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The term "spirituality" is used in various senses. in the broadest, it defines the loftiest moral and intellectual qualities of man in his relation to God and to nature, to himself and to his fellow-men. In social or cultural life, spirituality in this sense finds expression in the philosophy, art, and ethic of a nation or of a civilization. Wordsworth or Keats, for example, is highly representative of English spirituality as it is expressed in the Romantic Movement of the nineteenth century.

In its stricter, or narrower, connotation, spirituality is applied to the religious life in its innermost and deepest strata, the life with God and all spiritual experiences arising from this source. Prayer is the center, the core, of spirituality - and this is true not of mystical prayer alone. As a matter of fact, mysticism as the experience of union with God (a feature of many religions besides Christianity) is a rare phenomenon in religious life. It is true, of course, that the spiritual energies generated by this prayer of union do not remain sealed in the cell of the contemplative saint but diffuse themselves, sometimes fructifying very remote areas in the civilized world of his age. The spiritual influences exerted by St. Francis and St. Teresa are historical examples of this, and in our own day a non-Christian, Eastern mysticism, emanating from India, is seeping into an English literature lately emancipated from the Puritan tradition, with results not wholly salutary. Nevertheless the most powerful influence upon a people is exercised, not by the mystical, but by the common kind of prayer, by the attitude of the ordinary man towards God, in his prayer and in his moral life. Here also the saints, the heroically spiritual, are leaders; but chiefly such of them as stand on common ground with the men of their time; who can share more or less freely their spiritual experience with their fellow-men.

Spirituality, even in the specific religious sense, is not confined to prayer but embraces the whole world-outlook of the individual, particularly the ethical code which his religious experience inspires. In the art of the best epochs of civilization, religious spirituality is reflected; its rays, although gradually weakened, penetrate into the densest strata of social life, into political movements, popular customs, the wisdom of the common man, folk-lore. But, of course, in these exterior strata spirituality encounters the ponderous resistance of material forces and very often is distorted by them. Indeed there has never been a Christian civilization in the full meaning of the word - that is, not as an endeavor, but as a realization. It is different in the case of a natural, or pagan, religion. The outgrowth of physical environment and tribal custom, it reflects, in its very deficiencies, the impact of natural and social forces; and in that it is fully conformed to its environment, it exerts the more powerful influence. A pagan civilization always presents a more harmonious unity than does a Christian civilization. Christian society is ever the arena of a struggle for domination between Christian and pagan, or secular, forces. Yet this struggle has not as its end the annihilation of the natural forces opposed to Christian principles, for grace does not destroy nature, but transforms it. The Christian Church, coming to a newly converted people, does not efface the character of this people as a collective personality, but, after a period of sharp conflict with the forces of paganism, accepts all those elements which are reconcilable with Christian dogma and ethic. With baptism, or the influx of grace, a new national personality comes into being, different from all others and reflecting in all its Christian manifestations the prc-Christian culture. And of course, side by side with the national inheritance, purified and transformed by Christianity, live many survivals of rude paganism which, although endangering ethical practice, are yet capable of a mighty creative unfolding in the culture of a nation, particularly in her art. Thus, in both its Christian (conquering) and pagan (yielding) elements, the spiritual life of a nation is a clue to the understanding of her culture.

Russia imposed herself upon the attention of the West but recently through her literature, music, and art - finally through the tremendous social upheaval of the Communist Revolution. A widespread curiosity with regard to the spiritual background of this newly disclosed world has been awakened but scarcely satisfied. Russia remains a great enigma to the West. There is, for instance, no obvious link between her classical literature of the nineteenth century and the spirit of her Revolution.

Now it is plain that neither the modern literature of Russia nor her political and social tragedy can be understood without a clear vision of her past. Russia had been a medieval civilization until the time of Peter the Great (about 1700), knowing no Renaissance nor any cleavage between religious and secular culture. And until their emancipation from serfdom (1861), the Russian "people" - in contrast to the gentry and the "intelligentsia" -were medieval in their religion and in their world-outlook. Without too violent a pressure on facts, one can venture the statement that the people leaped directly out of the Middle Ages into the atheistic society of Communism. As for the intelligentsia, although living mainly by Western ideas and ideals, they had never completely lost contact with the peasantry; particularly in the nineteenth century the "people" were studied and idealized, as a basic stratum of Russian culture and a source of Russia's moral strength. All the great classical writers (especially Dostoevsky and Tolstoy) paid a generous tribute to "populism" and were dependent upon popular beliefs and traditions for their own religious and moral attitudes.

The national religion of Russia, known as Eastern Orthodox, or Greek Orthodox, continues the uninterrupted tradition of the ancient Eastern and the Byzantine Church, the "Mother Church" of Russia. Since the middle of the eleventh century (1054), the Christian East has been separated from the Western, Roman Catholic Church by schism. The characteristics of the Eastern Church in its liturgical and canonical life, even in its dogmatic thought, have long been studied by specialists in theology; but the core of Eastern Christianity, its spiritual life, has just begun to be the object of scholarly investigation. Even in Russia there are extant few special studies on this rich and engrossing matter.

In the present book there is offered to the reader, not a study, but a selection from original sources, of Russian spirituality, the first attempt at such an anthology in any language. The material is taken from the lives of saints, ascetical and mystical treatises, and spiritual autobiographies (a very rare species of literature in Russia), embracing the centuries from the eleventh to the twentieth. All the authors selected have belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church and occupy, with one exception (Avvakum), an authoritative place in the sphere of spiritual guidance. The editor has tried to prevent any personal preference from influencing his choice; the emphasis had already been placed by tradition and by present-day Russian ecclesiastical opinion.

From what is said above, it can be inferred that the material, authoritative as it is, has its limitations. The reader will not find: (1) Russian folk-lore in which Christian piety is mingled with pagan survivals; (2) the literature of the Russian sects so numerous in the last two centuries; (3) the works of secular poets and novelists reflecting modern Russian spirituality of very complex origins. For the inclusion of these three groups of sources would broaden the scope of the book to the detriment of unity and purpose. The third group - that of fiction -is moreover already partly accessible to the English and American reader in translations.

Political events, sometimes of a catastrophic nature, divide the history of Russia into clear-cut periods; and the bearing of these divisions extends even into the spiritual domain. The first historical shape of Russia, that of the Kievan period (the ninth to the thirteenth centuries), was the loose confederation of principalities under the prince of Kiev on the Dnieper River. Converted to Christianity by her prince, St. Vladimir (988), Russia received her Church hierarchy from Constantinople, and her whole religious and cultural life was molded on the Byzantine pattern. In spite of this primordial condition, Kievan Russia was in close communication with the "Latin" West, and her social and political life had more in common with Western feudalism than with the Byzantine monarchical state.

The Tartar, or Mongolian, conquest (circa 1240) destroyed this flourishing culture, and for centuries thereafter the bulk of the Russian population, the northeastern, or "Great," Russians, were cut off from their southwestern brothers, the Ukranians and White Russians, who were included in the Polish and Lithuanian states. Under the Mongol yoke Great Russia preserved her religious and cultural heritage, although eventually in a rather impoverished condition. Detached from the West (though not impenetrable to Western influences), Russia was continually in touch with Byzantium and moreover exposed to the new and dangerous influences emanating from the East. Until well into the fifteenth century, Russia was a quasi-feudal conglomeration of small principalities, with even some great democratic free cities, such as Novgorod and Pscov, and her cultural atmosphere was still independent, in spite of the political oppression and financial extortion of the Tartars.

The principality of Moscow, with the support of the Church, and to some extent of the Tartars, gradually succeeded in destroying the feudal system and uniting all Russian lands and free cities under the absolute power of the Great Prince of Moscow (circa 1500). He threw off the domination of the Tartars (1480), crowned himself (1547) Tsar ("Caesar"), after the Byzantine pattern, and began the conquest of the vast territories held by the Mongolians. The rulers of the Muscovite State thus succeeded both the Mongols and the Byzantine Emperors, since the Eastern Empire had fallen to the Turks. This government was totalitarian, and very severe and exacting in its claims upon its subjects. The peasants, who for the most part had been free in the Middle Ages, were now turned into serfs, and all classes of the population were forced into the service of the state.

The fact that the cultural and technical backwardness of Muscovy was a serious handicap to her political relations with the West moved Peter the Great (d. 1725) to carry out his great reforms, which actually amounted to a cultural revolution. He Westernized Russia forcibly, relentlessly, at least so far as the life and thought of her upper classes was concerned. In the period of the Empire (Peter was the first Russian ruler called "Emperor"), Russian political power reached its height and Russian culture its full flowering - literary, artistic, scientific. This culture was Western European in its form and ideas; yet, in the most striking and profound of its artistic creations, the spirit of the thousand-year-old past breaks through and manifests itself, a past still living in the masses of the peasants, the petty bourgeoisie, and the clergy, who were the guardians of the national tradition. In the pattern of Russian culture during the last two centuries there have been two motifs: one, the European-modern, abreast of the times; the other, ancient Muscovite, deriving from the seventeenth century, with a residue of a past still more remote. The fact that these motifs have been able, to some extent, to blend has preserved the original genius of the high Russian culture.

Yet the cultural breach between the upper classes and the people was so wide, and the social pressure upon the latter so heavy (despite the emancipation of the serfs in 1861), that the tensions arising from World War I were too great for the unsteady Empire, and the War ended for Russia in a revolutionary breakdown. The Revolution inaugurated a new period of Russian history (the fifth, according to our scheme), which, however, is not within the scope of this study: the Bolshevist Revolution, by its very intention, meant the destruction of every kind of spirituality (not only Christian), and although spiritual life did not die out in Russia, it has been unable to find any literary expression up to the present day.

The spirituality of the Russian Church, from the beginning to the present, has been shaped mainly by the Byzantine, or Greek, tradition. There have been, however, variations in the degree of the influence and in the elements of Greek piety chosen as the pattern in different periods of Russian life. Newly converted Russia received from the Bulgarian Slavs an enormous treasury of translated Greek sermons, lives of saints, and Patericons (i.e., collections of legends which had their source in Egytian, Syrian, and Palestinian monasticism). For a millennium John Climacus was the prevailing authority on the spiritual life. The Palestinian group of saints (Sts. Sabbas, Euthymius, and others) were the main teachers of Russian ascetics in ancient times.

In the Kievan period, the most remarkable fact is the absence of a mystical tradition in the translated, as well as the original, Russian literature. The severe asceticism of the penitential ("metanoic") Syrian type is represented in the Kievan Cave Patericon, a collection of the biographies of the outstanding fathers of the most famous Rassian monastery. Yet simultaneously with the imitation of the Greek and Oriental patterns, newly converted Russia discloses in the persons of her first canonized saints, Boris and Gleb, a quite original view of the Christian way of salvation. This spiritual tendency we call "kenotic," understanding by the term the imitation of Christ in His kenosis, His self-humiliation and His voluntary, sacrificial death. When their elder brother sought to wrest their principalities from them, these two young princes chose the course of nonresistance, preferring to be murdered by him rather than to enter into fratricidal combat. In the monastic life St. Theodosius brings the virtue of humility to extreme social consequences which suggest, somewhat, the practices of St. Francis of **Assisi. The most remarkable phenomenon of early Russian spirituality is the immediate impact of the Gospels upon the minds of the first Russian saints. Thus the rediscovery of the Christ of the Gospels, of the Christ in His human nature behind the Byzantine Pantocrator (the "omnipotent" or the "Divine Monarch"), which was a great feat of the twelfth century in the West, was anticipated by about a century in the spiritual life of Russia. Doubtless the use of the Slavonic language in the Bible and in the celebration of the Mass contributed to the originality of the Russian religious genius, but whatever its cause, kenoticism, in the sense of charitable humility as well as of non-resistance, or voluntary suffering, remains forever the most precious and typical, even though not always the dominant, motif of Russian Christianity.

The Russian Middle Ages, or the Mongolian period (the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries), adopted the Kievan religious tradition but enriched it by one essential feature: the mystical life which found its way into Russia from the Greek monasteries of Mount Athos in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A contemplative type of monasticism was engendered in Russia, and specific exercises were practised to create a "spiritual prayer." The Greek form of mystical prayer was grafted onto the Russian kenotic and caritative type of monastic life. The only literary spokesman of numerous silent Hesychasts in the forests of Northern Russia was St. Nilus Sorsky (fifteenth century), but the origins of this movement are traced to St. Sergius (fourteenth century), the head and the restorer of Russian monasticism after the long period of its decay which followed the terrors of the Monogolian conquest. But Sergius, if a mystic, had likewise a social and national mission; one modern writer goes so far as to call him one of the "builders of Russia."

In contradiction to what is commonly supposed concerning the Christian East, ancient Russian Christianity was always marked by strong social tendencies. But soon after the time of Sergius is the beginning of a fatal separation: St. Sergius stands at the crossroads; from his teachings, Russian monasticism took two divergent directions-the mystical and the social. The mystics of the northern forests cultivated absolute poverty, silence, and spiritual prayer, preserving a great moral independence of secular powers, which they even held it their obligation to teach and reprove. This kind of spirituality undoubtedly inspired the highest manifestations of the Russian art in icon painting, which reached its peak in the fifteenth century: this was the golden age of Russian saints and artists.

The other line of Sergius' disciples, culminating in St. Joseph Volotsky, struck a different note: they were active, practical, social; good farmers and administrators, social leaders in the surrounding countryside, political advisers of the Muscovite princes in the building of a unified, autocratic state. Their religious life was founded upon the fear of God and the meticulous observance of ritual, mitigated by their esthetic appreciation of liturgical worship.

These two groups found grounds of conflict at the beginning of the sixteenth century, when their adherents disagreed violently on the two great problems of the time: the question of the legitimacy of monastic landowning (the mystics stood, of course, for absolute poverty), and that of the policy to be adopted in dealing with a new group of heretics, the Judaizers (the mystics were opposed to capital punishment and in general to any severe persecution). The Josephites won the battle, thanks to their close connection with the princes of Moscow. And they made the most of their victory: the outstanding disciples of St. Nilus were themselves condemned as heretics, and thereupon the whole mystical movement disappears from the surface manifestations in Russian history for about two centuries.

The age of the Muscovite tsardom (the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), so favorable to the growth of Russia's political power, was very unfruitful with regard to the spiritual life. Josephitism degenerated into static ritualism with the gradual suppression of the caritative elements in Russian traditional piety. But in spite of the general barbarization of morality during this period, it is impossible to deny the strengthening of social discipline, the training of the will in public service, which shaped the "Great Russian" character as it is known through modern Russian literature and history.

The spiritual energies latent during this age were unleashed in the great explosion known as the Raskol (schism) in the Russian Church, which resulted from liturgical reforms introduced by the patriarch Nicon (1652-58). The conservative national party, the remote descendents of St. Joseph, having identified religion with ritual, preferred to die rather than to accept the new, corrected service books, and finally they separated themselves from the state Church, becoming the first of a long series of sectarian movements characteristic of modern developments in Russian religion. The original Old Ritualists, or Old Believers, stood entirely upon traditional ecclesiastical grounds, and since they represented the strongest moral force in Muscovite society, it seems justifiable to select for our consideration the leading figure of the movement, the priest Avvakum, a writer of genius, as the exponent of Muscovite spirituality.

During the period of the Empire (the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries), with the abrupt Westernizing of Russia, the Church lost its hold upon the influential strata of aristocratic society and the intelligentsia. The masses of the people, as has already been noted, lived in a Muscovite civilization, as a whole faithful to the established state church but with strong sectarian minorities. The Church itself was not a direct inheritor of the Muscovite tradition. It entered the schools of Western Theology, Catholic and Protestant, and tried to find its own, Orthodox way among these Western "extremes." Together with theological thought, some of the currents of Western spirituality penetrated into Russia; these were for the most part Protestant - such as the pietism of the eighteenth century or the mysticism of the early nineteenth. This latter was helpful in overcoming the rationalism of the Enlightenment and in introducing a fervent emotional note into the rather dry moral preaching of the Church. Yet, in spite of this and many other Western influences, the strongest current of Orthodox spirituality remained faithful to the Eastern tradition. At this time, however, it was the tradition of Christian Greece, ancient and medieval, which dominated, and not that of ancient Russia. The break with Muscovy was so complete, even in ecclesiastical education, that it was never completely healed, although the second half of the nineteenth and the present century have been marked by the gradual revival of "holy Russia."

