biographer cites a stereotypical description of the ascetic as a benefactor: "by the naked clothes, consolation to the sad, helping the poor" - that characteristic that we saw already in the lives of the Monk Demetrius of Prilutsky, Euthymius of Suzdal, and Gregory of Pelshhem. In the words of praise to the Monk Cornelius, we read: "Rejoice, merciful, strange-loving Cornelius, you have nourished in little things for a smooth time, many people in your monastery nourished, and most of all I rejoice in your prayers."
82. In the same place. L. 558; Ambrose (Ornatsky), archim. History of the Russian hierarchy. M., 1812, T. IV. S. 683. A newcomer to a monastery is given the following prescription: "But in monasteries living brothers does not give anything to anyone in love, lower to the worldly, or to strange alms, lower he buys something to someone" (pp. 702-703). The monk forbids each monk, in particular, to accept alms from the laity: "Below is alms to someone for himself, or otherwise what to receive from whom, or to do alms by himself (ie, alms), but they are all in common" (p. 697).
83. [...] Collection of the XVIII century. Pomor letter, belonging to Professor V.O. Klyuchevsky. L. 276 rev. - 277.
84. In the same place. L. 277.
85. In the same place. L. 281 and about.
86. Okov is a measure of loose bodies: the fourth part of a barrel or kadi.
87. In the same place. L. 280 and about.
88. Kurbsky A., book. Legends of Prince Kurbsky (hereinafter: A. Kurbsky). Ed. 2nd. SPb, 1833.S. 127-128. Wed: Soloviev S.M. History of Russia since ancient times. 1st ed. Of the Society for the Public Benefit, M., 1851, Vol. 1.From 1648-1650.
89. Kurbsky A. Cit. op. S. 126-127, 140-141. Kurbsky does not know how his patron and spiritual father died: from some he heard that Grozny ordered him to be drowned in the river, others said that the monk rested "a quiet and peaceful death, O Lord." You can read about grief in Yankovsky's study Grieving the clergy for the disgraced // Readings in the Society of Russian History and Antiquities. M., 1876, Book. one; as well as in the course of church law Pavlov A.S. Pp. 501-502, especially in detail in V. Malinin's dissertation, the Elder of the Eleazarov Monastery Philotheus and his epistles. S. 682 ff. [...]

At the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church on February 2-3, 2016, regulations were adopted regarding the veneration of a number of Russian Saints

OnThe Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church on February 2-3, 2016 adopted a number of regulations regarding the all-ecclesiastical, pan-Orthodox veneration of a number of Russian Saints. Among them are the Blessed Grand Duke of Kiev and All Russia Yaroslav-Georgy Vladimirovich the Wise, Venerables Alexander Peresvet and Andrey Oslyabya, Saints Gennady (Gonzov), Archbishop of Novgorod, and Seraphim (Sobolev), Archbishop Bogucharsky. The conciliar document says: "To inform the names of the listed ascetics to the Primates of the Local Orthodox Churches for inclusion in their calendar."

Blessed Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise (987 - † 1054) was a locally revered Saint of Kiev, Novgorod and Rostov, revered in Russia for centuries. In many old Russian monthly passages, the Grand Duke is present as a Saint. It is gratifying that a council decree was adopted, which glorified the ancient ascetic in universal dignity.

The Monk Nestor the Chronicler called the Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise, comparing him with the biblical king Solomon, and also extolled him for the creation of the Temple of St. Sophia - the Wisdom of God on the site of the battle against the Pechenegs. The great merit of the Grand Duke Yaroslav is that he became the Church of Russia. The rite of the temple service in the Kiev Sophia Cathedral was established as a model for worship in all the churches of Russia. For this purpose, the provincial clergy was specially sent to Kiev so that they go through the school of regular worship. At the behest of the Grand Duke, cathedrals were created in many cities of Russia. They, in turn, became religious schools for local monasteries and parish churches. Here you should not see only the administrative initiative of the Emperor. The nature of such innovations lies in the highly spiritual, Christianly loving attitude of Prince Yaroslav to his people and Fatherland. People felt and understood such an attitude. Therefore, the veneration of Prince Yaroslav the Wise as a regular memorial service continued until the Mongol invasion. The Tomb of the Right Prince has never been forgotten. During or after such funeral services, miraculous healings, fair solutions to some difficult cases, deliverance from misfortunes were performed. People came again and again, ordering memorial services already in gratitude for the wonderful help. The veneration began in Kiev, Rostov, Novgorod, then passed on to Vladimir, and then to Moscow.

