An outstanding theologian who criticized church modernism and ecumenism, publicist, clergyman of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Archimandrite Rafail Karelin is considered a very original and interesting church writer of our time. He became the author of a number of books: “In Search of Truth”, “The Way of a Christian”, “The Mystery of Salvation” and many others.
Archimandrite Rafail Karelin: biography
In the world, Alexander Nikolaevich Karelin was born in Tbilisi on December 29, 1931 into an intelligent family, where his father was an engineer and his mother was a teacher. Immediately after graduation, he decided to go into monastic life. This happened at his own request, since he was always interested in the truth, and could not stand any kind of deception or the illusion of deception. He himself recalls how, as a child, his mother took him to the circus, and for some reason he terribly disliked magic tricks: inverted mirrors seemed to him a distortion of life, and various kinds of buffoonery did not cause any joy, but rather, on the contrary, brought sadness. Therefore, already at a conscious age he came to monastic life.
Ordination as a monk
In 1954 he was ordained a monk, and in the same year he was promoted to the rank of hierodeacon and hieromonk. After that, he began to serve in the temple of the saint in the village of Ilori near the city of Ochamchira in the Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
It was during this period that Hierodeacon Raphael, at the request of parishioners, began to chastise those possessed by demons. These meetings with possessed people, or rather, their wild obsession, remarkable strength and hatred of the Christian faith forced him to turn his attention to the study of demonic reality and the hostile force that threatens all of humanity.
Sukhumi
Time passed, Rafail Karelin moved to Sukhumi and began to serve there in the Transfiguration Cemetery Church. It was during this period that the future archimandrite met his first spiritual father - Archimandrite Seraphim (Romantsov), who, possessing special spiritual experience, with attention and sensitivity to all people and evangelical love, was able to reach the most important heights in his tonsure and became a holy elder. His name was canonized in 2010. Saint Seraphim disguised his love and care for people under moderate severity, so he did not have unreasonable admirers.
Teaching path
Archimandrite Rafail Karelin was also acquainted with Metropolitan Zinovy (Mazhuga), canonized in 2010. He was known for his love for and had an amazing ability to combine active administrative activities with unceasing prayer.
In 1975, Father Rafail became a teacher of the Slavic language at the Mtskheta Theological Seminary and a temporary inspector.
In the early 80s, he often visited holy places and monasteries in Russia. And he especially fell in love with the Pskov-Pechersk monastery. At this time, his spiritual father was schema-abbot Savva, for whose canonization the Orthodox Church is already preparing. This elder was known for several cases of healing terminally ill people.
Around the same years, Father Raphael graduated from the Moscow Theological Seminary in absentia and received the blessing of Schema-Abbot Savva to write texts on a spiritual topic. Then Archimandrite Raphael Karelin becomes a teacher of the Slavic language, history of religion, asceticism and theology at the Tbilisi Theological Academy.
He spends his last years of priestly service in the Nevsky Church in the city of Tbilisi. And since 1988, Archimandrite Rafail Karelin, due to deteriorating health (poor vision), no longer conducts such active activities, but also does not stop writing spiritual literature.
Archimandrite Rafail Karelin: website
A huge list of books, various kinds of articles and conversations, as well as audio and video material can be viewed on the special website of Archimandrite Raphael. And we must give him credit as an author, since everything he writes about is read with great interest. It opens your eyes to many things. This could be raising the younger generation or something else. He can always give a laconic answer to every question, which may seem too philosophical or unrealistic to some. However, this is only at first glance, since Archimandrite Karelin, first of all, makes a person think and live a spiritual life, which means he sows the very seed that will certainly grow with the right approach of people to any problem in life.
Disagreements with Osipov
Many begin to look for some differences in the views and teachings on various spiritual topics of such theologians as Archimandrite Raphael and A.I. Osipov. On some forums, whole discussions took place over which of them was right. But there is no need to delve deeply into this, because each of these spiritual writers will be right in their own way. And there is nothing reprehensible in this if someone openly expresses their opinion.
Archimandrite Rafail Karelin spoke out about Osipov, in particular, because of the article “The Eucharist and the Priesthood.” He didn't like some of the statements there. But if you provide a field for dispute between these two titans of theological literature, then they will never argue with each other, since they also do not have complete knowledge about the spiritual world, and therefore they too may be mistaken in something.
Archimandrite Rafail (Karelin) was born on December 29, 1931 in Tbilisi in the family of an engineer and a teacher. Immediately after receiving secondary and higher education, he left secular life and chose monasticism.
By his own admission, he was always especially interested in truth, truth, many children's games were boring, and when his mother took him to the circus as a child, inverted mirrors as an image of lies and buffoonery made him not smile, but sad. Therefore, monastic life was almost a natural path for him.
In 1954 he was tonsured a monk and in the same year ordained a hierodeacon and hieromonk. Soon after his ordination he served in the Church of the Holy Great Martyr George the Victorious in the village. Ilori near the city of Ochamchira, Abkhazian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Georgian SSR).
Later he served in the Transfiguration Cemetery Church in the suburbs of Sukhumi. During the Sukhumi period, the future archimandrite met his first spiritual father - the Glinsk elder Archimandrite Seraphim (Romantsov), who became famous for his special spiritual experience, sensitivity to people and true evangelical love. The saint in a special way knew how to disguise his love and care for people with moderate severity, which is how he warded off unreasonable admirers. Father Raphael was also closely acquainted with Metropolitan Zinovy (Mazhuga) of Tetracirca, known for his love of the Jesus Prayer and who managed to combine active administrative work with constant prayer.
Since 1975, he taught the Slavic language at the Mtskheta Theological Seminary and temporarily acted as an inspector. The last place of his priestly service was the Church of the Holy Blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky in Tbilisi.
In the 1980s, Raphael visited holy places in Russia, monasteries, especially the then open Pskov-Pechersky Monastery. Schema-abbot Savva becomes his confessor. During the same years, Father Raphael graduated from the Moscow Theological Seminary in absentia. Schema-abbot Savva blessed him to write on spiritual topics. Then Father Raphael taught at the Tbilisi Theological Academy at different times the Slavic language, the history of religion, theology and asceticism.
The last place of his priestly service is the Church of the Holy Blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky in Tbilisi.
Since 1988, due to poor health (decreased vision), he has been retired and engaged in literary activities.
When the Athenian court sentenced Socrates to death - execution by taking poison, and the executioner was preparing a bowl of hemlock for him - Socrates calmly talked with his students and, after listening to the court's decision, as if the news of the death of a stranger to him, said: “They gave me death sentence for those who are already sentenced to death by nature itself." The great philosopher did not see much difference between himself and his judges: after all, all people are death row prisoners, imprisoned in a prison cell - in the world of matter and time. The sentence has been pronounced, it’s only a matter of timing: whoever is called first and whoever is second by name by the jailer will be led to the place of execution by the guards, and he will be greeted as a long-awaited guest by the executioner, with a cup of hemlock, with a drawn sword, or a rope in his hands.
Death is a mystery that the ancient sages and modern rulers of the world could not solve. Death is the destruction of the illusions of earthly life, and a person lives in the flow of these illusions, clings to them as the only thing he has, and wants to present the mirage of existence as eternal, true existence. There are black holes in space where the light of the stars disappears. Death is a black pit where people and everyone living on earth disappear; this is some kind of cosmic failure, where there is no end or bottom, the river of time rushes into this gap, people’s names go out like sparks, and disappear like waves generation after generation.