One of the most prominent features of Peter's reform was an almost complete elimination of the Church from all fields of social and political life. In drastic alteration of conditions from those of ancient Russia, the Church was forced to give up every attempt at Christianizing, or even influencing, social life. The only role left to it (and, as a matter of fact, required of it) was that of apologist for the established order. Accepting this part, willingly or unwillingly, the Church was forced to concentrate its moral action upon the individual. And it made a virtue of necessity, regarding this religious individualism as a blessing, the special vocation of Orthodoxy. In this prejudice it was supported by many foreigners, who were in the habit of opposing the Eastern Mary to the Western Martha.

Under these conditions, ancient Russia could not be a secure guide in spiritual practice, and monastic Greece superseded her Russian daughter and pupil to a degree unprecedented in the history of the Church. This impact of Greece was received through two media: the contemporary monasticism of Mount Athos, where the Russians had - and still have - their own communities, and ancient ascetical literature, which was now collected into a large anthology called the Philocalia. The influence of this book (particularly after the publication of the second, nibre comprehensive, edition prepared by the Russian bishop Theophanes) grew from generation to generation. It was at its height at the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary period. The Optina cloister, a center for the influential startzy, was the chief guardian and promoter of the Greek ascetical and mystical tradition. The mystical, or spiritual, form of prayer was revived, and Nilus Sorsky found a posthumous disciple in the person of Paпsius Velichkovsky, to whose influence the monastic revival after the general decay of the eighteenth century is due. Spiritual prayer was popularized and became the practice even of a certain proportion of laymen - a fact to which the famous Way of a Pilgrim bears eloquent witness.

In the middle of the nineteenth century the evangelical and humanitarian tendencies which largely dominated Russian secular literature tempered the ascetical spirituality of the Church. The Slavophiles, a liberal national party in the Church, tried to create (or, rather, to resuscitate) a spirituality based on social ethic. But the breach between the ascetical-mystical and the evangelical elements within the Church widened, and each tendency found political expression in the period immediately preceding the Revolution. The evangelicals stood for ecclesiastical reforms and allied themselves with the liberal political groups of the nation; the mystics supported the absolutism of the tsar as a remnant of Byzantine tradition. The reformers and liberals did not succeed in developing a type of spirituality of their own deep enough to counterbalance the reactionary, or "black," inflnence of monasticism, and this dualism played a fatal part in the disintegration of the moral forces of pre-Revolutionary Russian society.

The following selections have been translated for inclusion in this anthology by Helen Iswolsky: St. Theodosius, St. Nilus Sorsky, The Life of Archpriest Avvakum by Himself, St. Tychon, Father Yelchaninov.

The translation of The Way of a Pilgrim has been done by Nina A. Toumanova.

We wish to thank the following publishers for their kindness in permitting us to include these selections:

The Macmillan Company, New York and The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London: "The Life, Acts and Miracles of Our Revered and Holy Father Abbot Sergius," by Epipbanius: from St. Sergius, Builder of Russia, translated by Nicholas Zernov.

The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London: "St. Seraphim of Sarov" and "The Conversation of St. Seraphim with Nicholas Motovilov": from St. Seraphim of Sarov, translated, with an introduction, by A. F. Dobbie-Bateman .

Cassell & Co., Ltd., London: "My Life in Christ," by John Sergieff: from My Life in Christ, translated by E. E. Goulaeff .

"Satan has obtained our radiant Russia from God, so that she may become crimson with the blood of martyrs."

Theodosius was the first monastic saint canonized by the Russian Church. Soon after his death (1074) the task of recording his life story was undertaken by the famous chronicler Nestor, a monk of his Kievan Caves cloister. Although Nestor had at his disposal, as a pattern for his literary work, numerous Greek lives of saints, from which he quoted abundantly, he drew still more upon the testimony of the great abbot's acquaintances and companions. Thus his work has always been held in high esteem by Russian historians for its trustworthiness and its richness in factual detail.

The reader will find the events of Theodosius' life clearly related by Nestor, and his chronicle has been our one source of information. Here we have only to emphasize the predominant features of his spirituality. These characteristics become evident in the earliest part of the story of his childhood, for which Nestor had no literary model. The ideal of the literal imitation of Christ in His poverty and humiliation on earth is an apprehension of religious genius which was to mold permanently the mentality of the Russian people. The social aspect of this "kenotic" ideal is of first importance: the love of an "uncouth garb" and the manual labor in the fields with the serfs both represent an abandonment of class privilege which encountered the long and bitter opposition of the saint's mother. The intimate spiritual association of Theodosius with the person of Christ in His life on earth and in the Sacrament is revealed in Theodosius' attempted journey to the Holy Land, "where our Lord had walked in the flesh," and in his predilection for the task of baking the altar-bread: the boy rejoiced in the thought of being a collaborator in "creating the flesh" of Christ, Who "became poor and humbled Himself" for our salvation.

The monastic life of Theodosius is patterned upon that of the Palestinian ascetics - Sts. Sabbas and Euthymius and St. Theodosius, after whom he is named. However severe or even unnatural Theodosius' asceticism may appear to our age, it was a mitigated, or humanized, form of mortification if gauged by the classical standards of monastic Egypt or Syria. His was a combination of community life and seclusion, of manual labor, prayer, and the exterior work of educational activities among the laity. His bodily asceticism consisted mainly in fasting and abstention from sleep. Only in the narrative of his early youth is mention made of the chains which he wore under his shirt, after the Syrian example followed in Russia. Rather exceptional, also, is the most painful of his acts of mortification: the exposure of his body to the bites of mosquitoes as a measure against temptation. In general, acute pain in mortification is avoided; no self-flagellations occur in the practice of the Christian East; the aim of mortification is rather the "drying up" of the body, the weakening of the passions.

Although Theodosius was the disciple of a senior monk, St. Anthony, his own spirituality is a departure from that of his teacher. Anthony, who had been initiated into the monastic life on Mount Athos, seems to have engaged in the more severe forms of ascetic practice and to have committed himself to absolute solitude, spending all his days in a dark cave. Theodosius found this manner of life "oppressive and narrow." His ideal was rather that of community life and service to the world. He earnestly tried to introduce and put into practice in his monastery, the Greek rule of the Studion (in Constantinople), which became the classical type in the monastic institutions of medieval Russia. The spirit of this rule, and even the form, resemble in many details the rule of St. Benedict.

The greatest danger to the social order that Theodosius sought to create in organizing his cloister was the form which his own holiness assumed. For in becoming the leader of his community he did not betray his ideal of kenotic humility, but clung to his coarse clothing and rejected all outward signs of authority. He never punished erring brethren, but would weep over an incorrigible runaway and, again and again, receive with joy a returning prodigal who could not be relied upon to remain. His harshness was directed, not towards sinners, but only towards the material goods which would tempt the brethren to vitiate their holy poverty by care for the morrow. Thus, on occasion, he destroyed precious food in order to strike at the root of worldly prudence. Discipline was never up to the mark in the Cave cloister, and the homilies of St. Theodosius give evidence of his grievous disappointment.

But the kenotic humility of the abbot was no obstacle to his influence outside the cloister walls. On the contrary, his mildness and charity gained for him the devotion of princes and boyars, and he used his authority in spiritual matters for promoting the cause of justice and charity. A true kenotic, in imitation of Christ, humbles himself before the lowly, not before the powerful. Theodosius could be terrible in his denunciation of the crimes of the rich, and to this valuable social implication of the kenotic virtues ancient Russia was faithful for centuries. This, above all, distinguishes the old Russia from both Byzantine civilization and that of modern Russia.

The great historical importance of St. Theodosius is in the fact that he provided a pattern and an ideal for all monastic life in ancient Russia. His life was a source for all subsequent Russian hagiography, and many features of his personal behavior, including his "uncouth garb," were imitated for centuries. In a certain sense, all Russian monasticism, in spite of the various and divergent tendencies in her spirituality, belongs to the wide family of St. Theodosius' disciples and their heirs.

But far exceeding the limits of the monastic life, the kenotic ideal of St. Theodosius imprinted itself upon the mentality of the whole Russian nation. In the nineteenth century it is easily discoverable in all the literature which portrays Russian folklife, and in Russian folk-lore itself. But, what is still more surprising, the great literary classics of that time also belong to this religious type. This is obvious in the cases of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, but the influence is none the less present in the works of most of the non-religious writers, even in those of the atheistic radicals, the "narodniks" (populists). Indeed the bulk of the revolutionary intelligentsia, especially during the 1870's, in their "simple life" their coarse clothing, and their positive search for identification with the underprivileged, were unconscious imitators of St. Theodosius. But it was a kenoticism detached from God, in direct contradiction to the charitable humility which is the essence of St. Theodosius' teaching - and thus purely negative. This kenoticism, completely divorced from the spirit of supernatural love, is at the root both of Russian atheism and of Tolstoy's radical negation of culture.

All this would seem to imply that kenoticism may justly be considered the dominant motif in Russian spirituality - one might almost venture to say, the specific Russian approach to Christianity. Yet this statement is correct only in a limited sense. For, actually, kenoticism was never the exclusive, nor even the quantitatively predominant, feature of Russian religion. It has always been moderated, diluted and supplemented by other currents: ritualistic, liturgical, mystical or culturally creative, some of them deriving from foreign sources - from Byzantium or, in modern times, from the Christian West.

I thank you, my Lord and Master Jesus Christ, for holding me worthy to chronicle the achievements of your saints. For I first recorded the life, the slaying, and the miracles of the saints and blessed passion-bearers Boris and Gleb ¹ , and I am now about to undertake another writing. It is a task too great for my powers, I am not fit for it, since I am neither wise nor learned, but I have in ray mind the words "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, remove from hence thither and it shall remove." Reflecting on these words I, sinful Nestor, have girded myself with faith and hope in order to relate the life of blessed Theodosius, the former abbot of the Caves Monastery dedicated to the Holy Mother of God. ²

Brothers, when I realized that no one had yet recorded the life of this saint, I was greatly distressed, and I asked in prayer for God's help in setting down in their proper order all the facts concerning our father and God-bearer, Theodosius, so that the monks who come after us, reading this chronicle and seeing the virtues of this man, might glorify God in His saint. May they be confirmed in their religious vocation by the knowledge that so holy a man has lived in this land. For these words of God may well be applied to him: "Many shall come from the east and the west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven"; and, again: "Many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first." Indeed, this saint of the latter day has shown himself greater than the ancient Fathers. As it was said in the Patericon that there would be laxness in the last generation, it is surprising that in this last generation Theodosius should be made known by Christ as a great laborer for His sake and a true pastor to his monks. For from boyhood he was distinguished for the purity and goodness of his life, and especially for the faith and understanding with which he was endowed.

Brothers, listen attentively, for this story is of great benefit to all who hear it. I implore you, my beloved, do not condemn me for my ignorance if, because I am so filled with love for the saint, I have attempted to tell everything concerning him. For, in addition to this, I feared that Our Lord's words with regard to the "wicked and slothful servant" might be applied to me. But apart from these considerations, it is not right to conceal God's miracles, especially in view of what He said to His disciples: "That which I tell you in the dark, speak ye in the light; and that which you bear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops."

It is therefore my intention to write for the benefit and edification of my readers. May they glorify God and be rewarded by Him. But first of all I turn to God with a prayer: "My Lord Omnipotent, giver of grace, Father of our Master Jesus Christ, come to my aid. Illumine my heart for the understanding of Thy commandments and open my mouth for the proclaiming of Thy miracles and the praise of Thy saint. May Thy name be sanctified, for Thou art the only helper of those who hope in Thee. Amen."

There is a town called Vasilev, lying at a distance of fifty versts ³ from Kiev. In this town lived our saint's parents, who were enlightened Christians of exemplary piety, and here it was that blessed Theodosius was born to them. On the eighth day after his birth, according to the custom, they brought the child to God's priest in order that a name should be given him. The priest, perceiving with spiritual insight that the newborn child would devote himself to God's service from infancy, gave him the name Theodosius. ⁴ Then, after forty days, he baptized the child. Theodosius grew up under the tutelage of his parents. God's grace was with him, and he had the light of the Holy Ghost from his first years.

By the decree of the Prince, ⁵ the saint's parents soon transferred their residence to another town called Kursk - but it would be more exact to say that this was done according to the will of God, so that this town also might be enlightened by the presence of the good youth. Thus Theodosius rose for us in the East like a morning star, attracting many other stars in expectation of the Sun of Justice, Our Lord Jesus Christ, so that he might say: "Here I am, my Lord, and here are the children whom I have nourished with Thy spiritual food. Here, my Lord, are my disciples. I have brought them to Thee, having taught them to despise all earthly things and to love Thee alone, my Lord God. Here, Master, is the flock which Thou hast enlightened, whose shepherd Thou hast chosen me to be. I have led them to graze in Thy pastures. I have brought them to Thee, having kept them pure and innocent." And God will answer, "Good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things." And He will say to the disciples: "Come, good flock; come, divinely enlightened sheep of the good shepherd; you who have hungered and labored for my sake shall now receive the kingdom prepared for you since the beginning of the world."

Therefore, brothers, let us also be zealous imitators of the life of St. Theodosius and the disciples he sent to God before him, for then we too shall be worthy to hear the voice of the Master saying, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

And now let us turn once more to the story of the holy youth. As he matured in body and spirit, he was drawn by the love of God to go to church daily, devoting all his attention to the sacred books. Unlike most boys, he kept aloof from children at play and was unwilling to join in their games. He wore coarse and patched garments, and when his parents tried to make him put on fresh clothing and play with other children, he would not obey, for he wanted to be identified with the poor. Moreover he begged his parents to entrust him to a teacher, so that he might be instructed in the reading of the sacred books, and they consented to this. The boy acquired knowledge rapidly, so that everyone was astonished at his wisdom and the quickness with which he learned. And how can we measure the virtues of obedience and humility which he practised, not only towards his teachers, but also towards all with whom he shared his studies?

When blessed Theodosius was about thirteen years old, his father died. From that time on, he applied himself even more zealously to his undertakings. That is, he now went into the fields with his serfs, where he did the humblest work. To prevent this, his mother used to keep him indoors. She also tried to prevail upon him to put on good clothes and go out to play with boys of his own age, for she said that if he were so poorly dressed, he would expose himself and his family to disgrace. But he would not obey her, and often she beat him in her vexation. She was robust of body, and if you could not see her, but could only hear her voice, you might well have mistaken her for a man.

The devout youth, meanwhile, was meditating and searching for the means of salvation. When he heard of the Holy Land, where Our Lord had walked in the flesh, he longed to make a pilgrimage to this place. He prayed to God, saying, "My Lord Jesus, listen to my prayer, and grant that I may go to the Holy Land." After he had prayed in this manner for a long time, some pilgrims came to the city. The holy youth rejoiced when he saw them. He went out to meet them and welcomed them affectionately, asking them whence they had come and whither they were going. And when they told him that they had come from the Holy Land and that, God permitting, they intended to return there, he begged to be taken with them. They promised to take him, and Theodosius returned home rejoicing. When the pilgrims had decided to set out on their journey, they informed the boy of their intention, and rising in the night, he left his home secretly, taking nothing with him except the poor clothes he had on. It was in this manner that he set out to join the pilgrims.

But God, in his mercy, would not permit the one whom He had predestined in his mother's womb to be the shepherd of the divinely enlightened sheep to leave this land; for, when the shepherd had departed, the pastures that God had blessed would lie desolate, overgrown with thorns and haunted by wolves which would scatter the flock. After three days the mother learned that he had gone with the pilgrims, and taking her other son (who was younger than Theodosius) with her, she set out to overtake him. After a long pursuit, they caught up with him. Carried away by fury, she seized him by the hair, flung him to the ground, and trampled on him. Then, having rebuked the pilgrims, she returned home, leading the saint bound like a criminal. So greatly incensed was she, that when they had entered the house she beat her son until she was exhausted. Then she flung him into a room, shackled him, and locked the door. The holy youth suffered all this joyfully, giving thanks to God in prayer.

After two days his mother returned, unfastened him, and placed food before him. But her anger was still unsatisfied, so she put chains on his feet and ordered him to go about the house in them, and she watched him, so that he might not run away from her again. He wore these chains for some time, but at last his mother relented. She began to beg him not to run away again, saying that she loved him more than all her other children and could not live without him. And when he had promised that he would not leave her, she removed the chains from his feet, telling him that he might now do as he pleased.

Blessed Theodosius returned to his former practice and visited the church daily. When he saw that often Mass could not be celebrated because there was no altar hread, ⁶ he was greatly distressed and resolved humbly that he would devote himself to this work. And he kept his resolution. He began to bake altar bread and sell it; some of the money thus earned, he gave to the poor, and some he kept in order to buy more wheat, which he would grind with his own hands. And in this manner his work of baking the loaves continued. Now this was according to God's will, so that the church might be provided with pure altar bread made by the hands of a chaste and innocent youth. He carried on the work for two years or more.