Undoubtedly, the general church glorification of the schema warriors was a significant event. Venerables Alexander Peresvetand Andrey Oslyabi († 1380) - spiritual companions of St. Sergius of Radonezh and the Blessed Grand Duke Dmitry Donskoy. Their tomb in the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in Stary Simonovo has been revered for centuries, starting with the burial of their bodies after the Battle of Kulikovo, and in Moscow from time immemorial they became locally revered Saints. After the all-Union celebration of the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kulikovo in 1980, they were officially venerated as local revered in the Bryansk and Kursk dioceses. In fact, Peresvet and Oslyabya were spiritually revered throughout Russia, especially from the late 80s - early 90s. Recently I read an interesting material by the captain of the second rank in reserve, candidate of theology, Bishop of the Severomorsk and Umba Mitrofan (Badanin), which says:

« In the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, there is a monk who, during his youth, like many then, was fascinated by Eastern spiritual traditions and martial arts. When perestroika began, he and his friends decided to go to Tibet in order to enter some Buddhist monastery ... And I must say frankly that the attitude towards foreigners in the monasteries was extremely nasty: after all, this is Tibetan national spirituality. Our future monk and his friends were disappointed: they were so eager for this exalted teaching, for this brotherhood, spiritual exploits, mantras and prayers. This attitude continued until the Tibetans found out that they were Russians. They began to talk to each other, and the word "Peresvet" sounded in the conversation. They began to find out, and it turned out that the name of this Russian monk was recorded in a special book, where their most important spiritual events are recorded. Peresvet's victory is recorded there as an event that fell out of the usual course of things. It turns out that Chelubey was not just an experienced warrior and hero - he was a Tibetan monk who was trained not only in the martial arts system of Tibet, but also mastered the ancient practice of the Bon-po martial magic. As a result, he reached the heights of this initiation and acquired the status of "immortal". The phrase "Bon-po" can be translated as "school of combat magic speech", that is, the art of fighting, in which the effectiveness of fighting techniques is infinitely increased due to the attraction through magic spells of the power of powerful entities of the otherworldly world - demons (demons). As a result, a person lets in the "power of the beast", or, more simply, turns into a being with the demon, a kind of symbiosis of a man and a demon, becoming possessed. The payment for such a service is the immortal soul of a person, which even after death will not be able to free itself from these terrible posthumous embrace of the forces of darkness. It was believed that such a warrior monk is practically invincible. The number of such Tibetan warriors chosen by the spirits has always been extremely small, they were considered a special phenomenon in the spiritual practice of Tibet. That is why Chelubey was put up for single combat with Peresvet - in order to spiritually break the Russians before the battle began.».

In the light of this modern tradition, the decision of the sagacious Reverend Sergius of Radonezh to send to the Battle of Kulikovo precisely the schemniks who had in the past both military experience and the experience of prayerful spiritual warfare, the experience of hesychasm, is seen quite differently.

All-Russian veneration Saint Gennady of Novgorod(1410 - † 1505), an ascetic of the second half of the 15th century, was known at least from the middle of the 17th century. It began a century earlier - in the era of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible and Saint Macarius of Moscow - in Moscow and Veliky Novgorod. But then there was no special conciliar decision on his glorification, and in the 18th century, when the holy days of the fraternal Orthodox Churches were replenished through the efforts of the Holy Synod, for some reason it fell into oblivion.