The philosopher Heraclitus said: “Time is a stream that cannot be entered twice.” This strange philosopher spent his entire life pondering the mystery of time and death. He was not afraid to see what others turn a blind eye to, namely, that time turns everything into an illusion, that we simultaneously live and do not live - we are and we are not. He uttered incomprehensible words: “I know everything, but others know nothing.” He knew that time was destroying everything and taking away everything; he knew that he himself was living and dying at every moment, that he was a dead man, summoned from the darkness, and doomed to go into the same darkness. He knew that time makes nothing out of everything, and therefore he said, as if it were great wisdom: “I know everything, and others know nothing,” but this is “everything,” and the words of Socrates “I know that I know nothing” are almost same.
Heraclitus was called the weeping philosopher. He wept over the delusion of people who mistook illusion for reality and lived in a world of ghosts held by their imagination. He cried about how people are afraid to think - what time is, how some are afraid to look into the abyss, the sight of which makes their legs give way and makes them dizzy.
Time is a spinning wheel on which it is written: “It was not. It is. It will not be.” Here "yes" is superimposed on "no", and both words, combined together, turn into some kind of unsolved hieroglyph. A certain philosopher claimed that for him both life and death were the same. And when he was asked why he lived then, he answered: “That’s exactly why.”
Heraclitus decided to step out of the stream of time, and with his own hand he fulfilled what he was doomed to do from birth. Socrates did not seek death, and did not turn away from life, he was busy with something else: knowing himself. He knew that he was mortal, and therefore accepted death calmly; accepted it as inevitable, the way a person faces the coming night. Heraclitus, convinced of the imaginary nature of life, decided to demonstrate an imaginary victory over death, and threw himself into the abyss that he constantly saw in front of him. Heraclitus wept over the delusion of people who had forgotten about the all-consuming fire of time and the “sword of Damocles” of death.
Another philosopher, Democritus, laughed at the delusion of people who believed that they were people. For him, gods and people are conglomerates of some invisible and inseparable particles. The human body is little different from an anthill; in it each particle, like an insect in a flock, does its job; there is no person, there are only self-creating and crumbling structures; there is no life and death as such: cosmic particles gather together, under the influence of mutual attraction (sympathy), and then separate from each other, like couples during a dance, and pass into their previous state - into thin invisible dust, from which new ones are molded bodies.
For Heraclitus, being was an illusion; for Democritus - man himself. For Heraclitus, time and death turn life into tragedy; for Democritus - into comedy. Contemporaries called Democritus a “laughing” philosopher. Humanists tried to explain this demonic laughter as the optimism and cheerfulness of ancient materialists. The fate of both philosophers was similar: Heraclitus committed suicide, and Democritus blinded himself.
The Stoics, to some extent, were the successors of Heraclitus, at least in their attitude to the world. For them, life was a theater of the absurd. The only noble thing for a sage is to look at life indifferently, like a theatrical performance. The stoic philosopher felt like an emperor who, from a box, watches with a bored gaze the battle of gladiators and animals in the circus. The Stoic despised life for what it was, and thanked death for what it would be. The Stoics thought to solve the riddle of life by hiding the spasm of pain under an iron mask.
Cynicism was a continuation of the philosophy of Democritus on an ethical plane. The cynics, at least the first of them, were smart enough to see the ugliness of the world around them and human sins. But ugliness is known through comparison with a certain perfection and beauty. And the cynics, having no means to cure ugliness, decided to get rid of the very concept of beauty. They, presenting themselves as freaks in a world of freaks, signed their philosophical manifesto with the name of dogs, but at the same time rejected even such a dignity of canine nature as devotion to the home. They ridiculed everything and themselves, but could not create anything and left their descendants only a bright but foul-smelling bouquet of epigrams, aphorisms, ridicule and paradoxes; they tried to see only inconsistencies and ugliness in the world. The whole philosophy of the Cynics, with their defiant anti-aestheticism, is similar to the screams and laughter of children who surrounded the cripple and mocked him.
The Middle Ages were a period of intellectual and spiritual growth, a longing for heaven and eternity. People were not looking for the outer shell of life, but for its innermost, spiritual, as if fiery core; it was a spiritual impulse of the human soul from the external to itself and from itself to God. The Middle Ages remains a mystery to us, since mysticism and mystical love itself is a mystery.
Divine light is comprehended and contemplated through the feat of the human soul. The heavy eyelids of the Renaissance hid this light from the eye of the heart. Humanists saw in the Middle Ages only the black silhouette of history, like a stranger dressed in mourning, just as for a courtesan the face of an ascetic seems a gloomy verdict on life. In the art of the Middle Ages, death constantly appears - this companion of man, an ominous double, inseparable like a shadow. However, the Middle Ages saw death against the backdrop of eternity. Death helped Christians not to lower the eye of the soul from heaven to earth, not to surrender to passions, not to turn into animals, as from the food of the sorceress Kirka. The memory of death was for them steps to the heavenly Jerusalem, where God will become All to all. Shadows are only visible in sunlight. In the twilight of the Renaissance, the memory of death disappeared; they began to look at her as an enemy. Paintings of naked human bodies flashed on Renaissance canvases; they were like a hymn and a song in praise of the flesh. This time of spiritual decline is called “rebirth” by descendants.
For the Renaissance, as for antiquity, the cosmos seemed to be a deity. The Renaissance began to offer people its theory of immortality: since man is a particle of the cosmos, it means he cannot die. The Renaissance lied to the saints themselves: in the West they were portrayed as similar to pagan gods. Spirituality began to be replaced by soulfulness. The world sparkled with a palette of all colors, but the sky dimmed and disappeared, as if covered with a canopy of clouds.
Christianity in the East was placed under the iron torrent of Muslim hordes, like a fortress under the blows of a battering ram. It survived, but the temple courtyard shrank to a size that could be measured with a walking stick.
Western Christianity was already torn off, as if split off from the trunk of the Universal Church. Its lush crown covered vast areas of Europe, and its branches stretched into the depths of other parts of the world, but it was deprived of life-giving grace and therefore relied more and more on the power of the spear and sword. If we allegorize Catholicism of the Renaissance, it will be a cross and a sword: the keys of the Apostle Peter and the executioner’s ax, the ringing of bells and the groans of heretics being burned.
The West was called Christian; the hand of the Roman high priest was so strong that it could throw kings he disliked from the throne, just as in a knightly tournament the winner knocks his rivals out of the saddle with one blow. But teachings alien to Christianity began to seep into the intellectual elite of the Renaissance: this is the idea of \u200b\u200bthe spirituality of all matter - hylozoism - another round in the fight against the memory of death. If a substance has intelligence, then a person continues to live and experience life after death in his elements, no matter what form they take.
In modern times, under the influence of hylozoism, which especially flourished in occult-esoteric schools, ancient pantheistic idealism was revived and reformed. For pantheism, death is the disappearance of personality, not being; the spirit of man dissolves without a trace in the absolute, just as the splashes of a wave disappear in the ocean.
Materialism offered a pitiful immortality: a person turns into cosmic dust, he continues to exist materially, although he is not aware of his existence - which means everything is in order.
In modern times, historical illusionism has manifested itself in the form of chiliasm, originating from the old Jewish apocrypha describing the earthly kingdom of the Messiah. Utopias about “happy islands” sailing like ships in the vastness of the ocean, and “cities of the sun” built of gold and glass, gave rise to unrealistic hopes of the crowd - dictators skillfully used them. They threw corpses to sharks from the “islands of happiness”, like from ships, and to build “cities of the sun” they dug huge common graves like pits. The memory of death must be erased by programmatic collective optimism, just as dust is wiped off windows. It was declared to be cemetery rot, carrion, corpse deposition; and immortality was explained as the grateful memory of descendants.