Boys of his own age, inspired by the enemy, ridiculed him for performing such a task. But the saint suffered all this joyfully and without complaint.

Now the enemy, who hates all that is good, seeing the humility of the God-enlightened youth triumphing over him, knew no peace; in the attempt to divert the boy from his task, he persuaded the mother that she must prevent Theodosius from pursuing his activities. The mother, who could not bear to have her son the object of ridicule, said to him gently, I beg of you, my son, give up this work. You are bringing disgrace upon your family; indeed it is not right for a young man to be engaged in such work." Good Theodosius replied humbly: "Listen to me. Our Lord Jesus Christ became poor and humbled Himself, offering Himself as an example, so that we should humble ourselves in His name. He suffered insults, was spat upon and beaten, for our salvation; how just it is, then, that we should suffer in order to gain Christ. As to my work, listen to me. When Jesus Christ sat with His disciples at the Last Supper, He took bread, and having blessed it, broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying,'Take ye, and eat. This is My body.' If Our Lord called bread His body, should I nor rejoice that God lets me share in the making of His body?"

When she heard this, his mother marvelled at the boy's wisdom, and from that day forth she let him alone.

He was so humble of heart and so submissive towards everyone, that the governor of the city, observing the boy's virtues, was greatly attracted to him and engaged him to serve in his own house. He gave him fine clothes to wear, and for a few days the saint wore them, looking as if he were heavily burdened; then he divested himself and, giving the new clothing to beggars, went about in the old. On seeing this, the governor gave him other garments finer than the first. These likewise Theodosius gave away. And this happened several times. The governor then held the boy in even greater esteem, marvelling at his humility. After that blessed Theodosius went to a blacksmith and ordered iron chains with which he girded his loins, and went about wearing them. The tightly bound chains bit into his flesh, but he was at peace, as if he suffered no bodily pain. ⁷

After some time Theodosius heard the words of the holy Gospel "He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me." And again "Come to Me, all you that labor, and are burdened, and I will refresh you." And so, filled with devotion and with the love of Our Lord, the God-inspired youth cast about for the best way of escaping from his mother and finding a place where he might enter the religious life.

Now it was the will of God that his mother should go to the country at this time for a long visit. The saint rejoiced, prayed, and stole out of his home, taking with him nothing but the clothes he had on and enough food to sustain him. He went in the direction of Kiev, for he had heard that there were many monasteries in that city. Since he did not know the way, he asked God to send him fellow-travellers to guide him. It was the will of God that a company of merchants should be travelling along that road with their wagons heavily laden. Learning that they too were going to Kiev, the saint thanked God and followed them at a distance, unobserved. When they halted for the night, the saint also paused for rest. Still they did not notice him; God alone watched over him. After travelling in this manner for three weeks he reached the city of Kiev, where he went from one monastery to another begging the monks to admit him. ⁸ But, seeing before them a simple youth, poorly dressed, they were unwilling to accept him. This happened in accordance with the divine will, in order that Theodosius might finally be conducted to the place to which God had called him from his very childhood.

Hearing that blessed Anthony was living in a cave outside Kiev, Theodosius went eagerly to the hermit's dwelling. ⁹ When he saw Anthony, he wept and fell on his knees before him, begging for permission to remain in that place. The great Anthony replied, "My child, look about, and you shall see that this cave is dark and narrow. You are young and, I should think, unable to suffer such hardships." Venerable Anthony said this, not only because he wished to try the youth, but also because he prophetically foresaw that Theodosius would build a large cloister in place of this narrow cave and gather around him a great number of monks. The God-inspired Theodosius answered, with humble sincerity, "You know, most venerable father, that the all-seeing God has brought me to you because He desires my salvation. I will therefore obey you in all things." Then blessed Anthony said to him, "My child, glory be to God, Who has given you strength for such a vocation. This is the place; remain here with me." Theodosius fell once more onto his knees, and Anthony blessed him and ordered the great Nicon, who was an experienced monk and an ordained priest, to bestow the tonsure upon the youth. Nicon led Theodosius away, gave him the tonsure, and invested him with the monastic robe.

From that day on, our father Theodosius submitted himself completely to God and to venerable Anthony. He mortified his body, keeping vigils, singing the praises of God throughout the night in order to hold off the weight of sleep. He also observed abstinence from food with the help of manual work, recalling the words of the psalm I humbled my soul through fasting, and mortified my body through labor and penance." Venerable Anthony and the great Nicon were astonished at his humility and obedience, thinking that such great virtue was remarkable in one so young.

Meanwhile Theodosius' mother, having searched for him in vain in her own city and its vicinity, was weeping bitterly and beating her breast as if he were dead. A proclamation was issued offering a reward to anyone who should see the youth and let his mother know his whereabouts without delay. And so it was that some travellers from Kiev told the woman that four years earlier they had seen the boy in their city, and that he had then expressed the wish to receive the holy tonsure in a monastery. When she heard this, the mother hastened to Kiev, not minding the long journey, so intent was she upon finding her son. She inquired for Theodosius at all the monasteries, and at last she was told that he was living in the cave of venerable Anthony. So she went to the hermitage and introduced herself cleverly by asking to see the staretz. ¹⁰ "Tell the abbot that I beg him to come out and speak to me," she said, "for I have travelled a long distance to see him, to pay my respects to his holiness, and to receive his blessing."

When he was informed of her presence, Anthony emerged from the cave to speak to her, and she knelt before him. Then, as they sat down, she began to talk to him, touching upon a variety of matters. Finally she disclosed the true purpose of her visit. "I beg of you, father," she said, "tell me where my son is. For I am greatly distressed at not knowing whether he is alive." The staretz, who was a simple man, quite unaware of her mischievous intentions, said to her. "Your son is here. Do not grieve, for he is alive." And she asked, "How is it, then, that I do not see him? I have come a long way but to set eyes on my son and then to return home." The staretz answered, "If you wish to see him, retire for the present, and I shall try to persuade him; for as yet he wishes to see no one. Return tomorrow and you shall see your son." The woman obeyed and went away, hoping to see Theodosius on the following day.

Venerable Anthony gave blessed Theodosius a full account of the' occurrence, and the youth was greatly perturbed by the knowledge that he could no longer hide from his mother. The next day the woman returned, and the staretz tried to persuade her son to go out and see her, but he would not. Then the staretz said to her, "I have urged him to see you, but he is unwilling to do so." Thereupon the woman cried angrily, "The staretz has done me an injustice! He has taken my son away from me and hidden him in his cave. Bring him forth, staretz, so that I can look upon him. For I cannot live if I do not see him once more. I will put an end to my life with my own hands at this door." At this Anthony was exceedingly distressed. Returning to the cave, he implored blessed Theodosius to go to his mother.

In order not to disobey the staretz, Theodosius did so. When she saw her son and observed his worn appearance (for his labors and abstinence had produced a great change in his face), she burst into tears and embraced him. Then, somewhat appeased, she seated herself and began to remonstrate with God's servant in the following words: "My son, come home," she said, "and you shall be free to do all that is necessary for your salvation. Do not stay away from me any longer. When I am dead and you have buried me, you may return to this cave if you wish, but as long as I live, I cannot bear to be separated from you." The holy youth replied: "If you wish to see me every day, go to the city and take the holy tonsure in some women's convent; then you may come here to see me, and yet you will be gaining the salvation of your soul. Unless you do this, I say in earnest that you shall never see my face again!"

With these and many other words, the youth tried from day to day to prevail over his mother's determination, but she would not listen to him. After she had left him, the saint would go into the cave and pray fervently for his mother's salvation, asking that her heart might be inclined to obedience. God heard the prayer of His saint, and one day the woman returned and said to her son: "My child, I am ready to do as you have commanded; I shall not go back to my own city, but, if God is willing, I shall enter a women's convent, and, taking the tonsure, I shall spend the rest of my days there. Your teaching has brought me to the realization of the emptiness of this passing world."

When he heard this, the saint rejoiced in spirit and went to inform the great Anthony. The staretz praised God, Who had moved the woman's heart to repentance. He went out to speak to her and instructed her concerning many things for the good of her soul. Moreover, he put her case before the prince's wife and she was permitted to enter the women's convent of St. Nicholas. Here she took the tonsure and the habit, and after having lived many years in the true monastic spirit, she passed away peacefully.

Such is the life of our blessed father Theodosius from his childhood until the day when he entered the cave. His mother related all this to one of the brethren, Theodore by name, who was the cellarer of our father Theodosius. I heard this account from Theodore's own lips, and set it down, in order that all who read may remember his deeds.

From that time on, great numbers of people came to the Caves to receive the father's blessing; by the grace of God, some became monks. Then the great Nicon and another monk, who had belonged to the monastery of Saint Minas ¹¹ and had been a boyar before entering religion, left the Caves with one accord, in order to live apart from the community.

The great Nicon settled on the peninsula of Tmutarakan, ¹² where, in a pleasant place near the city, he founded a monastery; this community increased by the grace of God, living after the pattern of the Caves monastery. Euphrem the Eunuch also left the Caves; he went to Constantinople and retired there to a monastery, where he lived until the time when he was called back and appointed bishop of Pereyaslavl.

Blessed Theodosius was ordained to the priesthood according to the wish of blessed Anthony, and each day he celebrated the divine service with the deepest humility. He was simple, of a gentle and quiet disposition, but full of spiritual wisdom and a pure love for all his brethren. The latter had now reached the number of fifteen.

As for blessed Anthony, who was accustomed to living alone and wished to be undisturbed, he retired to one of the Caves' cells and appointed blessed Barlaam in his place. Later on, Anthony moved to another hill and dug himself a cave which he was never to leave, and in which his venerable body rests even to this day.

Blessed Barlaam built a small church consecrated to Our Lady over the Caves and ordered the brethren to assemble there for prayer. From that time on, the monastery could be seen by people in the surrounding countryside, whereas formerly they had scarcely known of the brethren living in the caves.

I shall now tell of the primitive life of these monks. God alone can measure the suffering they endured because of the narrow space to which they were confined in the eaves; human lips cannot describe it. They lived on rye bread and water. On Sundays and Saturdays they partook of a little boiled grain; sometimes, however, even such fare as this would be lacking, and they were satisfied with a small portion of cooked vegetables. They worked with their hands, weaving cowls and headgear for the brethren and plying other manual trades.

They sold the products of their labor in the town in order to purchase grain, and this was equally divided among the brethren. At night, each monk would grind his share of flour for the baking of loaves. In the early morning, they would sing Matins, then work in the vegetable garden. Afterwards, returning once more to church to praise God, they would sing the Hours and offer holy Mass; then they would eat a small portion of bread, and each brother would return to his occupation. Thus they lived and labored in the spirit of charity.

Our father Theodosius surpassed all the other monks in wisdom and obedience, and he undertook greater labors than the others, for he was strong and healthy in body. He would assist his brethren in carrying water and fire-wood from the nearby forest. At night, while the other monks took their rest, he would remain wakeful, praising God. Moreover, the saint would grind all the grain which had been divided among the monks, and would leave the flour in its proper places. Sometimes at night, mosquitoes and gad-flies would swarm to the mouth of the cave; then Theodosius would go forth, and, stripping himself to the waist, sit in the open, spinning wool and singing the psalms of David. ¹³ His body would be covered with blood drawn by the mosquitoes and flies which devoured it, but our father would sit there quietly until Matins. He entered the church before all the others, and never left his place, singing the divine praises with an untroubled mind. He was also the last to leave the church. Because of all these things, he was revered by the brethren, who loved him as a father, marvelling at his humility and obedience.

After some time, blessed Barlaam was ordered by the prince to leave the cave and was appointed abbot of the Monastery of Saint Demetrius the Martyr. The brethren living in the cave gathered together and informed blessed Anthony that they had named Theodosius abbot of the community. Even in the post of authority, our father Theodosius did not alter his rule or his humble way of life, for he kept in mind the words of our Lord: "Whosoever will be the greater among you, let him be your minister." And so he humbled himself, and was the least of all, serving everyone and offering himself as an example. He was still the first to rise for work or for holy Mass. From that time on, the community grew and prospered, thanks to the prayers of the saint, for it has been said: "The just shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow up like the cedar of Libanus."

As the number of the brothers increased, the community flourished in virtues, prayers and devout customs, so that many noblemen came to seek the brethren's blessing and bring them small offerings. In spite of this, our venerable father Theodosius, who was an earthly angel and a heavenly man, ¹⁴ was well aware that their dwelling was poor and crowded, and that the church was too small to contain the brethren. Nevertheless he was without anxiety. Each day he would comfort the monks, instructing them to disregard their bodily needs and reminding them of the words of our Lord: "Be not solicitous therefore, saying, What shall we eat: or what shall we drink?" The saint himself kept these words in his mind, and God gave generously all that was required. Finding a clear space near the Caves, which he saw to be suitable for a building, Theodosius was enabled by the Grace of God to undertake the construction of a monastery. First, with the help of God, he built a church consecrated to our Holy and Most Glorious Lady. He encircled the church with a fence, and built a number of cells around it, and in the year 1062 he took his brethren to live in the new monastery. From that time on, the community prospered, and was widely known as the Caves Monastery.

After some time, Theodosius sent one of the brothers to Constantinople to visit Ephrem the Eunuch with the request that the Rule of the Studion Monastery should be copied and sent to Kiev. Ephrern complied with our venerable father's wishes. When he had received the Studite Rule, Theodosius ordered that it should be read to the assembled brethren, and from that time on the monastery was governed according to this rule, which is observed there even to this day.

All those who came to our father Theodosius with the intention of becoming monks were accepted by him, rich and poor, without distinction. He rejected no one, but received all kindly, for he remembered the ordeal which he had undergone in his youth, when he had left his own town and gone from one monastery to another but was admitted by none. Indeed, he well knew the suffering caused to a man who wishes to enter the religious life and is rejected, and that is why he admitted all gladly. However, he did not give the tonsure at once, but told the postulant to wear his ordinary attire until he had become accustomed to the life of the community. Then he would invest him with the monastic robe and test him in various services. Finally, he would give him the tonsure and the mantle. When the monk had been proved as to the purity of his life, he would be allowed to take the holy schema. ¹⁵

Every year during Lent, holy Theodosius would retire to the caves in which, after his death, his venerated body was to rest. He would remain secluded in this cave until the Friday of Passion Week, when he would return to the brethren at Vespers. Standing at the door of the church, he would speak words of instruction and encouragement, saying that he was unworthy of them since they had far surpassed him in fasting and mortification.

Like St. Anthony before him, our blessed father suffered the frequent and savage attacks of evil spirits, which even inflicted wounds on his body. ¹⁶ But God, Who had manifested Himself to Anthony in the course of such trials, infused into Theodosius the strength to conquer these adversaries. We cannot but marvel at the saint's fortitude. He was alone in the darkness of the cave; yet he had no fear of the hordes of demons which he could not see, but remained resolute and courageous, standing erect and calling our Lord Jesus Christ to his aid. And thanks to the power of Christ, he triumphed over the devils, so that they no longer dared come near him, but only sought to delude him at a distance.

When Theodosius rested after evening prayers, he would never lie down, but would seat himself on a chair, and when he had dozed for a while, he would rise to his feet again for night prayers and genuflections. One evening, when our father was resting, a great tumult arose in the caves, caused by a horde of demons. It sounded as if some of them were driving round in a carriage, while others played on tambourines and flutes; all together they made a hubbub that shook the caves to their very foundations. But father Theodosius remained untroubled and unafraid. He arose, made the sign of the cross and began to chant the psalms of David, and at once the noise subsided. But when his prayer was ended, and he had sat down, the voices of innumerable demons were heard once more. Again the saint rose to his feet and began to chant the psalms, and he continued until the demons were silenced. The evil spirits pursued him in this manner for many days and nights, hindering him from sleep, until at last, by the grace of Christ, he had conquered them and could exercise authority over them. From that day on they dared not come near the place where he was praying. However, they made mischief in the bakery where the brethren made their bread, scattering the flour, upsetting the yeast which had been prepared for the loaves, and carrying off many other attacks. When the head-baker informed Theodosius of these occurrences, the saint, confident that he had received from God power over these unclean spirits, locked himself in the bakery one night and remained closeted there, praying until morning. The devils never returned to the bakery, nor did they trouble the bakers further.