Saint Gennady (Gonzov) is an interesting personality, the most enlightened person of his time. Since the early 1470s, he was the archimandrite of the Kremlin's Chudovy Monastery. Miracles Monastery in those days was the highest school of the Russian Grand Duchy, it had workshops for correspondence and book-making, translators worked, both clergy and secular people studied immediately, who were preparing for public service, primarily for ambassadorial needs. In 1484, Archimandrite Gennady was ordained episcopally and appointed Archbishop of Novgorod and Pskov. He also created a powerful intellectual and spiritual center in Novgorod.

Back in the 1470s, under the influence of visiting Jews-Talmudists, the so-called heresy of the Judaizers secretly started among the Novgorod clergy and boyars. The new Archbishop, from the very beginning of his service at the cathedra, suspected that something was wrong in the Pskov Nemtsov Monastery, where Zacharias was Abbot, who himself stopped taking communion and forbade his monks to accept the Holy Mysteries. After the start of the investigation, Abbot Zakharia began to write denunciations and anonymous letters against the Archbishop, falsely accusing Vladyka of "simony" - receiving the Novgorod See for a monetary donation to Grand Duke John Vasilyevich, and allegedly demanding payment from those ordained to priests by the Archbishop.

Three years later, it turned out that some priests of the Novgorod diocese deny the New Testament, the holiness of the Life-giving Cross, the Holy Trinity, Holy Communion, the Mother of God, holy icons, and see the "true" faith only in the Talmudic version of the Old Testament. The heretical hydra had seized by that time Moscow, the high Moscow officials, the Moscow Metropolitan Zosima, involved the grand ducal family - the widow's daughter-in-law and grandson of the prince Dimitri Ioannovich. Grand Duke John Vasilyevich the Elder wanted to see his grandson as his successor and even crowned him in 1498 with the title of the second Grand Duke. A terrible spiritual calamity attacked Russia. And in the event of the transfer of power to that young man, spiritual perversion could become the official religion of our state.

Precisely for the successful fight against religious error, for the visual proof of the indissoluble spiritual connection between the New and the Old Testaments, for the successful denunciation of the lies of Talmudism, Saint Gennady and his assistants compiled the complete Church Slavonic canon of the Old Testament. Prior to that, Church Slavonic translations of biblical texts in the form of paremias for liturgical readings in the temple, as well as the Psalter, the Book of Job and some prophetic books, existed scattered. The Orthodox Slavs did not have a complete set, like the Septuagint in Greek. The spiritual feat of Saint Gennady of Novgorod in compiling a complete Slavic Bible is still revered not only in Russia, but also among all Orthodox Slavs, as well as by heterodox Slavophiles of the West. Moreover, to translate the Bible into Church Slavonic, he used not only the Septuagint, the Greek version of Holy Scripture, but also those Biblical books that by that time were preserved only in Latin. In his struggle against the heresy of the Jews, Saint Gennady relied on one of the spiritual centers - the Assumption Volokolamsk Monastery, now known as the Joseph-Volotsk Monastery, which also had a rich library and was headed by Abbot Joseph. Under the influence of the denunciations of St. Gennady and the Monk Joseph of Volotsk, Grand Duke John Vasilyevich the Elder, who was the first to bear the nickname of the Terrible, betrayed the young Grand Duke Dimitri Ioannovich and his mother to disgrace, and nominated his Orthodox son, Prince Vasily Ioannovich, to succeed him, his Orthodox son, Prince Vasily Ioannovich. convicted.

It is well known that in the 1970s and 1990s, clerical liberals repeatedly raised the issue of decanonizing St. Gennady. Why, I would like to know? Now, after the decision of the Council of Bishops on the pan-Orthodox recognition of the holiness of the Novgorod Saint Gennady, such demarches in the Church will become completely unacceptable.