Our contemporaries think less and less about the mystery of life and death, time and eternity. It seems that their body has developed a substance that can be called “anti-death” - this is a mental attitude that should throw out every thought and memory of death from the field of consciousness.
Modern man lives in time without understanding or realizing it. He sees death in front of him and its traces everywhere: in human society, in the surrounding nature and in his own family, but, at the same time, he drives away the image of death from himself, as if his enemy, as if if he forgets about death, then death will forget about him, and he will remain to live, like according to legend Ahasfer, who pushed Christ away from the doors of his house.
In the lives of the monks Barlaam and Joasaph there is an image - a parable. A man, fleeing from the beast, climbed a tree that grew on the edge of a precipice. He feels that the tree is shaking and is about to fall. He looks down and sees that two animals are cutting the trunk with their teeth like a saw. And suddenly, a man noticed wild honey on a tree and began to greedily eat it. He forgot about everything and just licked drops of honey from the tree branches. At the bottom of the abyss lies a dragon, waiting for a tree to fall. But the man seems to no longer care about the animals that undermine the table, or about the abyss into which he must fall, or about the dragon that has opened its toothy mouth.
A beast pursuing a person is death; tree - life; two animals - day and night; abyss - hell; the serpent is the devil, and drops of honey are earthly pleasures, in search of which a person forgets about everything.
This striking look can be completed with a few more touches. Wild honey mixed with bitterness. A person licks it off the sharp needles and thorns that dot the branches. Wasps sting his body so that it swells, but the man still looks for where else he can find drops of bitter honey; he forgot about death.
History repeats itself, only in wider turns. Why did the Cynics call themselves dogs? Not only because they performed their bodily functions in the squares and streets of cities, but because animals cannot rise with their minds above life as an empirical reality. Animals only perceive it through sensations and ideas. People can mentally, abstractly realize what life is, how to emerge from the stream onto the shore, find the meaning of life, see the reason and purpose.
Cynicism is the transformation of the sphinx into a kitten, crossing out all questions and reducing life itself to the satisfaction of animal instincts. If the cynics still have reason as a vestigial organ, it is only in order to laugh at reason itself, in order to more fearlessly dissolve their soul in the dark depths of empiricism. Democritus' atomism is the denial of God on an intellectual level. The biologism of cynics is the denial of God at the existential level. Democritus gave birth to the "dog of Sinope"; and the “dog of Sinop” is the pig of modern liberalism. Democritus wanted to refute morality philosophically; Diogenes – with dog barking, and modern liberals – with businesslike grunting and public institutions to protect people from feelings of shame.
When a person lives by passions, he cannot rise above life, but sinks to the bottom. Passion is inseparable from oblivion about death; in passion, the sense of not only eternity, but also time is lost. Passion is self-contained and selfish; lust can exist, like earthworms underground, only in darkness, and therefore extinguishes the light of the spirit and the light of the mind.
There is a regularity in physics: the decay of a substance causes the release of thermal energy. The heat of passion is the heat of decay, the heat of decay, therefore the end of passion is the devastation of the soul, similar to the twilight of death.
Man is the image and likeness of God. He is given the task of unraveling for himself the mystery of time and death, how to enter into it, unite with it: his personal salvation depends on this. Only what is obtained through labor becomes the property of the person himself. The devil fights the memory of death as his formidable enemy. He offers lust as bait to man in order to lead him away from God. And the holy guardian angel, with the memory of death, like the ringing of a bell, awakens a person from sleep and illusions of bitter earthly happiness and the phantasmagoria of earthly immortality.
Alexander the Great bequeathed before his death to place it in the tomb so that people could see the right hand of the great conqueror with an open palm. He held half the world in his right hand, and after death he could not take anything with him: his hand with open fingers remained empty.
With the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II
From the publisher
What is an Orthodox Christian, by what signs can one be recognized in this passion-ridden world? Where is the line today between him and the pagan, who knows only one law - the law of satisfying his diverse needs; Where is the dividing line between a believer in Christ and an unbeliever, indifferent to everything that is inaccessible to his sensory perception?
“Christians,” says St. Macarius the Great, “have their own world, their own way of life, and their mind, and their word, and their activity; the way of life, and the mind, and the word, and the activity of the people of this world are different. Some are Christians, others are peace lovers; there is a great distance between the two" 1
Venerable Macarius of Egypt. Spiritual conversations. M. 1998. P. 40.
And this “distance”, the “otherness” that the monk speaks about, is in the way of thoughts and feelings. And the area of their manifestation is the attitude towards what surrounds us in this temporary life, expressed in specific, visible actions and deeds. The whole life of a “peace lover” is determined by a number of rules, the essence of which is to help him achieve certain goals that he sets for himself, often at any cost. The life of a Christian is determined by his faith in God, in future reward, and the only law for him is the law of the commandments of Christ, which themselves are eternal life(John 12:50). And here it is, the way of life of a Christian - the evangelical one, the one to which Christ Himself calls humanity.
Throughout its two-thousand-year existence, the Christian Church has experienced different times, and its position in the world has also varied. The first centuries of the history of the Church on earth are characterized primarily by the fact that between those who became the “new creation”, who had put off the “old man” and the pagan world, which, “smoldering in its deceitful lusts”, did not want to know the persecuted and tormented “Galileans”, there was a rigid border . At that time, every Christian could end his life with martyrdom at any moment, and therefore he was constantly preparing to appear before God, striving to be in holy life and piety(2 Pet. 3, 11); and the very spirit of life of the first Christians showed that they by no means had there is constant hail here, but they will only demand future(Heb. 13, 14). That pagan world, in the midst of which they lived and whose lusts they themselves had once indulged in, was disgusting to them; there could be no agreement between them and the atheism and violent depravity that reigned in this world. That is why those with whom they had just yesterday “amused themselves” with his “joys” were surprised. That is why, amazed by the holiness and purity of their new existence, their perseverance and courage in the face of persecution and torture, these people themselves increasingly turned from fierce wolves into sheep of the flock of Christ.
But then a completely different period began in the life of the Church: Christianity, until recently persecuted, turned into the state religion of the most powerful empire.
The world, although it has changed, has not been completely reborn. And love for him, which, according to the word of Scripture, there is enmity against God(James 4:4), and remained in the hearts of the majority of people living in it. And the Christians who had previously been rejected by him and who themselves did not accept his “paganism” became at the same time part of him. Thus, in the heart of the world itself, a struggle began - between the spirit of Christ and the spirit of Antichrist; Christianity sought to transform the world, sanctify, bring it to Christ, and the world sought to ground, “secularize” Christianity, transform it from a Divine institution into a kind of social and state institution that had its own moral standards, which, however, did not have to be observed. And how difficult this struggle can be concluded from the fact that more than once over the centuries the question has been heard in the Church of Christ: wasn’t it easier when the fires were burning and the swords of the Roman soldiers were shining, when the predators rushed into the arena and the spectators froze in the stands, anticipating bloody massacre of the followers of the crucified Christ?