At night the great Theodosius was wont to make the round of the monks' cells, so that he might learn how each of the brethren spent his time. ¹⁷ When he could hear a monk praying in his cell, he would pause on his way to praise God. But if he should overhear two or three monks gathered together and engaged in conversation, he would tap on the door, and having thus apprised the brethren of his visit, he would withdraw. In the morning, he would call the culprits to his cell. Yet he would be in no haste to rebuke them; instead he would speak indirectly and in parables, waiting to see whether they were filled with divine fervor. If a brother's heart were light and ardent with the love of God, he would quickly bow his head and acknowledge his sin, asking his abbot's forgiveness. But if his heart were burdened with the devices of the Devil, he would listen without confusion to the abbot's admonitions, considering that they had reference to some other monk and holding himself blameless. Then the saint would rebuke him, and having imposed a penance, would let him go. Thus he taught them all to pray attentively, not to converse after evening service, not to go from one cell to another, but to remain each in his own cell. There the brother was to pray according to his ability and to occupy himself with manual work while chanting the psalms of David.

The saintly teacher himself accomplished what he taught to others. And they absorbed his words like earth thirsting for moisture and offered the fruits of their industry to God.

You could see these monks living like angels on earth. The monastery was like a heaven in which the good works of our father Theodosius shone more brightly than the sun. This was manifested in a supernatural manner to the abbot of the nearby monastery of St. Michael the Archangel. One night this religious, Sophronius by name, was returning to his own monastery. It was dark, but Sophronius saw a light diffused over our blessed father's monastery. This light was seen by many other witnesses, who often told of it.

The prince ¹⁸ and his boyars, hearing of the devout life of this community, visited blessed Theodosius, confessed their sins to him, and received great spiritual benefit. Thereupon they offered Theodosius part of their riches for the building of the church and for the accommodations of the monks, and even gave up some of their estates. Pious Prince Isiaslav in particular, who at that time sat on his father's throne, was deeply attached to the holy man and often sent for him; or else, he would himself visit the saint and return provided with spiritual food. From that time on, God granted the monastery an abundance of all good things through the prayers of His saint.

Our father Theodosius forbade the gate-keeper to open the gates to anyone after the noonday meal; no one might enter the monastery until Vespers, for during the afternoon the brethren rested before the night and morning prayers. One day at noon pious Prince Isiaslav came to the monastery with only a few attendants (for when he visited the saint, he was in the habit of dismissing his boyars and going to the monastery with but five or six servants to attend him). On this occasion, having reached the Caves, he dismounted (for he never rode into the monastery yard), and walking up to the gates, ordered the keeper to open them. The keeper replied that the great father had forbidden him to do so before Vespers. The pious prince said to him: "It is I, and to me alone you may open the gates." The keeper, not knowing that it was the prince who stood before him, answered: "I have already told you of our abbot's instructions: if the prince himself were to come here, I might not open the gates. If you wish, you may wait here a little, until Vespers." Then the visitor spoke again: "I am the prince, will you not open the gates for me?" The keeper looked out and recognized the prince; nevertheless he would not open the gates himself, but hurried to make Isiaslav's presence known to the saint.

The prince stood by the gates and waited patiently. Now in this experience he was like the senior Apostle, Peter; for when the latter, freed from prison by the angel, reached the house where the disciples were assembled and knocked at the door, the servant who peeped out and saw him was so filled with joy that she did not open the door, but ran first to inform the others. And this gate-keeper did the same thing.

The saint went to the gate, and seeing the prince, bowed to him. The prince said: "Father, what is this rule of which the keeper has told me, that forbids even the prince to enter?" The saint answered: "This rule, my good Lord, has been made in order that the brethren shall not leave the monastery at noon-time, but shall take the proper rest before the evening prayers. But your devotion to the home of our Lady is good and salutary, and we are well pleased with your coming here."

They entered the church, and when they had prayed, they sat down. The devout prince drank in the honeyed words which flowed from the lips of our reverend father Theodosius and returned home greatly comforted, praising God.

From that day on, the prince's love for Theodosius was even greater, for he looked upon him as one like the saints of old; and he did all that our father Theodosius commanded.

Upon the death of Rostislav, Prince of Tmutarakan, the citizens prevailed on Nicon to go to Prince Sviatoslav ¹⁹ and asked him to let his son take the succession of Rostislav's throne. On his way Nicon visited St. Theodosius; when they met, they fell at each other's feet; then, having embraced each other, they wept, for there had been no meeting between them for many years. St. Theodosius asked Nicon to remain with him as long as he lived. The great Nicon answered: I must first go for a little while to my monastery, in order to settle my affairs; then I shall return without delay." He kept his promise, gave all his possessions to the saint and was gladly subject to him.

Having related all that concerns these two, I shall now speak only of blessed Theodosius and of his good works. He was like a lamp enlightening all the monks. He shone by his humility, his obedience, his labors, all that he did. Each day he devoted himself to manual labor. He often worked in the bakery, side by side with the bakers; with a joyful spirit he would mix the dough and place the loaves in the oven - for, as we have said, he was strong and healthy in body. He would advise, encourage, and comfort anyone who was suffering, and was himself tireless in his undertakings.

One day, it being the eve of Our Lady's Feast, there was no water, and the above-mentioned Theodore, who was at that time cellarer (it was he who told me many things concerning Theodosius), informed the abbot that there was no one to fetch the water from the well. The saint rose at once and undertook the task. One of the brethren, observing this, hurried to inform the other monks, and they came running to assist their abbot. On another occasion, when no wood had been chopped for the kitchen, Theodore the cellarer went to blessed Theodosius and said to him, "Ordersome of these brothers who are idle to get wood ready for the fire." The saint answered, "I am idle, so I will do it." He told the brethren to go into the refectory, and he himself took a hatchet and started to chop wood. When dinner was over, the brethren leaving the refectory saw their venerable abbot still at work. Then each of them took a hatchet, and they chopped a quantity of wood that sufficed for many days. These are examples of our blessed spiritual father Theodosius' zeal.

He was animated by real humility and great gentleness; in everything he imitated Christ, our true God, Who said: "He that will be first among you shall be your servant." Contemplating Christ's humility, he humbled himself, putting himself in the lowest place as an example to the others. He was the first to begin his work; he entered the church before the rest of the community and was the last to leave it. Often, when the great Nicon was busy binding books, the saint would sit at his side and spin the thread needed for Nicon's work. No one ever saw him lying down or bathing. He wore a hair-shirt on his naked body, and over it a coat of coarse material, only to hide the hairshirt. Because of his attire, many foolish persons ridiculed him, and the saint accepted this ridicule joyfully, having always in mind the divine words in which he found comfort: "Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake; be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven." Meditating on this, the saint suffered mockery and provocation patiently.

One day the great Theodosius visited pious Isiaslav on some matter of business. The prince lived at a great distance from the city. Theodosius remained with him until evening and Isiaslav ordered that the saint should be driven home in his coach, so that our father would be able to take some rest. During the journey the coachman, observing his poor clothes, decided that he must be a beggar, so he said to him: "Look here, monk, you are free every day to do as you please, while I must spend my life in toil. Let me lie down in the coach, and you ride the horse." The saint humbly stepped out and mounted the horse, and the coachman lay down in the coach. Theodosius rode on his way, rejoicing and praising God. When sleep overcame him, he would dismount and go on foot. And when he was weary with walking, he would mount the horse once more. When the sun rose, and the noblemen were on the way to the prince's palace, they recognized the saint from a distance, and they dismounted and bowed to him. The venerable monk then said to the coachman: "My child, it is light. Mount your horse." When the youth saw everyone bowing to the saint, he was filled with dismay and confusion. He rose to his feet and mounted the horse, and Theodosius re-entered the coach. All the boyars whom they met on their way paid their respects to our father, and the coachman's consternation increased. And great indeed was his terror when they arrived at the monastery and all the brethren hastened to greet Theodosius, bowing to the ground. "Who can this man be," the youth wondered, "who is worthy of such a reception?" Theodosius took the coachman by the hand and led him to the refectory and ordered that he should be given as much food and drink as he wished. Then he paid him money and let him go. Venerable Theodosius said nothing of what had occurred on their way, but the coachman himself related all this to the brethren. ²⁰

Our father Theodosius taught the brethren not to be vain about anything but to be humble monks; to regard themselves as of the least importance, not to be proud but to practise obedience towards everyone. "When walking," he said to them, "fold your arms across your breast. When you pass one another, bow humbly, as is proper for a monk. Do not wander from cell to cell, but each of you, pray in your own cell." Thus, and in many other words, he instructed the brethren. If he were informed that a monk was troubled by diabolical illusions, he would call him and test him in every fashion; he would exhort the monk firmly to resist the assaults of the devil, not to yield or weaken, or leave his place in the monastery, but to guard himself with prayer and fasting and appeal more frequently to God for help. He told the brethren that he himself had suffered these attacks in the beginning: "One day," he related, "as I was chanting the ordinary psalms, a black dog suddenly appeared before me and prevented me from making my genuflection. The dog remained for a long time before me, hindering me from prayer, and I was about to strike him when suddenly he vanished. Then I was seized with fear and trembling, so that I should have fled from that place had not God come to my assistance. When I had recollected myself, I began to pray diligently, with many genuflections. All fear left me, and from that time on such apparitions held no terrors for me." He told them many other things to fortify them against evil spirits. And when he let them return to their cells, they went away rejoicing and praising God for having given them such a good master.

The following events were described to me by a brother named Hilarion: "The evil spirits," he said, "played many wicked tricks on me. If I lay down on my couch, a multitude of devils would immediately appear, seize me by the hair, and drag and push me about. And others would pound the wall until it shook, saying: 'Let us crush him under this wall.' And they did this every night." Unable to endure these attacks any longer, Hilarion further related, he had gone to father Theodosius and described the occurrences to him, asking to be moved to another cell. The saint remonstrated with him in this manner: "No, brother, do not leave your cell, for then the devils would boast that they had defeated you and gained a victory; after this, they will persecute you even more, for they have acquired power over you. Fray to God diligently in your cell; when He sees your patience, He will grant you the victory over your enemies, so that they will not dare even to come near you." Hilarion said to Theodosius: I beseech you, father, I cannot live in that cell any longer, with such a crowd of devils inhabiting it." Then the saint made the sign of the cross on him and said: "Go, and stay in your cell; from now on, the evil spirits shall harass you no longer; you shall see no more of them." Hilarion trusted in the blessed father's words; he bowed before him, then returned to his cell. That night he lay down and slept peacefully. The devils thereafter dared not go near that place. Repulsed by the prayers of our father Theodosius, they departed hastily.

Here is another story told me by Hilarion. He was an able copyist of books, and every night he would write in the cell of our father Theodosius, while the saint recited psalms in his gentle voice and occupied himself with weaving or some other task. One evening, as they were working thus side by side, the steward entered and said: "I have no money to purchase food and other necessities for the brethren tomorrow." The saint answered: "It is evening, and tomorrow is still far away. Therefore, have patience and pray: will not God take pity on us and provide for our needs in the way He thinks best?" When he heard this, the steward withdrew. The saint retired and prayed, as he was in the habit of doing, then resumed his task. The steward returned, repeating what he had said before. The saint replied: "I told you, go and pray; tomorrow you shall go to the town and purchase all that the brethren need on credit; later, with the help of God, we shall repay our debt, since God has said: 'Be not solicitous for tomorrow! He will not abandon us."

As the steward went out, there entered a young man in shining armor. He bowed before our father, placed a gold coin on the table, and vanished without uttering a word. The saint picked up the gold coin and, with tears in his eyes, recited a mental prayer. Then he summoned the gate-keeper and asked him whether he had seen anyone enter the monastery that night. The gate-keeper swore that he had locked the gates before sunset and had not opened them since, so that no one could have entered. Then the saint called the steward, and placing the gold coin in his hand, said to him: "Brother Anastasius, now you shall complain no longer of having no money to buy food for the brethren. And tomorrow God will again provide for us." The steward bowed before our father, who went on to say: "Never despair, but be firm in your faith. Entrust your burden to God; He will provide for our needs. And since such is His pleasure, prepare a feast for our brethren." After this God generously sent Theodosius all that was needed for his blessed flock.

Venerable Theodosius prayed every night to obtain all these things, depriving himself of sleep, weeping and making genuflections. The monks had many intimations of this. For example, when it was time to wake him, the brethren would come to ask for his blessing, and on one occasion a certain monk stole up and stood at his door. He heard our father praying and weeping unrestrainedly and beating his head on the ground. The monk withdrew. Later he returned. This time the saint heard him approach, so he interrupted his prayers and pretended to be asleep. And when the monk knocked at his door, saying. "Give me your blessing, father," venerable Theodosius was silent until the call had been repeated three times. Only then, as if he were just awakening, did he answer, "May our Lord Jesus Christ bless you." And this, according to the brethren's testimony, occurred every night.

In the monastery lived a monk named Damian who was a priest. He zealously imitated the life and the humility of our blessed father. There were many witnesses to his holiness and obedience. One day, having fallen seriously ill, he was on the brink of death, and he began to pray: "My Lord Jesus Christ, allow me to share the glory of Thy saints, and to be a member of Thy kingdom. And do not separate me, I beseech Thee, my Lord, from my father and master, venerable Theodosius. Let me remain at his side in the world prepared for the just." He was praying in this manner when blessed Theodosius suddenly appeared, standing at his bedside. He leaned on Damian's breast, embraced him affectionately, and said: "My son, I have been sent to inform you that your prayer will be answered. You shall be with the saints in the kingdom of our heavenly Lord. When our Lord Jesus Christ orders me to be transferred from this world and to come to you, we shall not be separated, but shall remain together in the next world." When he had said this, the saint vanished from Damian's sight. Now the priest knew that this had been a vision, for he had not seen Theodosius enter through the door, and he had become invisible right where he stood.

Then Damian sent the brother who was caring for him to fetch Theodosius. When our father entered, Damian asked happily, "Father, shall it be as you promised just now, when you appeared to me?" The saint replied that he did not know of what promise Damian was speaking. Then the priest told him what he had seen and heard. The God-inspired Theodosius, smiling gently and weeping a little, said: "My son, it shall be as was promised by the angel who appeared to you in my image. As for me, how could such a sinner share in the glory prepared for the just?" But Damian rejoiced in the saint's promise. When the brethren gathered around his bed, he took leave of them all, and gave up his soul peacefully when the angels came to bear it away. Then the saint ordered that the bell should be tolled for all the other brethren to assemble, so that Damian's body might be buried with proper respect in the monks' cemetery.

When the brethren increased in number and many postulants came to join them, Theodosius was compelled to enlarge the monastery, building many other cells. With the assistance of his monks, he fenced in the monastery court with his own hands. But one dark night before the fence was completed, robbers entered the premises. They did not approach the cells, but hastened to the church in the belief that it contained many precious articles. From within came the sound of singing, and the robbers, thinking that the brethren were chanting Vespers, withdrew. When they had waited for a time in the woods, they said to each other that the prayers must by this time be ended, so they returned to the church. Once more they heard the sound of chanting; they also saw a strange light in the church and could smell the odor of incense. Now it was angels that were singing, but the robbers thought that the monks were chanting the midnight service, and they withdrew once more, with the firm intention of breaking into the church and plundering it as soon as the service should be over. They approached the church many times in this manner, and each time they heard the singing.

When the hour of Matins came, and the sexton began to summon the monks to prayer, the robbers hid in the wood, saying to each other: "What shall we do? We must have been hearing ghosts. But when all the brethren have gathered in the church, we shall break in, lock the doors, murder the monks and take away their riches." Now this plan was inspired by the enemy, who desired the death of the holy flock; but his design miscarried, and he himself suffered defeat through God's intervention and the prayers of blessed Theodosius.

As the venerable flock gathered about their blessed teacher Theodosius in the church began to chant the holy morning psalms, the cruel robbers, pausing only for a moment, bore down upon the church like a pack of wild beasts. But just at that moment a miraculous event took place. The church rose into the air, out of reach of the attackers. Those who were assembled in the church with the saint were unaware of this, but the robbers fled in panic, vowing that never again would they harm anyone. Their leader went to Theodosius in repentance and described the occurrence to him. The saint thanked God for His protection of the monastery and for the opportunity He had given the thieves to save their souls.

When the boyars visited the monastery, the saint, after having given them spiritual instruction, would offer them a meal from the Caves' victuals, such as boiled grain, bread, and fish. Pious Prince Isiaslav himself often shared these meals. One day when he was in high spirits, the prince said to the saint: "Father, you know that my house is full of all kinds of worldly riches; but I have never eaten better food than this. Often my servants prepare a variety of expensive foods, but their dishes are not so palatable as these. Tell me, father, I beg of you, why is your food so delicious?" Our God-inspired Theodosius, wishing to incline the prince's heart to the love of God, answered: "My good Lord, I shall tell you the reason if you want to know it.