Archbishop Seraphim, in the world Nikolai Borisovich Sobolev (1881 - † 1950), in time the closest to us ascetic of Orthodox piety, which is of particular importance for our time. He was a highly educated person, he graduated from the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, in the same place, in his last year in 1908, he was tonsured into monasticism with the name Seraphim in honor of the Venerable Seraphim of Sarov, glorified five years earlier. His classmates testified that monk Seraphim, even during his studies, was distinguished by an unusually developed mind, asceticism and love for God, neighbors and high Orthodox Theology. His consecration to the bishop took place in the "white" Crimea, in Simferopol in October 1920, he was entrusted with the nourishment of the army. Together with thousands of Russian refugees, he soon found himself in Constantinople, and then in Bulgaria, where by the decision of the Provisional Church Administration under the leadership of Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), he was appointed vicar bishop of Bogucharsky of the Voronezh diocese. But he did not manage to serve at his destination, and he spent the rest of his life in exile. He was rector of the Russian embassy church in Sofia, where he was later buried. In the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, he was venerated locally as an ascetic of piety soon after his death, requiem services were performed over his tomb, and those praying received spiritual help in their various needs. In June 1989, I had a chance to visit Sofia and venerate the tomb of St. Seraphim, and I want to note that for this I had to stand in a queue of several dozen people, which testified to the special veneration of the Russian Divine Pleasure even before his unofficial glorification by the ROCOR in 2002.

Bishop Seraphim devoted his theological works of the 1920-1940s mainly to the struggle against modern heresies and to denouncing various deviations from Orthodox canons and customs. In 1938, for the Council of Bishops of the ROCOR, he compiled a report entitled "Russian Ideology." It was on the basis of that report that the most famous book of Vladyka Seraphim was written. In general, church theologians were afraid of the very term "ideology" at the beginning of the 20th century. But in the 1930s it became clear that spiritual warfare with the forces of evil is taking place precisely in the sphere of ideas. Then the God-fighting communist ideology, the God-fighting fascist ideology, the God-fighting ideology of German Nazism, and finally the God-fighting ideology of financial Nazism, which was promoted through transnational corporations and the politics of the North American United States, grew up. There was a spiritual need to oppose the Orthodox ideology, the Russian ideology, to such many different collections of theomachy ideas.

And if now in most countries of the European civilizational type, the ideologies of outright fascism, Nordic Nazism and international communism have become the lot of the marginalized or oppositionists, then the ideology of financial dollar Nazism, the religion of the yellow devil, after the fall of the regimes of the USSR and its many satellite countries, covered most of the states of the planet, in the international and domestic politics depriving them of their sovereignty. The ideology of financial Nazism with the help of clearly formulated strategists, massive propaganda and agitation daily influences the consciousness of billions of people. Since the late 1980s and the emergence of the special propaganda myth about the "wooden ruble", throughout the 1990s and 2000s, it almost completely dominated Russia as well. Until now, it has fiercely resisted the revival of Russian sovereignty both from the outside - with the help of primarily financial sanctions, and from within - from the fifth column.

For us, the Orthodox tsarists of the second half of the 1980s, during the time of our churching, Russian Ideology became a guiding book! Even then, we made a lot of efforts to distribute it in numerous photocopies. At the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, St. Petersburg resident Konstantin Dushenov secretly published "Russian Ideology" in almost a thousand copies, and its about most of them went to Moscow. From here it went to the provinces. With the advent of the Orthodox official book publishing "Russian Ideology" was published in various dioceses, and its total circulation, I believe, has already reached hundreds of thousands of copies, and it is also being distributed on the Runet.

In the church environment, "Russian Ideology" has become one of the most popular books of the XXI century. Now the significance of the work of Vladyka Seraphim Sobolev in the revival of the Orthodox Christian civilization will only grow.

Vladyka Seraphim was one of the first to feel the perniciousness of the flourishing satanic ideologies, to understand that we, church people, must not distance ourselves from the ideological form of spiritual warfare. He collected and formulated the key ideas of the Russian state, the Russian Kingdom, which will definitely come in handy for the coming Russia. And rereading his work in the present century, we can safely say that the views of the saint were not naive. In many ways, it was his book that formed among our Russian Orthodox people civil, politically savvy personalities, subjects of the coming Russian Kingdom, ready to embrace completely new state relations, as yet unknown to us. I have no doubt that in the end the holiness of Vladyka Seraphim (Sobolev) will be recognized and understood by the Orthodox of the whole world!