And our time is probably even more difficult; The struggle itself is even more intricate, even more intricate - especially in present-day Russia, on all the lands connected with it by a common past, a common history. Behind us are persecutions, in their cruelty not inferior to the persecutions of the era of Decius and Diocletian. Then - decades of “anti-religious propaganda”, when the state with its entire apparatus waged a purposeful, “scientifically” organized fight against religion. And the present itself - now that the opportunity has arisen to evaluate it soberly - no longer seems at all idyllic, full of hopes for the “flourishing” of spirituality and the long-awaited “national repentance.”
What have we seen over the past few years? – Temples were opened, ancient monasteries were restored, the property taken from it was returned to the Church - with difficulty and in small doses. And at the same time, without encountering obstacles or difficulties, what is called in Scripture rapidly and uncontrollably entered our lives the mystery of lawlessness in action(2 Thess. 2:7): theft on an unprecedented scale, endless political intrigue, cynicism and cruelty, a merciless struggle for a place in the sun between both the “strong” and the “weak” of this world, military conflicts and the massive loss of life encountered (already!) indifference of society, horrific immorality and depravity - this is the reality that surrounds us today. And this is the background against which the Church is being reborn...
By the grace of God, many today (although their flow has thinned recently) are turning to Christ, repentance and correction of life are becoming a pressing need for people. But it is difficult, very difficult in our time for a person who has just decided to live a new – Christian – life. He comes from an environment in which militant unbelief or “willful oblivion” of God reigned; he enters the Church from a semi-pagan world - and remains in its very midst. And how can he understand, how can he feel in his heart that now for him “there is a different world, a different meal, different clothes, different pleasure, different communication, a different way of thinking” 2
Venerable Macarius of Egypt. Spiritual conversations. P. 57.
When is he still completely in captivity of the old world, under the power of its customs, habits, passions? Everything seems so “familiar” - and what I'm ashamed to say(Eph. 5:12), and what to talk about is simply scary. A man came to the Church, his heart is drawn to his Creator God, but it has not yet awakened from sleep, it is still lukewarm, and he does not yet realize that the whole life of a Christian is a struggle, that his path is along a thin thread stretched over an abyss, where temptations left and right and danger everywhere. But without this understanding there is no salvation, no true life in Christ. Therefore, it is necessary to know, to understand what it is, “the spirit of this age,” and at the same time to determine your place in this world, to understand whether you are really with Christ, or whether only your lips confess Him, and your heart is far away, given into power dead interests and affairs (Matt. 15:8).
But our “sleep” is strong and deep, and that’s why we constantly need someone to “awaken” us, point out the dangers around us, warn us, talk about them, teach us to avoid them. And at the same time, it reminded us of the bright and unfading truth of Christ, of the indescribable joy of life with Him; that we, people, were created by God only for Him and only in Him do we find the fullness of existence and happiness, and therefore it does not suit us to hopelessly drown in the joys and sorrows of the earth.
This book by Archimandrite Raphael (Karelin) is such a sobering reminder, sometimes bitter. Perhaps what he reads about in it will seem scary to someone, but this is the background of our life, the reality that surrounds us, in which we exist - and at the same time we do not see it. And the author does not talk about it in order to terrify his reader, to awe him; it only makes it possible to consider, find out what it is, and correctly evaluate it. Fear and despair are feelings that are unacceptable and inappropriate in the life of a Christian. Yes, indeed, our time is the time when the Savior’s bitterest prophecies come true: faith fades (Luke 18:8), love grows cold (Matthew 24:12). But as before, the light of Christ enlightens every person coming into the world, as before, the Church of Christ stands on earth, invincible to the gates of hell until the last day of this world, and in it is the Lord Himself, merciful and saving, loving the righteous and correcting sinners. And that is why, along with the formidable word of reproof, Fr. Raphael and the meek call to eternal life, to the Heavenly Kingdom open to us - a call that the human heart hears and responds to.
Part I
Man is a mysterious creature...
Man is a mysterious creature. It's a combination of opposites. He is both great and insignificant; he has inner freedom and in this sense is the shadow of the Divine on earth - and at the same time entangled, like a thin web, by his passions, habits that have become his nature, the powerful demands of the proud and godless world, the demonic power of sin, which deprive him of his will, make him a medium of dark forces and attractions. A man struggles helplessly in this web.
The earth in the ocean of space is a speck of dust. Strange creatures crawl on the surface of this speck of dust. They are in constant restlessness, excitement and struggle with each other. And at the same time, these one-day creatures, lost in the corner of the universe, feel that they have a great mission, that they are the rulers of this vast world. On earth, life is presented in various forms, and all animals are happy with their existence, only one person is not satisfied with anything. He is always yearning for something, for some loss. He feels the falsity of his life, although he does not know another; Only a king who has lost his kingdom can grieve like this. Someone born in prison does not know freedom, and therefore cannot yearn for it.
Life on earth has its own cruel laws, man is conditioned by them. In this respect, he is an object of this world, he is influenced by the environment and under the influence of external forces. And at the same time he feels internally free; he feels responsible for his actions in the face of the highest Truth. And here is a paradox: if a person is free as a supreme supermundane being, then why is he given over to the power of physical and other laws? Why does he live in the destructive stream of time and the sword of Damocles of death hangs over him? And if he is a creature similar to other creatures, then where does he get a moral sense and conscience? Where does the feeling of your former greatness and some tragic loss come from?
A person lives simultaneously in two worlds: external and internal. His body is similar to the body of other animals, only perhaps weaker and more fragile than that of animals, but man has something that distinguishes him from all creatures, which makes his life not only cosmic, but also supracosmic. His spiritual essence is not measured in terms of time and space. In terms of its material structure, man is a phenomenon of the cosmos. It is determined by thousands of cause-and-effect relationships: a spark that flew from the bowels of the earth and went out in the darkness of the cosmic night. But his spirit has other dimensions, it is supramundane and therefore greater than the cosmos itself. Usually a person is called a microcosm; this concept was passed down from ancient philosophers. But in fact, the human soul is a macrocosm that is larger than all the universes taken together.
There is a phenomenon called pain. A living body hurts, a dead body does not feel pain. And at the same time, pain is a life-saving signal that the body is in danger. A person’s disappointment in this world, mental pain indicate that a person is moral and at the same time that his life, aimed only at the external, is false. The experience of all history has proven that a person can find happiness only in God, only in God does his true life begin. Here on earth there is no happiness, here is the life of a worm feeding on dust.
St. Augustine wrote that only “the abyss of the Divine can fill the abyss of the human heart.” This abyss of the human heart is greater than all cosmic spaces, deeper than the black pits of the universe, greater than all cosmic creations taken together, greater than the very principle of being and non-existence. The abyss of the human heart is God-likeness, therefore the ephemeral worm crawling on the earth - a grain of sand in the cosmos, in its spiritual aspect is the ruler of the entire universe and a particle of the world that lies beyond its borders.
A person simultaneously feels like a free master of his existence and a slave being sold on the slave market of this world. He feels that freedom is the highest value, but rarely understands what freedom is. You cannot be free in the outside world, where time and death reign - this is an illusion. Most of humanity has strived and strives for such freedom, but only receives disappointment and bitterness from even greater losses. What is considered freedom - external freedom - turns into passions and rivalry, that is, into a new type of slavery, only turned inside out. True freedom is independence from external things. The highest manifestation of freedom is prayer as an appeal to the Divine.
The absolute life of the Divine is the highest, true and only freedom, and only through inclusion in it can a person’s life become free, the rest is an illusion and a mirage.