When the brethren of the Caves are about to cook food or bake bread, one of them first of all asks for the abbot's blessing. Then he bows three times before the holy altar and lights a candle from the altar-lamp, and with this he kindles the fire in the oven. When a monk fills the kettle with water, he says to the senior-brother: 'Father, give me your blessing,' and the seniorbrother answers: 'May God bless you, brother.' And so it is with everything that is done in the community. Now take your servants. They quarrel among themselves while they are preparing the food. They complain and lie about each other, and often the stewards beat them. Therefore their work is done in a sinful manner." When he heard this, pious Prince Isiaslav exclaimed: "Indeed, father, it is as you say!"

Our venerable father Theodosius, truly filled with the Holy Ghost, multiplied the talents which God had given him. He drew great numbers of monks to this once desolate land and made his monastery famous; yet he was never willing to put away reserves, for he felt that it was better to be fortified by faith and hope in God than to put one's trust in property. When he visited the cells of the brethren and found food or clothing in a greater quantity than was allowed by the rule, he would cast these into the fire as the devil's portion acquired through disobedience. He would say to the brothers: "It is wrong for us, who are monks and have renounced the world, to collect property in our cells. How can a monk offer God a pure prayer if he has hidden possessions? Are you deaf to the words of Our Lord: 'For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also' and 'Thou fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee: and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided'? Therefore, brothers, let us be satisfied with such clothes and food as we receive from the cellarer according to the rule; let us keep nothing in our cell, so that we may pray to God with our whole heart and mind."

In this way Theodosius taught his brothers, giving them many other instructions with tears and in great humility. He never gave way to anger, but was gentle and merciful and charitable towards everyone. If one of the holy flock weakened in his faith and left the monastery, the saint would be deeply grieved and would pray for the return of the lost sheep. And when the brother returned, the saint would joyfully teach him how to resist the wiles of the enemy-not to let him come near but to stand firmly. He said that only a cowardly soul allows itself to be weakened by these contemptible devices. And when he had instructed and comforted the returning brother, Theodosius would send him back to his cell in peace.

A certain brother in the community often left the Caves, and each time he returned, the saint received him, saying that God would not allow him to die outside the monastery. Theodosius prayed with tears for this brother, begging God to be patient with him. One day the vagrant monk returned for still another time and asked our blessed father to take him in. And Theodosius, who was full of true charity, welcomed the brother as he had done on previous occasions. Then the monk brought the few possessions he had and laid them before the venerable father. Theodosius said to him: "If you would become a perfect monk, consider these objects as the fruit of disobedience and throw them into the fire." The monk, who had ardent faith, did as he was told. Thus his property was burned, and from that time on he stayed in the Caves and died there peacefully, according to our father's prediction. Such was the love which the saint bore his flock; he cared for them as the good shepherd tends his sheep, comforted them, instructed and nourished them spiritually, directing them towards divine wisdom and thus guiding them to the kingdom of heaven.

So intense was our father Theodosius' charity that if he saw a beggar or a miserable and poorly dressed person, he would weep with compassion as he gave him alms. He built a church dedicated to St. Stephen, with a courtyard on the monastery grounds, and here he gathered together the beggars, the blind, the lame and the sick. He fed them from the monastery kitchen and gave them a tenth of all he had. Moreover, each Saturday, he would send a cartload of bread to the prisoners in jail.

At one time a feud was inspired by the evil one between three princes who were brothers. The two younger rose against their elder brother, pious Isiaslav, and drove him out of the capital. ²¹ When the brothers entered the city, they sent for blessed father Theodosius, asking him to dine with them and to take part in their iniquitous council. Theodosius, who had heard of the unjust treatment accorded to Isiaslav, was inspired by the Holy Ghost to answer in the words of Scripture: I shall not go to the feast of Jezebel or taste the fruit of murder and injustice." Adding many other words of reproach to his reply, the saint sent the messenger back to the princes. They listened to his message without any expression of anger, for they considered our venerable father to be a man of God. Nevertheless they refused to be influenced by him and continued to persecute their brother; Sviatoslav, Prince of Chernigov, ascended the throne of his brother Isiaslav, while the other, Vsevolod, returned to his own princedom of Pereyaslavl. Then our father Theodosius, inspired by the Holy Ghost, began to rebuke Sviatoslav for having usurped his brother's throne and driven him out of his kingdom. Sometimes the saint would reproach Sviatoslav by letter and sometimes by word of mouth, addressing himself to the noblemen who visited the Caves and telling them to repeat his words to Sviatoslav. Eventually he wrote him a long letter, charging him in the following words: "Your brother's blood cries out to God against you, as that of Abel against Cain." He cited the acts of the persecutors and fratricides of antiquity and quoted many parables reflecting the prince's behavior.

When he read this Sviatoslav was enraged. Roaring like a lion, he flung the letter on the ground. The rumor then arose that the saint would be condemned to exile, and the brethren, greatly alarmed, implored our father to desist from his accusations. Many boyars came to the monastery, warning Theodosius of the prince's wrath and begging him to offer no further resistance. They said: "The prince intends to send you into exile." Blessed Theodosius answered: "Brothers, I am filled with joy; for indeed, nothing could be better for me in this life. What have I to fear? the loss of riches or property? separation from country or children? We have brought nothing of the sort into this world. We were born naked, and we must leave this world naked. Therefore, I am prepared for exile and death." From that time on, he began to charge Sviatoslav even more boldly with the hatred he bore his brother, for he earnestly desired exile.

Though the prince was very much provoked against the saint, he nevertheless dared not do him any injury, for he was aware that Theodosius was a highly respected and just man, and he even envied his brother for having so great a religious in his realm. (This was admitted by the prince himself, and later repeated by the monk Paul, former abbot of a nearby monastery.) Our blessed father Theodosius, influenced at last by the solicitations of his brethren and the boyars, and himself convinced that his words were having no effect on the new ruler, ceased to rebuke him, deciding that it would be better to plead with him to bring his brother back. After a few days the prince learned, to his joy, that Theodosius was no longer implacably opposed to him. Since he had for long desired to take counsel with Theodosius concerning spiritual matters, he now sent a messenger asking the saint whether he might visit the Caves. As soon as Theodosius had given his permission, the prince went joyfully to the monastery, accompanied by his boyars.

The great Theodosius, according to his custom, went forth from the church followed by his brethren to meet the prince, and bowed before him in due courtesy. The prince greeted the saint and said to him: "Father, I have not dared to visit you before, for I feared that in your anger you would refuse me admittance." The saint answered: "Good prince, what effect can our anger have upon your power? It is our duty to rebuke you and to say whatever has a bearing upon the salvation of your soul, and it is your duty to listen." After this they entered the church, and having prayed, were seated. The saint began to speak, quoting the holy Scriptures and instructing the prince as to the love which he should have for his brother. But Sviatoslav put all the blame on Isiaslav, and he was therefore reluctant to make peace with him. After a prolonged conversation, the prince returned to his home, thanking God for giving him the opportunity of speaking with such a man. From that time on he often visited the saint to listen to his words, which were sweeter than honey. The great Theodosius also visited Sviatoslav frequently and reminded him of God's justice and of the love he owed his brother.

One day Theodosius entered Sviatoslav's palace and found many musicians assembled, as was the custom, to entertain the prince. Some of them were playing on the lute, others on the organ and other instruments. The saint seated himself at Sviatoslav's side, his eyes fixed on the ground. Then, raising his head, he said to the prince: "Will this be your lot in the next world?" The prince, moved by these words, wept a little and ordered the musicians to stop playing. From that day on, each time the saint entered while they were playing, Sviatoslav told them to be still. ²²

Often, when informed of our father's arrival, the prince would go eagerly to meet him at the door, and they would enter the palace side by side. One day, when he was in high spirits, Sviatoslav said to Theodosius: "If I were told that my own father had risen from the dead, truly I should not rejoice as much as I do when you visit me. Nor should I be as much afraid of him as I am of your holiness." The saint answered: "If you are as much afraid of me as you say, then fulfill my wish. Put your brother back on the throne that his good father gave him." The prince, having no answer for this, said nothing. The enemy had filled him with such resentment towards his brother that he would not even hear of him. But venerable Theodosius prayed night and day for the pious Isiaslav. He gave instructions that his name should be mentioned in the litanies as prince of Kiev and the senior of the brothers: but as for Sviatoslav, he forbade his name to be remembered in the monastery. Only later, owing to the brethren's entreaties, did he permit Sviatoslav's name to be restored in the prayers of the church, and then it might be mentioned only after that of Isiaslav.

Observing this feud between the princes, the great Nicon retired with two other monks to the aforementioned peninsula, where he founded a monastery. Although blessed Theodosius urged him not to leave, but to abide with him as long as he lived, Nicon would not be persuaded.

Many people found fault with Theodosius, but he accepted their reproaches joyfully; often he suffered rebukes and vexations from his own disciples, but he prayed to God for all. Moreover, he was not disturbed when ignorant folk ridiculed him because of his poor clothes, but rejoiced and praised God. Because of his dress, many people failed to recognize him as the abbot but rather mistook him for one of the cooks. One day, as he was on his way to the workers who were building the church, he met a poor widow who had been ill-treated by a judge. She said: "Monk, where is your abbot?" Theodosius answered: "What do you want of him? He is a sinner." The woman said: "I do not know whether he is a sinner, but I do know that he has rescued many people from sorrow and misery. Therefore, I too have come to look for him, so that he may help me." The saint, when he learned of her plight, took pity on her and said: "Woman, return to your home. When I see the abbot, I shall tell him about you, and he will help you." And when the woman had obediently departed, the saint went to the judge, spoke in her defense and saved her from the injustice which was impending.

Theodosius often intervened with the judges and the princes, and he alleviated many a misfortune, because no one dared to disobey him, his justice and holiness were so well known. He was respected, not because of fine clothes or rich estates, but for his radiant life and purity of spirit, and for his teachings, fired with the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. To him the goatskin and the hair-shirt were more precious than a king's purple robe, and he was proud to wear them.

When Theodosius had reached the end of his life, he learned beforehand from God the day he would go to rest (for death is repose for the just). He ordered all the brothers who were working in the fields, or were absent for some other reason, to be called back to the Caves. When they were gathered together, he instructed the bailiffs, the stewards and the servants to fulfill their tasks with industry and fear of God, in obedience and charity. Weeping, he gave instructions to them all concerning their salvation and the way of life that was pleasing to God -fasting, attendance in church and reverent behavior on its premises, brotherly love and obedience. He told them to love and obey not only their seniors, but also their equals. When he had said these things, he let them go.

After that his illness became more acute, and a burning fever drained all strength from his limbs. He lay down on his couch and said: "Thy will be done. Whatever God wills shall be done to me. But I pray Thee, O my Lord, have mercy on my soul, that it may not encounter the malice of Thy enemies, but that Thy angels may receive it and lead it through the trials of the darkness after death towards the light of Thy mercy." After this he was silent.

There was great sorrowing among the brethren. For three days, he could not speak or even raise his eyes; and many believed he was dead, although there were faint indications that his soul was still within him. But on the third day he raised himself, and when all the brethren had gathered, he said to them: "My brothers and fathers, I know that my time is drawing to an end, for it was revealed to me by God during my Lenten retreat in the cave. As for you, consult with each other, whom you wish me to appoint abbot as my successor." When they heard this, the brethren were once more plunged into grief. Withdrawing from his presence, they held a consultation and nominated Stephen, the choirmaster, as their future abbot. The next day blessed Theodosius called the brethren to his bedside and asked them: "What have you decided, my children? Whom do you think worthy of being your abbot?" The brethren told him Stephen, ²³ and our father blessed him and ordered him to be abbot. And he told all the brethren to obey Stephen and dismissed them. But before he let them go, he foretold the day of his death, saying: "On Saturday, as the run rises, my soul will be separated from my body." Then calling back Stephen alone to his bedside, he advised him with regard to the care of the flock. Stephen stayed by the saint and nursed him, for our father was now severely ill.

On Saturday at dawn, the saint sent for all the brethren and embraced each of them in turn. They wept and groaned at the thought that they were to be separated from such a pastor and teacher. The saint said to them: "My beloved children and brethren, I embrace you because I am leaving you to go to our Lord Jesus Christ. Here is the abbot you have chosen. Obey him as your spiritual father; fear him and fulfill all his commissions. God, who has created all things by His will and in His wisdom, will bless you and protect you against the enemy's devices and all misfortune, and will preserve your faith in all its firmness, unity and love until your last breath. Moreover, He will grant you the grace to work for Him without sinning and to form one spirit of love and obedience. Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect. May God be with you. I entreat you all to bury me in the clothes which I am now wearing and to lay me in the cave where I spent the days of Lent. Do not wash my miserable body. Let no one see me; you alone bury me in the place I have chosen."

And as the brethren wept, he spoke again, to comfort them: "I promise you, brothers and fathers, that though I am leaving you in body, my spirit shall always be with you. Those of you who die in the monastery or at some other place where they are sent by the abbot, I shall answer for before God, even if they sin. But as for a man who leaves the Caves of his own free will, I shall have no concern with him. You know my daring before God. If you see all the goods of this monastery multiplied, you will know that I am close to our divine Lord. And if you see poverty and decrease of good, you will know that I am far from God and dare not ask Him for anything." ²⁴

After these words Theodosius sent all the brethren away, not allowing a single one to remain with him. But one of the brethren who had been his servant made a chink in the door and looked through it. The saint had risen and was kneeling, his face pressed to the floor, praying with tears for God's mercy upon his soul and calling all the saints to his aid, in particular our Blessed Lady. He appealed through her to our Lord Jesus Christ on behalf of his flock and his monastery. Then he went back to his couch, and when he had rested for a while, he raised his eyes, and with a radiant face spoke in a strange voice: "Blessed be God! If it is so, I need have no more fear, but may leave this world joyfully."

He said this, apparently having had a vision. Then, having straightened his habit, stretched out his limbs and crossed his hands on his breast, he gave up his holy soul to God and was united with the holy fathers.

Our blessed father Theodosius died in 6582 (1074) on Saturday, the third day of May, as he had predicted.

Beloved, what did we bring into this world, or what have we to take out of it? Did we not leave the world and worldly things according to the commandment of Christ, Who said, "Every one of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth, cannot be my disciple"; and again, "If anyone love me, he will keep my word"? Love of God is expressed not in words but in actions. For He said: "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another, as I have loved you." And "In this," He said, "is my Father glorified; that you bring forth very much fruit, and become my disciples."

Is it not of itself astonishing, beloved, that God can be glorified by works of ours - and what love He pours out upon us, wretches that we are: "As the Father hath loved me, I also have loved you... Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends"; and, "You are my friends." What then should we, miserable men, be like? Does not our heart burn, hearing these words? ... What good did we do to Him, that he has chosen us and rescued us from this transient life? For have not we all gone astray and became useless in His work, following our lusts? Yet He did not despise us in such an evil condition; he did not abhor our nature, but having taken the form of a slave, became like us. And all this He did that we may be saved...

Sergius is undoubtedly the most popular and beloved of the saints of Russia and is considered her patron. He became the patron of the principality of Moscow in the fifteenth century, when it began to conquer and unite under its rule the whole of Great Russia, and the extension of his cult soon after his death (1392), is partially explained by the services which he had rendered as a counsellor and adviser (and not in spiritual matters alone) to the Russian princes and as the faithful supporter of Moscow's princely line.

St. Sergius' spirituality gives the most perfect expression to the Russian kenotic ideal, but in him is found a mystical deepening of the spirituality for which St. Theodosius had established the pattern. St. Sergius was one of the most prominent exponents of a new form of Russian monasticism. All the cloisters of the pre-Mongolian era of which there is a record were situated in towns, or in the outskirts of towns, and were in close relation with the world for which they provided spiritual and cultural centers. The Tartar invasion (1237-40) laid waste to most of the old communities and produced great disorders in the religious and moral life of Russian society. Only in the fourteenth century did the nation begin gradually to recover from the spiritual inertia resulting from the continual devastations of the invaders, but now the leaders of the great monastic revival were hermits, who had taken refuge in the virgin forests of northern Russia, where they lived a life of prayer and contemplation. At first there were the huts and chapels of solitary men of prayer, but disciples soon gathered about, and eventually communities which throve economically and spiritually arose in the wilderness. Nevertheless the new spirit of silence and contemplation did not die out but penetrated deeper into the wilderness as sanctuaries more remote from society were sought by contemplatives desiring to live in solitude.