In a certain sense, the named ascetics of the X-XI, XIV, XV and XX centuries, each in their own way with their exploits, deeds, their own sacrificial life and death, were the spokesmen for different sides of the Russian Idea. Thus, the Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise, in his church-sovereign construction, in the widespread dissemination of literacy in Russia, in the creation of temples of the Wisdom of God - Sophia Cathedrals in Kiev, Novgorod, Smolensk and, possibly, in Polotsk, created the foundations of Russian Civilization, Russian Ideology. Monks-warriors Venerables Alexander Peresvet and Andrei Oslyabya not only stood up to defend the Fatherland, but joined the struggle for its spiritual civilization code. Saint Gennady of Novgorod became zealous for the establishment in Russia of a truly biblical worldview. And Vladyka Seraphim (Sobolev) brought together the millennial efforts for the conciliar acquisition of the Russian Idea in his fundamental theological work. Modern Russian temple builders, educators, educators, warriors, ideologists, politicians in the person of these ascetics in our difficult and fateful times have found for themselves Heavenly Patrons and helpers.

Organizations banned on the territory of the Russian Federation: "Islamic State" ("ISIS"); Jabhat al-Nusra (Victory Front); Al-Qaeda (Base); The Muslim Brotherhood (Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun); The Taliban Movement; "Holy War" ("Al-Jihad" or "Egyptian Islamic Jihad"); The Islamic Group (Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyah); Asbat al-Ansar; Party of Islamic Liberation (Hizbut-Tahrir al-Islami); "Imarat Kavkaz" ("Caucasian Emirate"); "Congress of the peoples of Ichkeria and Dagestan"; The Islamic Party of Turkestan (formerly the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan); "Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people"; International Religious Association "Tablighi Jamaat"; Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA); "Ukrainian National Assembly - Ukrainian People's Self-Defense" (UNA - UNSO); “Trident them. Stepan Bandera "; Ukrainian organization "Brotherhood"; Ukrainian organization "Right Sector"; International Religious Association "Aum Shinrikyo"; Jehovah witnesses; AUMShinrikyo, AUM, Aleph; National Bolshevik Party; Movement "Slavic Union"; Movement "Russian National Unity"; "Movement Against Illegal Immigration".

For a complete list of organizations banned on the territory of the Russian Federation, see the links.

The first Russian saints - who are they? Perhaps as we learn more about them, we will find revelations of our own spiritual path.

Saints Boris and Gleb

Boris Vladimirovich (Prince of Rostov) and Gleb Vladimirovich (Prince of Murom), at baptism Roman and David. Russian princes, sons of the Grand Duke Vladimir Svyatoslavich. In the internecine struggle for the Kiev throne, which broke out in 1015 after the death of their father, they were killed by their own older brother for Christian convictions. Young Boris and Gleb, knowing their intentions, did not use weapons against the attackers.

Princes Boris and Gleb became the first saints to be canonized by the Russian Church. They were not the first saints of the Russian land, since later the Church began to honor the Varangians Theodore and John who lived before them, the martyrs for the faith who died under the pagan Vladimir, Princess Olga and Prince Vladimir, as equal to the apostles enlighteners of Russia. But Saints Boris and Gleb were the first crowned elect of the Russian Church, the first wonderworkers of it and recognized by heavenly prayer books "for the new Christian people." The chronicles are full of stories about miracles of healing that took place at their relics (a special emphasis on the glorification of the brothers as healers was made in the XII century), about the victories won by their name and with their help, about the pilgrimage of princes to their tomb.

Their veneration was immediately established as a nationwide one, prior to church canonization. The Greek metropolitans at first doubted the sanctity of the miracle workers, but Metropolitan John, who doubted most of all, soon transferred the incorruptible bodies of the princes to the new church himself, established a feast for them (July 24) and made a service for them. This was the first example of the firm faith of the Russian people in their new saints. This was the only way to overcome all the canonical doubts and resistance of the Greeks, who were generally not inclined to encourage the religious nationalism of the newly baptized people.