King and prophet David said: Only in God does my soul rest(Ps. 61:2). He owned the kingdom, was loved by the people, won brilliant victories over his enemies, but only in God did he find peace of heart and spaciousness of inner freedom. Evil does not just rape a person, it deceives a person, putting on the mask of “good”. One of Satan's deceptions is to distract man from God through false good; close his inner world, leave him to live in the outer world. The words are often repeated in church: servant of God. These words annoy many modern people, they even shock them. Meanwhile, they contain enormous potential for freedom. A slave belongs to only one master, who bought him from a slave trader. To be a servant of God means to stop being a slave to people, to stop feeling dependent on people, to throw off these invisible chains; accept good from man as good from God, accomplished through man, and be grateful to God, and accept evil from man as punishment from God, carried out through man for our salvation, therefore also thank God. In everything we see the good will of God being done to us, and look at people as tools and means for embodying the will of God and realizing Divine providence for us. Therefore, one should equally neither become attached to people to the point of a slave, nor have enmity towards them. The words servant of God mean that we should not have anyone as slaves and not demand anything from a person, even the one closest to us. The rule of not being either a master or a slave opens a way for a person to his own soul, pulls him out of the cycle of the world. Accepting everything from people as from God, we ourselves must do for a person as we would for Christ the Savior, who invisibly abides in him, and therefore do not expect gratitude from anyone. If we expect gratitude from a person, then we make him dependent on ourselves, and our goodness turns into enslavement. If we always remembered that everything we do for a person is accepted by God, then all our actions would take on a mystical meaning, metaphysical depth.
The first condition on the path to spiritual freedom is to surrender yourself and your loved ones to God in a moment of danger. The second is to have the correct scale of values: do not confuse the secondary with the primary. We often waste time, ours and others', on unnecessary or empty things. But even a good deed becomes a sin if, for the sake of it, the most important thing is forgotten and not fulfilled - as if a sentry left his post and went to work the field. The main thing in a person’s life is the acquisition of the grace of the Holy Spirit. This light will not only illuminate our lives and our souls, but will become a source of life for others. That's why the Bible says: The will of God is your sanctification(1 Thess. 4:3). The greatest benefactor for a person is the one who opened this light to him, who awakened his spirit. Compared to this, worldly virtues are steps lower. We often replace grace with a surrogate, a fake: affection, tenderness, excessive attention; we joke and entertain a person, thinking by this to show our love for him. But if we remained in prayer, then grace, even without our words, would comfort our neighbor. Therefore, asceticism in ancient times was perceived not as individual salvation of a person, but as the highest form of good for all humanity, and monasticism - the acquisition of the Holy Spirit - was understood not as self-centeredness or a disdainful attitude towards the world, but as a sacrifice for people. Therefore, the highest form of goodness, the highest feat, and the most difficult and intense one, is entering one’s inner world with prayer, awakening the heart and turning the spirit to God through the words of prayer. Prayer is the resuscitation of the human heart, the transition from the kingdom of death to the kingdom of life. Prayer involves work and pain, especially at the beginning. But when a patient awakens from oblivion or fainting, he feels pain. Without pain there is no return to life. To live means to awaken the heart, to make it feel, think and speak. Among the Holy Fathers, the word “heart” often serves as a synonym for soul. A person lives as much as his heart is involved in life.
About the Church and Schism
Question. What is the Church?
Answer. The most profound, significant and, we would say, comprehensive definition was given by the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians: The Church is the Body of Christ the Savior, the Head who fills all in all(Eph. 1:22).
Question. What does this definition mean? What properties of the Church does it speak about?
Answer. The Church is a living organism. This is the grace of God, which embraces all rational creatures who are in grace through obedience, submission and devotion to it. The Church is eternal and divine, like the action of eternal Divine energies, like light pouring from the depths of the Trinitarian Deity. And at the same time, the Church was created, since it embraces the creations of God, created in time. The purpose of the Church is to realize unity between the Creator and His creation, to elevate the world from its limited and conditional existence into the freedom and fullness of Divine life, into the participation of Divine perfections.
The Church is the Body of Christ, therefore, it is one both in the earthly and in the cosmic dimensions. In the Psalter, the cosmos is compared to a robe - the clothing of the Divine, and in the New Testament the Church is called the mystical Body of Christ the Savior. The Holy Fathers say that the Lord created the Universe for the sake of the Church.
So, the first property is the uniqueness of the Church.
Second, the Church is world-wide and universal. The Earthly Church is organically united with the Heavenly Church. Through the Church, the duality (dyad) of spirit and matter is overcome, and the cosmos is spiritualized in its future transformation. The Church is the Body of the Head, the One who embraces everything. Consequently, the path to the Heavenly Church lies only through the earthly one, or rather, these are two aspects of one Church. The Church is a living organism, and a living organism cannot be created artificially. It is impossible to create a living cell artificially in a laboratory from the chemical elements of the cell, and it is also impossible to create a new Church artificially on the basis of dogmas, canons, rituals and the totality of what we know about the Church. All these will be dead theoretical constructs, mannequins and dolls, devoid of life. The Christian Church is not a creation of human intellect or even religious genius, but eternal life given by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
The incorruptible Head has an incorruptible Body, therefore the Church is not subject to death or birth. She is one and the same, and in Divine grace she is identical to herself!
The Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews compares the Church with the Heavenly Jerusalem, where angels and the souls of the righteous dwell together.
Question. What other definitions of the Church are found in the New Testament?
Answer. The Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians says that the Church is the “Bride of Christ.” The image of the Church-Bride is the main content of the Old Testament book “Song of Songs,” which ancient exegetes compared with the holy of holies of the Old Testament temple.
Question. What does this symbol mean?
Answer. Eternal, complete, unchanging, unshakable love of the Divine for His Church.
The Bride is the only love of her heavenly Bridegroom. She is a joint heir of His greatness and glory. According to the Hieromartyr Cyprian, only the Church is promised the kingdom of eternal light, eternal communion with God. The Song of Songs says: You are beautiful, my beloved, and there is no spot on you(Song. 4, 7). Beautiful is the grace of God that dwells in the Church; souls in which grace is infused become beautiful and angel-like. The bride is the only one. Those “others” who want to steal her name are only pathetic harlots; she is the beloved. A person can change his love, but the love of God is stronger than hell and death - it is unchangeable. There is no stain or blemish in the Church, since the Church is, first of all, an invisible force that transforms the world. Sunlight, illuminating the earth, remains pure, even if its rays fall into swamps and cesspools.
There are mysterious words in the Song of Songs: Place me like a seal on your heart, like a ring on your hand.(Song. 8, 6). The seal is a sign of indelible love. The Church is always in the memory of God, in the light of His truth. When we say: it is close to the heart, we mean the closest spiritual unity, one soul is, as it were, reflected in another. The royal seal cannot be erased, cannot be destroyed, distorted or replaced. The Church is one. Another church is already a counterfeit seal, it is a crime against the “Bride of Christ”, it is a lie against the promise of Divine love.
On June 6, 2003, on Friday, at 4 o’clock in the morning, the perspicacious Elder Monk John, known to thousands of believers, reposed in the Lordpeople like sick Vasily from the village of Elizarovo, Solonyansky districtin the Dnepropetrovsk region, a recluse in the world.
February 17, 1930 in the village. Elizarovo, Dnepropetrovsk region, was born the future monk John (sick Vasily), whose childhood occurred during the war years.
In 1942, the ground was littered with bomb fragments. War does not decide who to wound. Although the trenches were already overgrown with grass. The adults tried to avoid the battlefields, but the children had not yet learned to be afraid. After one of the warm May rains, on May 22, twelve-year-old Vasily Shvidun took out a cow to graze.