For St. Sergius years of solitary prayer in which he underwent severe spiritual conflicts with the forces of evil and the temptations of the flesh preceded the founding of the famous monastery of the Holy Trinity. The career of S Sergius as monk and abbot has many features in common with that of Theodosius, and in some respects is closely parallel to it. Like that of St. Theodosius his asceticism emphasizes labor, self-deprivation, and patience rather than painful corporal penances. There is the coarse and patched clothing, the lack of exterior authority, and the self-humiliation in the presence of subordinates and persons of humble condition. Sergius seems even to have surpassed his spiritual ancestor in the practice of kenotic humility, judging by several incidents recorded of him. First there is his manual labor; he cultivates the soil of the wilderness, works as a carpenter, building first cells and then the chapel, and at the height of his national fame he is still employed in tending the kitchen garden. Although of noble origin, he is not to be distinguished from a peasant in his life as a religious. His meekness likewise is even more astonishing than that of the Kievan saint: he, the abbot, is engaged by one of his monks to build a cell and is recompensed for his services by a few mildewed loaves. And when he encounters disobedience on the part of his own brother, he leaves the monastery for a period of four years rather than enforce his authority. Like Theodosius he receives a rule for the cenobitical life from Greece and tries to establish it in the monastery, but he is even less capable than Theodosius of preserving order through severe discipline.

Yet in his interior life, in the quality of his prayer, Sergius belongs to another epoch than does Theodosius; he is the first Russian saint in whom mysticism is observed. That he was a mystic is a matter of inference: his biographer, Epiphanius, famous among his contemporaries for the elegance of his style, evidences no knowledge or understanding of this kind of prayer, which had but lately shown itself in Russia, but the visions of the saint which he describes are of a mystical character. Sergius is the earliest saint in Russian hagiography to be favored by heavenly visions in his contemplation; such graces were likewise conferred on a few of his disciples belonging to the same contemplative school. The best known is the vision of Our Lady; others are those of light and fire, often in connection with the Holy Eucharist: Sergius is assisted in the celebration of the Mass by an angel, and fire descends into the chalice after the consecration. Fire also darts forth from his hands when he blesses one of his disciples, the mystic Isaac.

St. Sergius dedicated his monastery to the Holy Trinity-- a rather unusual dedication at that time; he was himself believed to have been dedicated to the Holy Trinity before his birth. Considering the primitive stage which theological thought had reached in medieval Russia, this was in the nature of mystical revelation. He was moreover contemporary with the exponents of the great movement of Greek mysticism known as Hesychasm. Intercourse between Moscow and Constantinople was not then infrequent: Sergius himself received a letter from the Patriarch; one of his disciples had been at Mount Athos for a time, and some of the manuscripts in the latter's handwriting, which include ascetical and mystical treatises by writers of the Hesychast school (Simeon the New Theologian, Gregory of Sinai, and others), are preserved. All these factors, added to the characteristic love of solitude and the celestial visions, make it extremely probable that Sergius practised mystical prayer.

But Sergius' mysticism did not cause him to decline the responsibility of service to the world. In the best tradition of Theodosius he comforted, healed, protected the oppressed. He found nothing abhorrent in political activity, but whereas Theodosius had found it necessary only to insist upon justice in political relations, the demands upon a churchman in Sergius' day entailed other and more dangerous functions. In Theodosius' time the state had been strong enough to defend itself from aggression by secular arms, but Sergius saw Russia prostrate under a foreign yoke. A national movement of resistance under the leadership of Moscow now arose, and Sergius had to give his blessing to Prince Demetrius of Moscow for open military resistance. The first Russian victory over the Tartars (in the battle of Kulikovo, 1380) raised Sergius to the eminence of a national hero, a builder of Muscovy. This was not the only instance of his intervention in the political sphere; sometimes he took part in diplomatic parleys, reconciling enemies, or even threatening the recalcitrant with the ecclesiastical interdict. In this capacity he acted, most probably, in obedience to the great statesman Metropolitan Alexis of Moscow, who was for several decades a regent in the government of the state.

Modern historians may well differ in their evaluation of the political function which these churchmen exercised: the greatness of the future Muscovite state was its fruit. In the days of St. Sergius that close union of Church and State in Russia, which is one of the chief characteristics of Russia's subsequent life as a nation, had its origin. In its development this ecclesiastical policy stands in drastic contradiction to the kenotic ideals of ancient times. St. Sergius, yielding to new historical forces, could see only the blessings attendant upon a strong union of Church and State, not the potentiality for evil likewise inherent in such a government.

By Epiphanius the Wise ¹

Our holy father Sergius was born ² of noble, orthodox, devout parents. His father was named Cyril and his mother Mary. They found favour with God; they were honourable in the sight of God and man, and abounded in those virtues which are well-pleasing unto God.

Cyril had three sons, Stephen, Bartholomew and Peter, whom he brought up in strict piety and purity. Stephen and Peter quickly learnt to read and write, but the second boy did not so easily learn to write, and worked slowly and inattentively; his master taught him with care but the boy could not put his mind to his studies, nor understand, nor do the same as his companions who were studying with him. As a result he suffered from the many reproaches of his parents, and still more from the punishments of his teacher and the ridicule of his companions. The boy often prayed to God in secret and with many tears: "O Lord, give me understanding of this learning. Teach me, Lord, enlighten and instruct me." His reverence for God prompted him to pray that he might receive knowledge from God and not from men.

One day his father sent him to seek for a lost foal. On his way he met a monk, a venerable elder, a stranger, a priest, with the appearance of an angel. This stranger was standing beneath an oak tree, praying devoutly and with much shedding of tears. The boy, seeing him, humbly made a low obeisance, and awaited the end of his prayers.

The venerable monk, when he had ended his oraisons, glanced at the boy and, conscious that he beheld the chosen vessel of the Holy Spirit, he called him to his side, blessed him, bestowed on him a kiss in the name of Christ, and asked: "What art seeking, or what dost thou want, child?"

The boy answered, "My soul desires above all things to understand the holy scriptures. I have to study reading and writing and I am sorely vexed that I cannot learn these things. Will you, holy father, pray to God for me, that He will give me understanding of book-learning?"

The monk raised his hands and his eyes towards heaven, sighed, prayed to God, then said, "Amen."

Taking out from his satchel, as it were some treasure, with three fingers, he handed to the boy what appeared to be a little bit of white wheaten bread of the Holy Sacrament, saying to him, "Take this in thy mouth, child, and eat; this is given thee as a sign of God's grace and for the understanding of holy scriptures. Though the gift appears but small the taste thereof is very sweet."

The boy opened his mouth and ate, tasting a sweetness as of honey, wherefore he said, "Is it not written, How sweet are Thy Words to my palate, more than honey to my lips, and my soul doth cherish them exceedingly?"

The monk answered and said, "If thou believest, child, more than this will be revealed to thee; and do not vex thyself about reading and writing; thou wilt find that from this day forth the Lord will give thee learning above that of thy brothers and others of thine own age."

Having thus informed him of divine favour, the monk prepared to proceed on his way. But the boy flung himself, with his face to the ground, at the feet of the monk, ³ and besought him to come and visit his parents, saying, "My parents dearly love persons such as you are, father."

The monk, astonished at his faith, accompanied him to his parents' house. At the sight of the stranger Cyril and Mary came out to meet him, and bowed low before him. The monk blessed them, and they offered him food but, before accepting any food, the monk went into the chapel, taking with him the boy whose consecration had been signified even before birth, ⁴ and began a recitation of the Canonical Hours, telling the boy to read the Psalms.

The boy said, "I do not know them, father."

The monk replied, I told thee that from to-day the Lord would give thee knowledge in reading and writing; read the Word of God nothing doubting."

Whereupon, to the astonishment of all present, the boy, receiving the monk's blessing, began to recite in excellent rhythm; and from that hour he could read. His parents and brothers praised God, and after accompanying the monk to the house placed food before him. Having eaten, and bestowed a blessing on the parents, the monk was anxious to proceed on his way. But the parents pleaded, "Reverend father, hurry not away, but stay and comfort us and calm our fears. Our humble son, whom you bless and praise, is to us an object of marvel. While he was yet in his mother's womb three times he uttered a cry in church during holy Mass. Wherefore we fear and doubt of what is to be, and what he is to do."

The holy monk, after considering and becoming aware of that which was to be, exclaimed, "O blessed pair, O worthy couple, giving birth to such a child! Why do you fear where there is no place for fear? Rather rejoice and be glad for the boy will be great before God and man, thanks to his life of godliness."

Having thus spoken the monk left, pronouncing a dark saying that their son would serve the Holy Trinity and would lead many to an understanding of the divine precepts. They accompanied him to the doorway of their house, when he became of a sudden invisible. Perplexed, they wondered if he had been an angel, sent to give the boy knowledge of reading. After the departure of the monk, it became evident that the boy could read any book, and was altogether changed; he was submissive in all things to his parents, striving to fulfill their wishes, and never disobedient. Applying himself solely to glorifying God, and rejoicing therein, he attended assiduously in God's church being present daily at Matins, at the Mass, at Vespers. He studied holy scripts, and at all times, in every way, he disciplined his body and preserved himself in purity of body and soul.

Cyril, devout servant of God, led the life of a wealthy and renowned boyar, in the province of Rostov, but in later years he was reduced to poverty. He, like others, suffered from the invasions of Tartar hordes into Russia, from the skirmishes of troops, the frequent demands for tribute, and from repeated bad harvests, in conjunction with the period of violence and disorder which followed the great Tartar war. When the principality of Rostov fell into the hands of the Grand-Duke Ivan Danilovich of Moscow, distress prevailed in the town of Rostov, and not least among the princes and boyars. They were deprived of power, of their properties, of honours and rank, of all of which Moscow became the possessor. By order of the Grand-Duke they left Rostov, and a certain noble, Vassili Kotchev, with another called Mina, were sent from Moscow to Rostov as voyevodes. ⁵ On arrival in the town of Rostov these two governors imposed a levy on the town and on the inhabitants. A severe persecution followed, and many of the remaining inhabitants of Rostov were constrained to surrender their estates to the Muscovites, in exchange for which they received wounds and humiliations, and went forth empty-handed and as veriest beggars. In brief, Rostov was subjected to every possible humiliation, even to the hanging, head downwards, of their Governor, Averki, one of the chief boyars of Rostov. Seeing and bearing of all this, terror spread among the people, not only in the town of Rostov but in all the surrounding country. Cyril, God's devout servant, avoided further misfortune by escaping from his native town. He assembled his entire household and family and with them removed from Rostov to Radonezh ⁶ , where he settled near the church dedicated to the Birth of Christ, which is still standing to this day.

Cyril's two sons, Stephen and Peter, married, but his second son, Bartholomew, would not contemplate marriage, being desirous of becoming a monk. He often expressed this wish to his father, but his parents said to him, "My son, wait a little and bear with us; we are old, poor and sick, and we have no one to look after us, for both your brothers are married." The wondrous youth gladly promised to care for them to the end of their days, and from henceforth strove for his parents' well-being, until they entered the monastic life and went one to a monastery and the other to a convent. They lived but a few years, and passed away to God. Blessed Bartholomew laid his parents in their graves, mourned for them forty days, then returned to his house. Calling his younger brother Peter, he bestowed his share of his father's inheritance on him, retaining nothing for himself. The wife of his elder brother, Stephen, died also, leaving two sons, Clement and Ivan. Stephen soon renounced the world and became a monk in the Holy Mother of God monastery at Khotkov.

Blessed Bartholomew now came to him, and begged him to accompany him in the search for some desert place. Stephen assented, and he and the saint together explored many parts of the forest till, finally, they came to a waste space in the middle of the forest, near a stream. After inspecting the place they obeyed the voice of God and were satisfied. Having prayed, they set about chopping wood and carrying it. First they built themselves a hut, and then constructed a small chapel. When the chapel was finished and the time had come to dedicate it, blessed Bartholomew said to Stephen, "Now, my lord and eldest brother by birth and by blood, tell me, in honour of whose feast shall this chapel be, and to which saint shall we dedicate it?"

Stephen answered, "Why do you ask me, and why put me to the test? You were chosen of God while you were yet in your mother's womb, and He gave a sign concerning you before ever you were born, that the child would be a disciple of the Blessed Trinity, and not he alone would have devout faith, for he would lead many others and teach them to believe in the Holy Trinity. It behoves you, therefore, to dedicate a chapel above all others to the Blessed Trinity."

The favoured youth gave a deep sigh and said, "To tell the truth, my lord and brother, I asked you because I felt I must, although I wanted and thought likewise as you do, and desired with my whole soul to erect and dedicate this chapel to the Blessed Trinity, but out of humility I inquired of you." And he went forthwith to obtain the blessing of the ruling prelate for its consecration. From the town came the priest sent by Theognost, Metropolitan of Kiev and all Russia, and the chapel was consecrated and dedicated to the Holy Trinity in the reign of the Grand-Duke Simeon Ivanovich ⁷ ; we believe in the beginning of his reign. The chapel being now built and dedicated, Stephen did not long remain in the wilderness with his brother. He realized soon all the labours in this desert place, the hardships, the all-pervading need and want, and that there were no means of satisfying hunger and thirst, nor any other necessity. As yet no one came to the saint, nor brought him anything for, at this time, nowhere around was there any village, nor house, nor people; neither was there road or pathway, but everywhere on all sides was forest and waste land. Stephen, seeing this, was troubled, and he decided to leave the wilderness, and with it his own brother the saintly desert-lover and desert-dweller. He went from thence to Moscow, and when he reached this city he settled in the monastery of the Epiphany, found himself a cell and dwelt in it exercising himself in virtue. Hard labour was to him a joy, and he passed his time in ascetic practices in his cell, disciplining himself by fasting and prayer, refraining from all indulgence, even from drinking beer. Alexis, the future Metropolitan, who at this time had not been raised to the rank of bishop, was living in the monastery, leading a quiet monastic life. Stephen and he spent much time together in spiritual exercises, and they sang in the choir side by side. The Grand Duke Simeon came to hear of Stephen and the godly life he led, and commanded the Metropolitan Theognost to ordain him priest and, later, to appoint him abbot of the monastery. Aware of his great virtues the Grand-Duke also appointed him as his confessor.

Our saint, Sergius, had not taken monastic vows at this time for, as yet, he had not enough experience of monasteries, and of all that is required of a monk. After a while, however, he invited a spiritual elder, who held the dignity of priest and abbot, named Metrophan ⁸ , to come and visit him in his solitude. In great humility he entreated him, "Father, may the love of God be with us, and give me the tonsure of a monk. From childhood have I loved God and set my heart on Him these many years, but my parents' needs withheld me. Now, my lord and father, I am free from all bonds, and I thirst, as the hart thirsteth for the springs of living water."

The abbot forthwith went into the chapel with him, and gave him the tonsure on the 7th day of October on the feast day of the blessed martyrs Sergius and Bacchus. And Sergius was the name he received as monk. In those days it was the custom to give to the newly-tonsured monk the name of the saint whose feast day it happened to be. Our saint was twentythree years old when he joined the order of monks. Blessed Sergius, the newly-tonsured monk, partook of the Holy Sacrament and received grace and the gift of the Holy Spirit. From one whose witness is true and sure we are told that when Sergius partook of the Holy Sacrament the chapel was filled with a sweet odour; and not only in the chapel, but all around was the same fragrant smell. The saint remained in the chapel seven days, touching no food other than one consecrated loaf given him by the abbot, refusing all else and giving himself up to fasting and prayer, having on his lips the Psalms of David.

When Metrophan bade farewell St. Sergius in all humility he said to him, "Give me your blessing and pray regarding my solitude; and instruct one living alone in the wilderness how to pray to the Lord God; how to remain unharmed; how to wrestle with the enemy and with his own temptations to pride, for I am but a novice and a newly-tonsured monk."

The abbot was astonished and almost afraid. He replied, "You ask of me concerning that which you know no less well than we do, O noble father." After discoursing with him for a while on spiritual matters, and commending him to God, Metrophan went away leaving St. Sergius alone to silence and the wilderness.

Who can recount his labours? Who can number the trials he endured living alone in the wilderness?