Rev. Feodosiy Pechersky

Rev. Theodosius, the father of Russian monasticism, was the second saint solemnly canonized by the Russian Church, and its first reverend. Just as Boris and Gleb forestalled St. Olga and Vladimir, St. Theodosius was canonized earlier by Anthony, his teacher and the first founder of the Kiev-Pechersky monastery. The ancient life of St. Anthony, if it existed, was lost early.

Anthony, when the brethren began to gather to him, left her in the care of the hegumen Varlaam, who he had appointed, and shut himself up in a secluded cave, where he stayed until his death. He was not a mentor and abbot of the brethren, except for the very first newcomers, and his lonely exploits did not attract attention. Although he died just a year or two earlier, Theodosius, but by that time he was already the only focus of love and veneration not only of the monastic, already numerous brethren, but of all Kiev, if not all of southern Russia. In 1091 the relics of St. Theodosius was opened and transferred to the great Pechersk Church of the Assumption of the Virgin, which spoke of his local, monastic veneration. And in 1108, on the initiative of the Grand Duke Svyagopolk, the Metropolitan and the bishops perform a solemn (general) canonization. Even before the transfer of his relics, 10 years later after the death of the saint, St. Nestor wrote his life, extensive and rich in content.

Saints of the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon

The relics of 118 saints rest in the Kiev-Pechersky Monastery, in the Near (Antonieva) and Dalnaya (Feodosia) caves, most of whom are known only by name (there are also nameless ones). Almost all these saints were monks of the monastery, pre-Mongolian and post-Mongolian times, locally revered here. Metropolitan Petro Mogila canonized them in 1643, instructing them to compose a general service. And only in 1762, according to the decree of the Holy Synod, the Kiev saints were included in the all-Russian mesyaslov.

We know about the lives of thirty of the Kiev saints from the so-called Kiev-Pechersk Paterikon. Patericons in ancient Christian writing were called summary biographies of ascetics - ascetics of a certain area: Egypt, Syria, Palestine. These Eastern patericans were known in translations into Russia from the first times of Russian Christianity and had a very strong influence on the upbringing of our monasticism in spiritual life. The Pechersk Paterik has its own long and complex history, by which one can fragmentarily judge about ancient Russian religiosity, about Russian monasticism and monastic life.

Rev. Avraamy Smolensky

One of the very few ascetics of the pre-Mongol period, from whom a detailed biography composed by his disciple Ephraim remained. Rev. Abraham of Smolensky was not only revered in his hometown after his death (at the beginning of the XIII century), but also canonized at one of the Moscow Macarius cathedrals (probably 1549). Biography of St. Abraham conveys the image of an ascetic of great strength, full of original features, perhaps unique in the history of Russian holiness.

The Monk Abraham of Smolensk, preacher of repentance and the coming Last Judgment, was born in the middle of the 12th century. in Smolensk from wealthy parents who had 12 daughters before him and prayed to God for a son. Since childhood, he grew up in the fear of God, often attended church and had the opportunity to learn from books. After the death of his parents, having distributed all the property to monasteries, churches and the poor, the monk walked around the city in rags, praying to God to show the way of salvation.

He took tonsure and, as obedience, copied books and celebrated Divine Liturgy every day. Abraham was dry and pale from toil. The saint was strict with himself and with spiritual children. He himself painted two icons on topics that most interested him: on one he depicted the Last Judgment, and on the other - torture during ordeals.

When, due to slander, he was forbidden to perform the priesthood, various troubles opened in the city: drought and disease. But at his prayer, a heavy rain fell for the city and residents, and the drought ended. Then everyone was convinced of his righteousness with their own eyes and began to highly respect and respect him.

From the life we \u200b\u200bsee an image of an ascetic, unusual in Russia, with a tense inner life, with anxiety and excitement, bursting out in a stormy, emotional prayer, with a gloomy repentant idea of \u200b\u200bhuman fate, not a healer pouring oil, but a stern teacher, animated, maybe prophetic inspiration.