The fuse from a grenade flashed in the emerald green spring grass. And the boy tried to take it apart. The fuse exploded with a blinding flash. And then pitch darkness and pain came. Many years later, remembering that day, he dictated the following lines:
While the boy was being taken to the hospital, he could still see a little out of one eye. At the hospital, the stuck fragment was removed from the eye, and the faint twilight turned into night. The other eye had to be removed altogether. The sun went out, but he still didn’t want to believe it.
He groped, groping with his hands first for the back of the chair, then for the bed, and stubbornly made his way to the window. He strained his ears, trying to hear his peers walking down the street in sighted life and talking loudly. Everything remained as it was for them, but in an instant his life changed dramatically. It seemed completely unclear how to live now.
And time passed and strung year after year, like the beads of a rosary. The parents were looking for something to do for their son. And since the boy loved music very much, they bought him an accordion. He quickly mastered musical literacy by touch and played for a long time, selecting melodies. And when he got older, his fellow villagers began to invite him to play at weddings. Here is financial support for parents, albeit small.
One day - Vasily was then twenty-five years old - he and his partner went to a wedding in a neighboring village.
“Those were hard times. Well, I didn’t go to the dance, but to the club. There were weddings early in the day. Music without words. There was another guy with me. I played separately, he played separately. He was jealous that for those I played at weddings, the Lord sent a Blessing and there was a strong marriage. He became jealous and one day he said: “Let me walk you home.” As we walked, there were bomb craters after the war. He left me on the edge of the abyss and said: “We have already arrived.” I took a step and fell and injured myself. I got scared. Started to cry. There was no one. I began to pray: “Lord, help me! Mother of God, help!” I saw a beautiful, extraordinary woman who pulled me out of the hole, brought me home and said: “Don’t leave the house anywhere else, people will come to you.” It was hard at first. Then the Lord gave Grace. The Mother of God said: “The Lord will reveal everything. You will tell people everything.”
The Mother of God Herself brought him home. On September 27, 1956, on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in the 26th year of his life, Monk John went into seclusion at home.
On April 12, 1986, on the day of remembrance of the Venerable John Climacus, the ill Vasily was tonsured a monk and received a new name during his tonsure - John, in honor of the Venerable John Climacus. The tonsure was performed in the cell where the Elder Monk John labored. And he became a monk with God, probably long before he was tonsured. For 47 years, Vasily, who was ill, did not go outside, staying day and night in his small modest cell.
But shutting himself off from the world, until the last day of his life he did not close himself off from people: he patiently listened to everyone, taught instructions, called for fervent prayer, had compassion and sympathy for everyone in grief, and rejoiced in joy and thanked God. For many, it truly was a spiritual ladder to heaven. On the day of the 30th anniversary of his tonsure, Archimandrite Raphael said the following words in his sermon: “The Elder Monk John spent so many years in seclusion, he was a seer, he also instructed us. Today is his memorial day. His tonsure was carried out in honor of the Monk John Climacus, so let us be inspired by these good images of life and antiquity, like John Climacus,who lived in the 7th century and through the exploits of the Elder Monk John, who is very close, not as far as Mount Sinai. Let us be inspired by both antiquity and modernity. The elder taught that the most important happiness is in God, but we forget about it and put it off for later.”
AND An extraordinary person lived next to us, lived in the same time with us, breathed the same air, like no one else knew our needs and sorrows.
People who were drawn to God rode to the Elder, covering thousands of kilometers, and those who did not want to obey the Elder ran away.thousands of kilometers, looking for false prophets who would have itching ears(2 Tim. 4:3).
From the memoirs of Archimandrite Raphael: “As soon as I had the opportunity, I went not home, but to my spiritual father, the elder monk John. The train arrived at six o'clock in the morning, at such an early time I did not want to disturb the Elder: he had been praying all night. I quietly read my prayer rule at an empty station, then went to the Elder, and he met me at the threshold with the words: “I’ve been waiting for you!” The Lord sends prophets like the Elder once every hundred years. For our region this was the greatest gift of God. The lives of those people who obeyed the Elder were illuminated by grace, showing the path to follow.
Archimandrite Raphael labored in the Odessa Monastery. Due to his health, climatic and environmental conditions were ideally suited to the priest. The senior leadership offered Father a teaching chair, to be the abbot of another monastery, but after the blessing words of his Spiritual Father, Elder Monk John: “Father, you are needed here,” Father left ministry in the city of Odessa and returned to the Dnepropetrovsk region on August 10, 1996: for the feast of the icon. Mother of God "Hodegetria" ("Guide"). The heavenly beauty of nature, the climate, the proximity of the sea are left behind. Only through humble obedience to the Spiritual Father and devotion to the will of God did the Lord give us a savior for the drowning.
At the monastery, Father was offered the position of “chief engineer” and teacher, and Elder Monk John said: “You could do this in the world, but the Lord called you to preach the Word of God. You have the gift of words." Father's sermons penetrated deeply into the hearts and souls of those who heard them. The sermons were understandable to everyone.
Happiness is Christ. And when my spiritual father Elder Monk John blessed me to become a monk, I was ready,” said Father.
As Archimandrite Raphael recalled about his spiritual father, the Elder, the monk John: “I often came to the Elder for instructions and advice. After the end of the conversation, the Elder asked: “Father, bless.” I blessed with a small cross, and the Elder, according toIn his clairvoyance he said: “Father, bless you with the great Cross.” It is rightly said that “the heart gives news to the heart.”
How he prayed! He received people during the day, and stood on his knees all night. Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures was given by the Holy Spirit. Advising those who needed his help to read this or that chapter from the Bible, a psalm, he opened the book exactly on the page where they were printed. And I was never wrong. He knew the location of monasteries, temples, especially his beloved Pochaev Lavra, howas if he had spent many years there. He even knew where each icon hung. He lived and navigated the world invisible to us as calmly and confidently as we do in our own apartment.
For 61 years, until his death, Elder Monk John never complained or grumbled about the weight of the cross, which he bore in patience and humility throughout his suffering and ascetic life. He acquired such strength and strength, such courage with that fiery, often kneeling, tearful prayer that he performed day and night. Talking with people who came (and there were thousands of them), he strengthened them in faith and called on them to thank God for the sacred gift of life. Everyone who came to him could be convinced that “The Lord makes the blind wise.” With his living word, Elder Monk John saw into the heart of man and warned of the disastrous consequences of unrepentant sinners. Many, thanks to his instructions and prayers, came to the Orthodox faith, began to go to church and fulfill the commandments of God.
He called on believers to be faithful children of the holy Orthodox canonical Church, to preserve the unity of the Church commanded by the Lord, and not to communicate with sectarians, schismatics, heretics, psychics, and sorcerers. You can read about all this in his poems and testaments.
In 1992, the Elder warned about the schismatic Filaret Denisenko: “Don’t be surprised that there will be more of them.” At that time it seemed unrealistic and some “smart guys” said: “This can’t happen!” And the time has come - everything came true before our eyes. Father warned: “It doesn’t matter who sings. The funeral service and all the demands that Filaret’s members perform are not valid with God.”
Filaret’s people perform all the Sacraments: they baptize, and seal the dead, and get married - all this is not real. There is a photo fact as confirmation of their blasphemy. When the child was baptized by Filaret, it appeared in the photograph that the child was given a demon instead of an Angel. Filaret’s members disguise themselves: when they need to, they serve in Church Slavonic, and when they need to, in Ukrainian.