Under different forms and from time to time the devil wrestled with the saint, but the demons beset St. Sergius in vain; no matter what visions they evoked, they failed to overcome the firm and fearless spirit of the ascetic. At one moment it was Satan who laid his snares, at another incursions of wild beasts took place, for many were the wild animals inhabiting this wilderness. Some of these remained at a distance, others came near the saint, surrounded him and even sniffed him. In particular a bear used to come to the holy man. Seeing the animal did not come to harm him, but in order to get some food, the saint brought a small slice of bread from his hut, and placed it on a log or stump, so the bear learnt to come for the meal thus prepared for him, and having eaten it went away again. If there was no bread, and the bear did not find his usual slice, he would wait about for a long while and look around on all sides, rather like some money-lender waiting to receive payment of his debt. At this time Sergius had no variety of foods in the wilderness, only bread and water from the spring, and a great scarcity of these. Often bread was not to be found, then both he and the bear went hungry. Sometimes, although there was but one single slice of bread, the saint gave it to the bear, being unwilling to disappoint him of his food.

He diligently read the Holy Scriptures to obtain a knowledge of all virtue; in his secret meditations training his mind in a longing for eternal bliss. Most wonderful of all, none knew the measure of his ascetic and godly life spent in solitude. God, the Beholder of all hidden things, alone saw it.

Whether he lived two years or more in the wilderness alone, we do not know; God knows only. The Lord, seeing his very great faith and patience, took compassion on him and, desirous of relieving his solitary labours, put into the hearts of certain god-fearing monks to visit him.

The saint inquired of them, "Are you able to endure the hardships of this place, hunger and thirst, and every kind of want?"

They replied, "Yes, revered father, we are willing with God's help and with your prayers."

Holy Sergius, seeing their faith and zeal, marvelled, and said, "My brethren, I desired to dwell alone in the wilderness and, furthermore, to die in this place. If it be God's will that there shall be a monastery in this place, and that many brethren will be gathered here, then may God's holy will be done. I welcome you with joy, but let each one of you build himself a cell. Furthermore, let it be known unto you, if you come to dwell in the wilderness, the beginning of righteousness is the fear of the Lord."

To increase his own fear of the Lord he spent day and night in the study of God's word. Moreover, young in years, strong and healthy in body, he could do the work of two men or more. The devil now strove to wound him with the darts of concupiscence. The saint, aware of these enemy attacks, disciplined his body and exercised his soul, mastering it with fasting, and thus was he protected by the grace of God. Although not yet raised to the office of priesthood, dwelling in company with the brethren, he was present daily with them in church for the reciting of the offices, Nocturnes, Matins, the Hours and Vespers. For the Mass a priest, who was an abbot, came from one of the villages. At first Sergius did not wish to be raised to the priesthood and especially he did not want to become an abbot; this was by reason of his extreme humility. He constantly remarked that the beginning and root of all evil lay in pride of rank, and ambition to be an abbot. The monks were but few in number, about a dozen. They constructed themselves cells, not very large ones, within the enclosure, and put up gates at the entrance. Sergius built four cells with his own hands, and performed other monastic duties at the request of the brethren; he carried logs from the forest on his shoulders, chopped them up, and carried them into the cells. The monastery, indeed, came to be a wonderful place to look upon. The forest was not far distant from it as now it is, the shade and the murmur of trees hung above the cells; around the church was a space of trunks and stumps, here many kinds of vegetables were sown.

But to return to the exploits of Saint Sergius. He flayed the grain and ground it in the mill, baked the bread and cooked the food, cut out shoes and clothing and stitched them; he drew water from the spring flowing near by, and carried it in two pails on his shoulders, and put water in each cell. He spent the night in prayer, without sleep, feeding only on bread and water, and that in small quantities; and never spent an idle hour.

Within the space of a year the abbot who had given the tonsure to St. Sergius fell ill and, after a short while, he passed out of this life. Then God put it into the hearts of the brethren to go to blessed Sergius, and to say to him, "Father, we cannot continue without an abbot. We desire you to be our abbot, and the guide of our souls and bodies."

The saint sighed from the bottom of his heart, and replied, "I have had no thought of becoming abbot, for my soul longs to finish its course here as an ordinary monk." The brethren urged him again and again to be their abbot; finally, overcome by his compassionate love, but groaning inwardly, he said, "Fathers and brethren, I will say no more against it, and will submit to the will of God; He sees into our hearts and souls. We will go into the town, to the bishop."

Alexis, the Metropolitan of all Russia, was living at this time in Constantinople, and he hbad nominated Bishop Athanasius Volynski in his stead in the town of Pereyaslavl. Our blessed Sergius went, therefore, to the bishop, taking with him two elders; and entering into his presence made a low obeisance. Athanasius rejoiced exceedingly at seeing him, and kissed him in the name of Christ. He had heard tell of the saint and of his beginning of good deeds, and he spoke to him of the workings of the Spirit. Our blessed father Sergius begged the bishop to give them an abbot, and a guide of their souls.

The venerable Athanasius replied, "Thyself, son and brother, God called in thy mother's womb. It is thou who wilt be father and abbot of thy brethren." Blessed Sergius refused, insisting on his unworthiness, but Athanasius said to him, "Beloved, thou hast acquired all virtue save obedience."

Blessed Sergius, bowing low, replied, "May God's will be done. Praise be the Lord forever and forever." They all answered, "Amen."

Without delay the holy bishop, Athanasius, led blessed Sergius to the church, and ordained him subdeacon and then deacon. The following morning the saint was raised to the dignity of priesthood, and was told to say the holy liturgy and to offer the Bloodless Sacrifice. Later, taking him apart, the bishop spoke to him of the teachings of the apostles and of the holy fathers, for the edification and guidance of souls. After bestowing on him a kiss in the name of Christ, he sent him forth, in very deed an abbot, pastor and guardian, and physician of his spiritual brethren. He had not taken upon himself the rank of abbot, he received the leadership from God; he had not sought it, nor striven for it; he did not obtain it by payment, as do others who have pride of rank, chasing hither and thither, plotting and snatching power from one another. God Himself led His chosen disciple and exalted him to the dignity of abbot.

Our revered father and abbot Sergius returned to his monastery, to the abode dedicated to the Holy Trinity, and the brethren, coming out to meet him, bowed low to the ground before him. He blessed them, and said, "Brethren, pray for me. I am altogether ignorant, and I have received a talent from the Highest, and I shall have to render an account of it, and of the flock committed to me."

There were twelve brethren when he first became abbot, and he was the thirteenth. And this number remained, neither increasing nor diminishing, until Simon, the archimandrite of Smolensk, arrived among them. From that time onwards their numbers constantly increased. This wondrous man, Simon, was chief archimandrite, excellent, eminent, abounding in virtue. Having heard of our revered father Sergius' way of life he laid aside honours, left the goodly city of Smolensk, and arrived at the monastery where, greeting our revered father Sergius with the greatest humility, he entreated him to allow him to live under him and his rules in all submission and obedience: and he offered the estate he owned as a gift to the abbot for the benefit of the monastery. Blessed Sergius welcomed him with great joy. Simon lived many years, submissive and obedient, abounding in virtue, and died in advanced old age.

Stephen, the saint's brother, came with his younger son, Ivan, from Moscow and, presenting him to Abbot Sergius, asked him to give him the tonsure. Abbot Sergius did so, and gave him the name of Theodore; from his earliest years the boy had been taught abstinence, piety and chastity, following his uncle's precepts; according to some accounts he was given the tonsure when he was ten years old, others say twelve. People from many parts, towns and countries, came to live with Abbot Sergius, and their names are written in the book of life. The monastery bit by bit grew in size. It is recorded in the Patcricon -that is to say, in the book of the early Fathers of the Church -that the holy fathers in assembly prophesied about later generations, saying that the last would be weak. But, of the later generations, God made Sergius strong as one of the early fathers. God made him a lover of hard work, and to be the head over a great number of monks. From the time he was appointed abbot, the holy Mass was sung every day. He himself baked the holy bread; first he flayed and ground the wheat, sifted the flour, kneaded and fermented the dough; he entrusted the making of the holy bread to no one. He also cooked the grains for the "kutia," ⁹ and he also made the candles. Although occupying the chief place as abbot, he did not alter in any way his monastic rules. He was lowly and humble with all people, and was an example to all.

He never sent away anyone who came to him for the tonsure, neither old nor young, nor rich nor poor, he received them all with fervent joy; but he did not give them the tonsure at once. He who would be a monk was ordered, first, to put on a long, black cloth garment and to live with the brethren until he got accustomed to all the monastic rules; then, later, he was given full monk's attire of cloak and hood. Finally, when he was deemed worthy, he was allowed the "schema," the mark of the ascetic.

After Vespers, and late at night, especially on long dark nights, the saint used to leave his cell and go the round of the monks' cells. If he heard anyone saying his prayers, or making genuflections, or busy with his own handiwork, he was gratified and gave thanks to God. If, on the other hand, he heard two or three monks chatting together, or laughing, he was displeased, rapped on the door or window, and passed on. In the morning he would send for them and, indirectly, quietly and gently, by means of some parable, reprove them. If he was a humble and submissive brother he would quickly admit his fault and, bowing low before St. Sergius, would beg his forgiveness. If, instead, he was not a humble brother, and stood erect thinking he was not the person referred to, then the saint, with patience, would make it clear to him, and order him to do a public penance. ¹⁰ In this way they all learnt to pray to God assiduously; not to chat with one another after Vespers, and to do their own handiwork with all their might; and to have the Psalms of David all day on their lips.

In the beginning, when the monastery was first built, many were the hardships and privations. A main road lay a long way off, and wilderness surrounded the monastery. Here the monks lived, it is believed, for fifteen years. Then, in the time of the Grand-Duke Ivan Ivanovich (1353-59), Christians ¹¹ began to arrive from all parts and to settle in the vicinity. The forest was cut down, there was no one to prevent it; the trees were hewn down, none were spared, and the forest was converted into an open plain as we now see it. A village was built, and houses; and visitors came to the monastery bringing their countless offerings. But in the beginning, when they settled in this place, they all suffered great privations. At times there was no bread or flour, and all means of subsistence was lacking; at times there was no wine for the Eucharist, nor incense, nor wax candles. The monks sang Matins at dawn with no lights, save that of a single birch or pine torch.

One day there was a great scarcity of bread and salt in the whole monastery. The saintly abbot gave orders to all the brethren that they were not to go out, nor beg from the laity, but to remain patiently in the monastery and await God's compassion. He himself spent three or four days without any food. On the fourth day, at dawn, taking an axe he went to one of the elders, by name Danila (Daniel), and said to him: "I have heard say that you want to build an entrance in front of your cell. See, I have come to build it for you, so that my hands shall not remain idle."

Danila replied, "Yes, I have been wanting it for a long while, and am awaiting the carpenter from the village; but I am afraid to employ you, for you will require a large payment from me."

Sergius said to him, "I do not require a large sum of money. Have you any mildewed loaves? I very much want to eat some such loaves. I do not ask from you anything else. Where will you find such another carpenter as I?"

Danila brought him a few mildewed loaves, saying, "This is all I have."

Sergius said, "That will be enough, and to spare. But hide it until evening. I take no pay before work is done."

Saying which, and tightening his belt, he chopped and worked all day, cut planks and put up the entrance. At the close of day, Danila brought him the sieveful of the promised loaves. Sergius, offering a prayer and grace, ate the bread and drank some water. He had neither soup nor salt; the bread was both dinner and supper.

Several of the brethren noticed something in the nature of a faint breath of smoke issuing from his lips, and turning to one another they said, "Oh, brother, what patience and self-control has this man."

But one of the monks, not having had anything to eat for two days, murmured against Sergius, and went up to him and said, "Why this mouldy bread? Why should we not go outside and beg for some bread? If we obey you we shall perish of hunger. To-morrow morning we will leave this place and go hence and not return; we cannot any longer endure such want and scarcity."

Not all of them complained, only one brother, but because of this one, Sergius, seeing they were enfeebled and in distress, convoked the whole brotherhood and gave them instruction from holy scriptures, "God's Grace cannot be given without trials; after tribulations comes joy. It is written, at evening there shall be weeping but in the morning gladness. You, at present, have no bread or food, and to-morrow you will enjoy an abundance."

And as he was yet speaking there came a rapping at the gates. The porter, peeping through an aperture, saw that a store of provisions had been brought; he was so overjoyed that he did not open the gates but ran first to St. Sergius to tell him. The saint gave the order at once, "Open the gates quickly, let them come in, and let those persons who have brought the provisions be invited to share the meal"; while he himself, before all else, directed that the "bilo" should be sounded, ¹² and with the brethren he went into the church to sing the Te Deum. Returning from church, they went into the refectory, and the newlyarrived, fresh bread was placed before them. The bread was still warm and soft, and the taste of it was of an unimaginable strange sweetness, as it were honey mingled with juice of barley and spices.

When they had eaten the saint remarked, "And where is our brother who was murmuring about mouldy bread? May he notice that it is sweet and fresh. Let us remember the prophet who said, 'Ashes have I eaten for bread and mixed my drink with tears'." Then he inquired whose bread it was, and who had sent it. The messengers announced, "A pious layman, very wealthy, living a great distance away, sent it to Sergius and his brotherhood." Again the monks, on Sergius' orders, invited the men to sup with them, but they refused, having to hasten elsewhere.

The monks came to the abbot in astonishment, saying, "Father, how has this wheaten bread, warm and tasting of butter and spices, been brought from far?" The following day more food and drink were brought to the monastery in the same manner. And again on the third day, from a distant country. Abbot Sergius, seeing and hearing this, gave glory to God before all the brethren, saying, "You see, brethren, God provides for everything, and neither does He abandon this place." From this time forth the monks grew accustomed to be patient under trials and privations, enduring all things, trusting in the Lord God with fervent faith, and being strengthened therein by their holy father Sergius.

According to an account by one of the elders of the monastery, blessed Sergius never wore new clothing, nor any made of fine material, nor coloured, nor white, nor smooth and soft; he wore plain cloth or caftan; his clothing was old and worn, dirty, patched. Once they had in the monastery an ugly, stained, bad bit of cloth, which all the brethren threw aside; one brother had it, kept it for a while and discarded it, so did another, and a third and so on to the seventh. But the saint did not despise it, he gratefully took it, cut it out and made himself a habit, which be wore, not with disdain but with gratitude, for a whole year, till it was worn out and full of holes.

So shabby were his clothes, worse than that of any of the monks, that several people were misled and did not recognize him. One day a Christian from a nearby village, who had never seen the saint, came to visit him. The abbot was digging in the garden. The visitor looked about and asked, "Where is Sergius? Where is the wonderful and famous man?"

A brother replied, "In the garden, digging; wait a while, until he comes in."

The visitor, growing impatient, peeped through an aperture, and perceived the saint wearing attire shabby, patched, in holes, and face covered with sweat; and he could not believe that this was he of whom he had heard. When the saint came from the garden, the monks informed him, "This is he whom you wish to see."

The visitor turned from the saint and mocked at him; I came to see a prophet and you point out to me a needy looking beggar. I see no glory, no majesty and honour about him. He wears no fine and rich apparel; he has no attendants, no trained servants; he is but a needy, indigent beggar."

The brethren, reporting to the abbot, said, "We hardly dare tell you, revered father, and we would send away your guest as a good-for-nothing, rude fellow; he has been discourteous and disrespectful about you, reproaches us, and will not listen to us."

The holy man, fixing his eyes on the brethren and seeing their confusion, said to them, "Do not do so, brethren, for he did not come to see you. He came to visit me." And, since he expected no obeisance from his visitor, he went towards him, humbly bowing low to the ground before him, and blessed and praised him for his right judgment. Then, taking him by the hand, the saint sat him down at his right hand, and bade him partake of food and drink. The visitor expressed his regret at not seeing Sergius, whom he had taken the trouble to come and visit; and his wish had not been fulfilled. The saint remarked, "Be not sad about it, for such is God's Grace that no one ever leaves this place with a heavy heart."

As he spoke a neighbouring prince arrived at the monastery, with great pomp, accompanied by retinue of boyars, servants and attendants. The armed attendants, who preceded the prince, took the visitor by the shoulders and removed him out of sight of the prince and of Sergius. The prince then advanced and, from a distance, made a low obeisance to Sergius. The saint gave him his blessing and, after bestowing a kiss on him, they both sat down while everyone else remained standing. The visitor thrust his way through, and going up to one of those standing by, asked, "Who is the monk sitting on the prince's right hand, tell me."

The man turned to him and said, "Are you then a stranger here? Have you indeed not heard of blessed father Sergius? It is he speaking with the prince."

Upon bearing this the visitor was overcome with remorse, and after the prince's departure, taking several of the brethren to intercede for him, and making a low obeisance before the abbot, he said, "Father, I am but a sinner and a great offender. Forgive me and help my unbelief."