Holy princes

Holy "noble" princes constitute a special, very numerous order of saints in the Russian Church. There are about 50 princes and princesses canonized to general or local veneration. The veneration of the holy princes increased during the Mongol yoke. In the first century of Tatar, with the destruction of monasteries, Russian monastic sanctity almost dries up. The feat of the holy princes becomes the main, historically important, not only national affair, but also church service.

If we single out the holy princes who enjoyed universal, and not only local, veneration, then this is St. Olga, Vladimir, Mikhail Chernigovsky, Feodor Yaroslavsky with his sons David and Konstantin. In 1547-49, Alexander Nevsky and Mikhail Tverskoy were added to them. But Mikhail Chernigovsky, the martyr, takes the first place. The piety of the holy princes is expressed in devotion to the church, in prayer, in the construction of temples and respect for the clergy. Love for poverty, caring for the weak, orphans and widows, less often justice is always noted.

The Russian Church does not canonize national or political merits in its holy princes. This confirms the fact that among the holy princes we do not find those who did most of all for the glory of Russia and for its unity: neither Yaroslav the Wise, nor Vladimir Monomakh, with all their undoubted piety, none among the Moscow princes, except for Daniel Alexandrovich, locally revered in the Danilov Monastery built by him, and canonized no earlier than the 18th or 19th century. But Yaroslavl and Murom gave the Church of holy princes, completely unknown chronicles and history. The Church does not canonize any politics - neither Moscow, nor Novgorod, nor Tatar; neither unifying nor specific. This is often forgotten in our time.

Saint Stephen of Perm

Stephen of Permsky occupies a very special place in the host of Russian saints, standing somewhat apart from the broad historical tradition, but expressing new, perhaps not fully disclosed, possibilities in Russian Orthodoxy. Saint Stephen is a missionary who gave his life for the conversion of the pagan people - Zyryan.

St. Stephen was a native of Ustyug the Great, in the Dvina land, which just in his time (in the XIV century) from the Novgorod colonial territory passed into dependence on Moscow. Russian cities were islands in the middle of a foreign sea. The waves of this sea approached Ustyug itself, around which the settlements of the western Permians began, or, according to our name, zyryan. Others, Eastern Perm, lived on the Kama River, and their baptism was the work of the successors of St. Stefan. Undoubtedly, both the acquaintance with the Permians and their language, and the idea of \u200b\u200bpreaching the Gospel among them refer to the adolescent years of the saint. Being one of the smartest people of his time, knowing the Greek language, he leaves books and teachings for the sake of preaching a deed of love, Stephen chose to go to the Perm land and missionary - alone. His successes and trials are sketched in a number of scenes from nature, not devoid of humor and perfectly characterizing the naive, but naturally kind Zyryan worldview.

He did not combine the baptism of the Zyryans with their Russification, he created the Zyryan writing system, he translated the divine service for them and St. Scripture. He did for the Zyryans what Cyril and Methodius did for all the Slavs. He also compiled the Zyryan alphabet based on local runes - signs for notches on a tree.

Rev. Sergius of Radonezh

The new asceticism that emerged from the second quarter of the XIV century, after the Tatar yoke, is very different from the ancient Russian. This is the asceticism of the desert dwellers. Taking upon themselves the most difficult feat, and, moreover, necessarily associated with contemplative prayer, the hermit monks will raise spiritual life to a new height, which has not yet been reached in Russia. The head and teacher of the new wilderness monasticism was St. Sergius, the greatest of the saints of ancient Russia. Most of the saints of the 14th and early 15th centuries are his disciples or "interlocutors", that is, they experienced his spiritual influence. Life of St. Sergius survived thanks to his contemporary and disciple Epiphanius (the Wise), the biographer of Stephen of Perm.

Life makes it clear that his humble meekness is the main spiritual fabric of the personality of Sergius of Radonezh. Rev. Sergius never punishes spiritual children. In the very miracles of their reverend. Sergius seeks to belittle himself, to belittle his spiritual strength. Rev. Sergius is the spokesman for the Russian ideal of holiness, despite the sharpening of both its polar ends: the mystical and the political. The mystic and the politician, the hermit and the cynovite have combined in his blessed fullness.