And now we are convinced of the Elder’s prediction and as Father confirmed: Orthodox churches are being captured, and Orthodox priests are being beaten and killed.
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“Spiritual matters are decided, They raise their glasses to the sky, Denis shows his fist, And conscience falls to the bottom. But they don’t go to church to repent, They hurry and run to the sorcerers, They shun everything holy They sin and do not fear God. Think, friend, come to your senses, Your course is dangerous! Change it! So that you don't fall into the clutches of a lion, Like a poor hare drunk. Strengthen yourself in the right faith, Beware of his seal Understand all his cunning, Don’t trade PARADISE for stew.” |
Father always believed the words of the Elder, but there were such “smart guys” who did not believe and doubted, ridiculedThe Elder’s predictions said: “When can this happen?!”
Some cunning people said: “We will take the codes, but we will not accept the seal of the Antichrist. The elder said to this: “By accepting the code, Grace departs and the person will accept everything. This is a lifelong number, a ticket to hell.”
When believers raised questions about the codes, the clergy, including Patriarch Alexy and John Krestyankin, misled people - they forced them to accept the codes by order. And the Elder Monk John said: “Do not listen to John the Peasant, but read John the Theologian. We don’t refuse taxes, otherwise it affects our souls. Their Masonic idea is moving forward.
The elder monk John of Elizarov prophesied: “The wicked will penetrate the Church, seize the high ranks (Bishops) and will say: “Serve not God, but us.” But their blessings are powerless and their anathemas are not terrible.” They persecuted Christ Himself, they persecuted the Apostles, they persecuted Christians of all times. The devil said, “My people are everywhere.” Truth is always persecuted, but the Lord said: “Fear not, little flock.” Elder Monk John, even during the life of Father Raphael, said: “God is with us.” He said: “Now there are many clergy who will betray the faith of their fathers, heap awards on themselves, crosses, and then the Mother of God removes them.”
Father paid attention to the words of the elder monk John of his spiritual father: “No one remembers the rules of the Holy Fathers. God's punishment is the third World War. How will the war be saved more than in such a world? I don’t remember the Ecumenical Councils, the Holy Fathers.”
The elder advised reading from the 13th to the 17th chapters of John the Theologian. And he spoke for himself: “When they didn’t take the code, they didn’t give the coal to the Old Man. They sold it themselves and drank it away. What will you do with what you received? I don’t say that it’s all about printing, it’s all about preparation. They immediately said, “We’ll take just a few of the cool ones,” but now it’s come to the point where we have to register newborns too.”
Together with Father Archimandrite Raphael, Abbot Georgy (in the world Valery) came to the Elder. George's goal was to make a career and he wanted to become a Bishop at any cost. Hecame to the Elder and, in order to justify his vile actions, began to list the Rules of the Holy Fathers, which he himself had violated, and snitched on others: “And don’t be surprised when you hear that I moved to a foreign church (after the reunification of the RussianThe Orthodox Church with the Russian Orthodox Church abroad did not calm down and moved to the “true foreign church” sect). During the conversation, the Elder was silent, and in conclusion he warned: “Just think carefully!!!” But the Elder did not say anything to Father - he was sure that he would not go down that path.
Subsequently, George was punished for a number of offenses, but he did not resign himself and moved to the “truly foreign church,” where he received the rank of Bishop. During the nextDuring the visit, the Elder said to Father: “And Georgy Pishov follows the Catholic path.”
Many came to the Elder not to hear the Will of God, but then to beg, to beg for their desire. For example: one person wanted to be a priest and came to the Elder for a blessing (because everyone wants to become a priest). He sat the whole day, waiting to be received, but the Elder never accepted him, because the Elder did not receive those who would not hear the Will of God anyway anddoes things his own way. At the end of the day, the Elder conveyed through his novice: “Give it to your robe as you wish.” And this man heard what he wanted to hear, and in fact it was not a blessing. Subsequently, this man boasted that he had received a blessing for the priesthood from the Elder Himself, but in reality was this the Elder’s blessing?!
Another example. Archimandrite Raphael came to the Elder and met Archpriest A., who said that the Elder blessed him to enter the theological academy and work on the construction of the temple. Father Raphael loved to study, so he asked the Elder: “Maybe I should enter the theological academy?” and heard the answer: “There’s no need, because in the academy you lose everything you got inseminars. Those who study in the seminary breathe in crumbs from the Throne, and those who are in the academy blow them from the Throne.”
And there were many such examples.
About the construction, the Elder said that in recent times, Filaret’s people are seizing churches, the domes will shine, but it will be impossible to go there. There is no need to start construction, but only need to repair and maintain it in order.
From the memoirs of R.B. Svetlana from Dneprodzerzhinsk: “I traveled all over the world, as they say, “both Crimea and Rome.” Where have I not been carried by evil spirits! The soul searched and found no peace. I prayed and cried. The Lord led me to my Spiritual father, then Hieromonk Raphael. From him I first learned about the Elder Monk John of Elizarovo. I asked Father about my needs. He answered me, but still blessed me to go to the Elder Monk John. And thanks to Father, there was a miraculous meeting with the Elder, which will connect me with him for all subsequent years.
February 17th is the Elder's birthday. In 1998, I went to see him for the first time. Near the Elder’s cell, I felt calm. The elder accepted me and, seeing my desire for God, pointed out the only true path to salvation, blessed me to go only to Father Raphael: “Father, keep the faith until the end.” The elder was the greatest Holy man, possessing the gifts of deep insight, prophecy and the gift of consolation. Everything he prophesied came true in my life. Everything comes true down to the smallest detail. Now I go to the grave of both the Elder and Father Raphael. And no matter what I ask, they help and console me in everything. Even such a simple case. I got on the train (go tograve, it started to rain. I arrived and the rain stopped. I prayed and asked Father for help. I got ready to leave, got on the train -and it started to rain again. After a trip to the Holy Saints, I had an unprecedented profit, despite the fact that trade was going badly.”
Here is another example of the Elder’s foresight, which our Father spoke about. During one of Father’s visits to the Elder, he was an eyewitness to how three people came to the Elder, hisassistant Lyuba really asked to accept them. The perspicacious Elder did not want to accept them, seeing that they did not come for spiritual instructions. The elder said: “It seems to me that I have been spoiled, but I don’t spoil or spoil anyone. If someone else has a stomach ache, don’t forget to go to the doctor and get treatment. And for the third time, they cannot live at the same time, whether they should marry or go to a monastery. Let Father come out and tell me.” When Father Raphael came out to these people, it was as the Elder had predicted: one said that he was “broken,” another complained of stomach pain, and still others held hands and could not decide whether to get married or go to a monastery. . The priest conveyed to them the words of the Elder that they need to read prayers and repent - otherwise demons have access to a person’s heart. The patient needs to go to the hospital. And, like a monk, the Elder does not bless either marriage orgetting married - the last times. The visitors were dissatisfied with the answer; foreseeing this, the Elder did not want to accept them.
Father gave advice to his children and, in his humility, he also sent them to the Elder - the Elder’s answers confirmed Father’s words. The elder spoke about Father: “A very humble bastard.” Without arguing at all. The Lord revealed everything to me, not relying on himself, but coming to me and asking.”
Father had all the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and his boldness towards God was so great that he always received everything he asked for, but he was so humble that he said: “This is all my Elder,” added: “Pray to the Elder,” he always called for reading the prophetic verses of the Elder: “The elder said and predicted everything. But not everyone wants to see and hear this.”
“Elder Monk John showed the Divine Light of Tabor! It was the meeting with the Holy Elder that clarified the direction of spiritual life within me. From that time on I was guided by this Light. I won’t say what I saw, but maybe I just heard some particle. But this was enough later, in the future, to later distinguish Light from darkness. For the Elder (the sick Vasily) is not a philosopher, not a “smart guy,” but he is an ascetic with a purified heart, a vesselgrace of the Divine and Light. And all the “smart guys” who came to him never saw or heard anything. With that proud moodand they left without understanding anything, for “God resists the proud, but gives Grace to the humble.” There are two known Johns: John Krestyankin is a smart guy. And there is a humble Elder - the monk John. The first is like Varlaam: clever. And the second is a student of St. Gregory Palamas.
The first became so clever that he began to bless the codes, and by the end of his life the Lord took away his mind. And Elder Monk John had only to take the plastic card in his hands and he said: “There is no Grace of God on it.” (sermon by Archimandrite Raphael).
During the week “About the Blind,” Father Raphael said during his sermon: “Illness is not always for sins, sometimes there are cases with God that through blindness, through some other misfortune, the Lord reveals His mercy, His Grace. The Lord shows us miracles. We know that there was an Elder Blind Monk John. We know what his life was like. He lost his sight, his physical vision - but it was not just like that. Then the Mother of God appeared to him and said: “Thus, the Lord commands you to be in seclusion and you will save people.”
That is, the blind man became spiritually sighted, far-sighted, and perspicacious. And how many people came to him to askspiritual advice. He guided them all. Those who carried out his will without guile only thanked God for such a spiritual mentor because he was a holy son of God with a small letter - all saints are sons and daughters of God. And for obedience the Lord sends Great Gifts to His saints. And the Lord consoled the Elder, as if he were his own son, because it was really difficult to endure such a difficult test - blindness. The grace of God consoled the Elder and he was always joyful. No one had ever seen the Elder sad, sad, although he was in a terrible situation.
This is a lesson for us. We do not know the ways of God. We should not grumble against the Lord or blame Him. We shouldn’t be dissatisfied with anything – the Lord sends everything for the better.
Father Archimandrite Raphael had Grace, but he always said that everything is given through the prayers of the Elder. Father had confidence in the Lord and the Lord answered him, but Father hid it and said that everything was my Elder, his prayers.
The elder is still with us. Hears, sees and helps everyone who with faith and repentance asks for help at the grave, people receive consolation and relief. This is not accidental, it is the Lord who gives a chance to those who are still able to hear the Elder’s call to repentance, to repent and be saved.
Elder Monk John, the great elder in Heaven, is a prayer book for us: for our destinies, for our souls. Great saint of God!
How wonderful it would be if we were simply novices to this Elder. After all, you can come to the Elder and be either interlocutors, or fortune tellers, or annoying. What if we were novices! The Monk Seraphim of Sarov said: “Save yourself and thousands around you will be saved.” There is no doubt that the Elder was saved and his soul is now before God. And the Lord reveals His Divine Light with His wondrous miracles and shows how all the dates of the Elder associated with his life and death participate in our lives in an extraordinary way. The Lord through him conveys the Blessing to us and we see that the Elder is really with us, as he promised.
I repeat - how great it would be if everyone were novices. The elder was saved and thousands around him must be saved. But in this case, if we are novices and not annoying flies. The Elder in Heaven prays and his Divine Grace accompanies us everywhere: everyone whobelieves in him and cherishes the word of the Elder, he feels it in his heart. The elder helps even those whom, perhaps, fate did not bring to him in this life, but believes in his word. And the Lord will send His Grace and Mercy. I always told you: “Pray, ask the Elder!” After all, this fallen world is trying to erase everything good, consign it to oblivion, but pushes everything bad forward, imposes it, so that we forget the words of the Elder. This should not happen to us, brothers and sisters! We need to make an effort on ourselves, and this effort must begin with our prayers, with the prayer rule, with our repentance. Then the Elder will be our travel companion and interlocutor, and assistant in all our affairs. The elder will come and strengthen us, and then we will be his novices.
Some say: “But it doesn’t help me.” The Elder does not help those who betrayed their Faith, who forgot their Faith, who forgot the feat in Faith, standing in Faith does not help them! And it helps me!
Just as during the life of his saint, he did not help those who were cunning and cunning, so he does not help now! And to those who listened, he always helped and helps in everything! As long as what we want is pleasing to God.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, let us not weaken in the Faith! Let us strengthen ourselves in the Faith! You see for yourself what Grace and joy there is today! This joy cannot be faked; it is inside. Christ Said: “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” And now the Voice of the Holy Spirit Speaks here!
May the Lord bless you through the Elder! May the Elder help us all in our difficult life!
And now the Great Prayer Books of our land - Holy Archimandrite Raphael and Elder Monk John help and hear every call for help. Having this rich gift, we need not to be scanty in our petitions. To ask the Lord, beg and relentlessly cry: Lord, through the prayers of the Holy Archimandrite Raphael and the Venerable Monk of Elizarov, forgive our sins!
The Lord calls to His Kingdom of Heaven those who have a contrite and humble heart. Humility is complete submission to one’s will, to human will – to the will of God (according to the teachings of St. Archimandrite Raphael). Remembering teachers and mentors, marveling at their exploits of life according to the words of the Apostle Paul, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” Thus, through the feat of their lives, they surrendered to the will of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Holy Archimandrite
Raphael and St. John said: “Imitate me, as I imitated the Lord Jesus Christ in my life.” The Lord granted all gifts - the gift of healing, the gift of clairvoyance and prophecy. This is evidence that we have achieved holiness in this life. Diseases in which science and medicine are powerless (cancer tumors, blood cancer, diabetes, infertility), people driven to despair and left alone with their misfortune find consolation and receive healing.
One priest brought a sick child from his parish with a diagnosis of blood cancer, for whose treatment everything was spentproperty and who did not receive help anywhere. The child was healed at the grave of Holy Archimandrite Raphael.
And if we repent, correct ourselves sincerely and not deceitfully, the Lord will send His mercy. Otherwise: the slave who knew the Will of his Master will be beaten, but the one who did not know will be beaten less. Let us not make excuses that we didn’t know, didn’t hear, didn’t tell us, when a lot of evidence confirms and confirms that, just as in life, we have intercessors and prayer books in heaven: the Holy Archimandrite Raphael and the Elder Monk John.
“The Orthodox of recent times will be saved only in the standing of the Orthodox Faith” (Holy Archimandrite Raphael). It was Holy Archimandrite Raphael who preserved the purity of the Orthodox faith and defendedand preached it. Likewise, the Elder Monk John called in his poems to preserve the Orthodox Faith and preserve its purity. The Lord, through His prophets, calls to the remnant of the Orthodox – preserve the Orthodox Faith to the end!
Let us pray and ask the Holy Saints of God for mercy to the Lord, for an extension of days for repentance. We will devote the remaining time to becoming worthy followers of our spiritual mentors Holy Archimandrite Raphael and Elder Monk John, our Holy Fathers, who passed before us and showed us the way.
Holy Fathers, pray to God for us sinners!
COME TO:
February 7, 2017 is the day of the earthly birth of the Elder, the Spiritual Father of Archimandrite Raphael;
April 7, 2017 - Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos, ordination to the holy rank of deacon;
At 11 o'clock, the village of Yelezarovo, Solonyansky district, CHAPEL.