The saint readily forgave, and with his blessing and some words of comfort, he took leave of him. From henceforth, and to the end of his days, this man held a true, firm faith in the Holy Trinity and in St. Sergius. He left his village a few years later, and came to the saint's monastery, where he became a monk, and there spent several years in repentance and amendment of life before he passed away to God.

We will now turn to the miracles God performs through his elect. Owing to lack of water near the monastery, the brotherhood suffered great discomfort, which increased with their numbers and having to carry water from a distance. Some of the monks even complained to the abbot, "When you set out to build a monastery on this spot why did you not observe that it was not near water?" They repeated this query with vexation, often.

The saint told them, "I intended to worship and pray in this place alone. But God willed that a monastery such as this, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, should arise."

Going out of the monastery, accompanied by one of the brethren, he made his way through a ravine below the monastery, and finding a small pool of rain water, he knelt down and prayed. No sooner had he made the sign of the Cross over the spot, than a bubbling spring arose, which is still to be seen to this day, and from whence water is drawn to supply every need of the monastery.

Many cures have been granted to the faithful from the waters; and people have come from long distances to fetch the water and carry it away and to give it to their sick to drink. From the time it appeared, and for a number of years, the spring was called after Sergius. The wise man, not seeking renown, was displeased, and remarked, "Never let me hear that a well is called by my name. I did not give this water; God gave it to us unworthy men."

A certain devout Christian living close by the monastery, who believed in St. Sergius, had an only son, a child, who fell ill. The father brought the boy to the monastery, and entreated the saint to pray for him: but while the father was yet speaking the boy died. The man, with his last hope gone, wept and bemoaned, "It would have been better had my son died in my own house." While he went to prepare a grave, the dead child was laid in the saint's cell. The saint felt compassion for this man, and falling on his knees prayed over the dead child. Suddenly the boy came to life, and moved. His father, returning with preparations for the burial, found his son alive, whereupon, flinging himself at the feet of God's servant, he gave him thanks. The saint said to him, "You deceive yourself, man, and do not know what you say. While on your journey hither your son became frozen with cold, and you thought he had died. He has now thawed in the warm cell, and you think he has come to life. No one can rise again from the dead before the Day of Resurrection."

The man however insisted, saying, "Your prayers brought him to life again."

The saint forbade him to say this; "If you noise this abroad you will lose your son altogether." The man promised to tell no one and, taking his son, now restored to health, he went back to his own home. This miracle was made known through the saint's disciples.

Living on the banks of the Volga, a long distance away from the Lavra, ¹³ was a man who owned great possessions, but who was afflicted incessantly, day and night, by a cruel and evil spirit. Not only did he break iron chains but ten or more strong men could not hold him. His relatives, bearing tell of the saint, journeyed with him to the monastery, where dwelt the servant of the Lord. When they came to the monastery the madman broke loose from his bonds, and flung himself about, crying, "I will not go, I will not. I will go back from whence I came." They informed the saint, who gave the order to sound the "bilo," and when the brethren were assembled they sang the Te Deum for the sick. The madman grew calmer little by little, and when he was led into the monastery, the saint came out of church, carrying a Cross, whereupon the sufferer, with a loud cry, fled from the spot, and flung himself into a pool of rainwater standing nearby, exclaiming, "O horrible, O terrible flame." By the grace of God and the saint's prayers he recovered, and was restored to his right mind. When they inquired what he meant by his exclamation, he told them, "When the saint wanted to bless me with the Cross, I saw a great flame proceeding from him, and it seized hold of me. So I threw myself into the water, fearing that I should be consumed in the flame."

One day the saint, in accordance with his usual rule, was keeping vigil and praying for the brotherhood late at night when he heard a voice calling, " Sergius!" He was astonished, and opening the window of the cell he beheld a wondrous vision. A great radiance shone in the heavens, the night sky was illumined by its brilliance, exceeding the light of day. A second time the voice called, " Sergius! Thou prayest for thy children; God has heard thy prayer. See and behold great numbers of monks gathered together in the name of the Everlasting Trinity, in thy fold, and under thy guidance."

The saint looked and beheld a multitude of beautiful birds, flying, not only on to the monastery, but all around; and he heard a voice saying, "As marty birds as thou seest by so many will thy flock of disciples increase; and after thy time they will not grow less if they will follow in thy footsteps." Anxious to have a witness of this vision the saint called aloud for Simon, he being the nearest. Simon ran to him with all haste, but he was not found worthy to behold this vision; he saw no more than a ray of its light, but even so was greatly astonished. Filled with awe and wonder at this glorious vision, they rejoiced together.

One day some Greeks arrived from Constantinople, sent by the Patriarch to visit the saint. Making a deep obeisance they said to him, "The all-powerful Patriarch of Constantinople, Philotheus, sends you his blessing," and they presented him with gifts from the Patriarch, a cross and a "paramand," ¹⁴ and also handed him a letter from him.

The saint asked, "Are you sure you have not been sent to someone else? How can I, a sinner, be worthy of such gifts from the most illustrious Patriarch?"

They replied, "We have indeed been sent to you, holy Sergius." The elder went then to see the Metropolitan, Alexis, and took with him the missive brought from the Patriarch. The Metropolitan ordered the epistle to be read to him. It ran, "By the Grace of God, the Archbishop of Constantinople, the Oecumenical Patriarch Philotheus, by the Holy Spirit, to our son and fellow-servant Sergius. Divine grace and peace, and our blessing be with you. We have heard tell of your godly life dedicated to God, wherefore we greatly praise and glorify God. One thing, however, has not been established, you have not formed a community. Take note, blessed one, that even the great prophet and our father in God, David, embracing all things with his mind, could not bestow higher praise than when he said, 'But now, however good and however perfect, yet, above all, is abiding together in brotherly love.' Wherefore I counsel you to establish a community. That God's blessing and His grace be always upon you." The elder inquired of the Metropolitan, "Revered teacher, what would you have us do?" The Metropolitan replied, "With all our heart we approve, and return thanks."

From henceforth life' on the basis of community was established in the monastery. The saint, wise pastor, appointed to each brother his duties, one to be cellarer, others to be cooks and bakers, another to care for the sick, and for church duties, an ecclesiarch, and a subecelesiarch, and sacristans, and so forth. He further announced that the ordinances of the holy fathers were to be strictly observed; all things were to be possessed in common, no monk was to hold property of his own.

His community having been established with much wisdom, the numbers of his followers soon increased. Also, the larger the supply of offerings to the monastery, the more hospitality was extended. No person in need ever left the monastery emptyhanded; and the saint gave orders that the poor and all strangers were to be allowed to rest in the monastery, and no suppliant to be refused, adding, "If you will follow my precepts and continue in them faithfully, God will reward you, and when I leave this life our monastery will prosper and continue to stand with the Lord's blessing for many years." And to the present day it has remained standing.

Before long dissension arose; the devil, hating goodness, put about the idea of disputing the authority of Sergius. ¹⁵ One Saturday, while Vespers were being sung, and the Abbot Sergius, wearing his vestments was in the altar, his brother, Stephen, who was standing by the choir, on the left, asked the canonarch, "Who gave you that book?" The canonarch replied, "The abbot gave it to me." The other said, "What has the abbot to do with it? Did not I sit in that place before?" and adding other silly remarks.

Although the saint was standing by the altar, he heard what was said, but he kept silence. When they all came out of church he did not go to his cell, he walked away from the monastery, unknown to all. When he arrived at the monastery of Makhrisch ¹⁶ he asked the abbot, Stephen, if one of his monks could lead him to some desert place. Together they searched and finally discovered a beautiful spot close to a river called the Kerzhach. The brotherhood, bearing about the saint, took to visiting him, in twos and threes, and more. Our father Sergius sent two of his followers to the Metropolitan Alexis, with the request for his blessing and permission to erect a church. Aided by divine favour, a church was erected in a short while, and many brethren gathered there.

Soon several monks from the Holy Trinity, unable any longer to bear the separation from their spiritual father, went to the Metropolitan and said, "Holy Lord, we are living like sheep without a shepherd. Command our abbot to return to his monastery, that he may save us from perishing and dying of grief without him."

The Metropolitan despatched two archimandrites, Gerasim and Paul, to the abbot with the message, "Your father, Alexis, the Metropolitan, sends you his blessing. He has rejoiced exceedingly to bear that you are living in a distant wilderness. But, return now to the monastery of the Holy Trinity; those persons who were dissatisfied with you shall be removed from the monastery."

Whereupon, hearing this, the saint sent reply, "Tell my lord the Metropolitan, all from his lips, as from those of Christ, I receive with joy and do disobey in nothing."

The Metropolitan, glad at his prompt obedience, instantly despatched a priest to consecrate the church to the Annunciation of the Immaculate and Blessed Virgin, Mother of God. Sergius selected one of his followers, called Romanus, to be the abbot of the new monastery, and sent him to the Metropolitan to be raised to the priesthood. The saint then returned to the monastery of the Holy Trinity.

When the news reached the monastery that the saint was returning, the brethren went out to meet him. On beholding him it appeared as if a second sun were shining; and they were so filled with joy that some of the brethren kissed the father's hands, others his feet, while others seized his clothing and kissed that. There was loud rejoicing and glorifying God for the return of their father. And what of the father? He rejoiced with his whole heart at seeing this gathering of his flock.

Now Bishop Stephen, ¹⁷ a god-fearing and devout man, had for St. Sergius a deep, spiritual affection. One day he was travelling from his episcopacy of Perm to the capital, Moscow. The road along which the bishop journeyed lay about seven miles from St. Sergius' monastery. When the godly bishop came opposite the saint's monastery he stopped and said, bowing low towards the direction of the saint, "Peace be with thee, brother in God!" The saint, at this hour, was seated at table with his brethren. Perceiving in spirit what Bishop Stephen was doing, he rose from the supper table, stood for an instant in prayer, then bowing, said aloud, "Be joyful, thou shepherd of Christ's flock; the peace of God be always with thee." At the end of supper his disciples inquired of him what he meant. He openly told them, "At that hour Bishop Stephen, going on his way to Moscow, did reverence to the Holy Trinity, and blessed us humble folk." He pointed out to them, also, where this had taken place.

One time, when Theodore, ¹⁸ son of Stephen, was with blessed Sergius in the monastery, he was taking part in the divine liturgy which was being sung by the saint, and with aforenamed Stephen, the saint's brother. Of a sudden Isaac, who had taken the vow of silence, saw a fourth person serving at the altar with them, of a bright, shining appearance, and in dazzling apparel. Isaac inquired of Father Macarius, who was standing by his side, "What miraculous apparition is this?" Macarius replied, "I do not know, brother, I see a fearful and ineffable vision. But, I think, brother, that some one came with the prince." (Prince Vladimir was at this time in the monastery.) One of the prince's attendants was asked whether a priest had come with him; but, no, they knew of no one.

When the divine Mass was at an end, seizing a favourable moment, one of the brethren approached Saint Sergius and questioned him. But he, anxious not to disclose the secret, asked, "What wonder did you see, brother? My brother, Stephen, was saying the Mass, also his son, Theodore and I, unworthy as I am. No other priest whatever was serving with us." His disciples insisted, entreating the saint to reveal the mystery to them, whereupon he said, "Beloved brethren, what the Lord God has revealed can I keep secret? He whom you beheld was an angel of the Lord, and not only this time but every time I, unworthy as I am, serve with this messenger of the Lord. That which you have seen tell no one, so long as I am on this earth." And his disciples were astonished beyond measure.

A rumour spread that Prince Mamai was raising a large army as a punishment for our sins, and that with all his heathen Tartar hordes he would invade Russian soil. Very great fear prevailed among the people at this report. The puissant and reigning prince, who held the sceptre of all Russia, great Demetrius, having a great faith in the saint, came to ask him if he counselled him to go against the heathen. The saint, bestowing on him his blessing, and strengthened by prayer, said to him, "It behoveth you, Lord, to have a care for the lives of the flock committed to you by God. Go forth against the heathen; and upheld by the strong arm of God, conquer; and return to your country sound in health, and glorify God with loud praise."

The Grand-Duke replied, "If indeed God assists me, father, I will build a monastery to the Immaculate Mother of God." And with the saint's blessing he hurriedly went on his way. Assembling all his armies, he marched against the heathen Tartars; but, seeing the multitudes of them, he began to doubt; and many of his followers, not knowing what to do, were overwhelmed with fear. Of a sudden, a courier from the saint arrived, in all haste, with the message, "Be in no doubt, Lord, go forward with faith and confront the enemy's ferocity; and fear not, for God will be on your side." Forthwith, the Grand-Duke Demetrius, and all his armies, were filled with a spirit of temerity; and went into battle against the pagans. They fought; many fell; but God was with them, and helped the great invincible Demetrius, who vanquished the ungodly Tartars. In that same hour the saint was engaged with his brethren before God in prayer for victory over the pagans. Within an hour of the final defeat of the ungodly, the saint, who was a seer, announced to the brotherhood what had happened, the victory, the courage of the Grand-Duke Demetrius Ivanovich, and the names, too, of those who had died at the hands of the pagans; and he made intercession for them to all-Merciful God.

The Grand-Duke Demetrius returned to his country with great joy in his heart, and hastened to visit holy, venerable Sergius. Rendering thanks for the prayers of the saint and of the brotherhood, he gave a rich offering to the monastery and, in fulfillment of his vow, expressed his wish to build at once the monastery of the Immaculate Mother of God. After searching for a favourable place, venerable Sergius fixed upon one by the banks of the river Dubenka, and with the consent of the Grand-Duke a church to the Assumption of our Blessed Virgin Mother of God was consecrated by Saint Sergius. As abbot, the saint appointed one of his followers, Sabbas by name, a man of exceeding great virtue. A community was formed and many brethren joined it.

Once again the Grand-Duke Demetrius entreated Saint Sergius to come to Kolomna, to consecrate a site for the building of a monastery to be dedicated to the Holy Epiphany. It was the saint's custom to go everywhere on foot. Obedient to the GrandDuke, he went to Kolomna, consecrated the site, and a church was erected and, at the Grand-Duke's request, he sent him one of his disciples for the founding of the monastery, a priest-monk, Gregory, a devout man and of great virtue. In time a stone church was built, which is standing to this day.

Another time the illustrious Prince Vladimir begged Saint Sergius, likewise, to come to his part of the country, to the town of Serpukhov, and consecrate a place by the river Nar, and dedicate a church to the Conception of the Immaculate Mother of God. Once again the saint obeyed the request. This god-fearing prince also begged him to send one of his disciples, Athanasius by name. Although the saint found it hard to grant this request, love prevailed, and he consented. Athanasius being a man of rare virtue, exceedingly learned in holy scriptures-many valuable writings by his hand bear witness to him to the present day - the saint loved him dearly. To him the saint entrusted the founding of the monastery, and the forming of the community. Aided by the prayers of the saint, the monastery was built, wonderful and beautiful, and named "On the Height." ¹⁹

But why pursue further the saint's planting of ecclesiastical fruit? It is well known how many monasteries were founded by God's own chosen servant. And, offspring of his offspring, burning bright as stars, they are everywhere radiating a serene and wondrous life, and a blessing to all.

The Metropolitan Alexis, being old, and seeing his weakness increasing, sent for Saint Sergius. While they conversed the Metropolitan asked to have the cross with the "paramand" adorned with gold and precious stones brought to him, to give it to the saint; but he, bowing low in great humility, refused it, saying, "Forgive me, Lord, I have worn no gold ornaments since childhood, wherefore all the more do I wish in old age to continue in poverty." The bishop insisted, and said, "I know, beloved, that thou art fulfilling a vow, but be obedient, and take this which we offer thee with a benediction." Further, he said to the saint, "Dost know why I sent for thee? I desire, while I yet live, to find a man able to feed Christ's flock. I have doubted of them all, thee alone have I chosen as worthy. I know with all certainty that, from the puissant prince to the lowliest of his people, thou art the one they want."

On hearing this the saint was deeply grieved, regarding honour for himself as a thing of naught, and he pleaded with the bishop, "Forgive me, Lord, but this of which you speak is beyond my powers, and you never will find it in me. What am I but a sinner, and the least of men?" The bishop quoted many sayings from holy scriptures, but the saint, unyielding in his humility, said, "Gracious Lord, if you do not wish to drive away my poverty from your Holiness, speak no more about my poor self, nor permit any one else, for no one can make me otherwise."

The bishop, understanding that the saint would not yield, allowed him to return to his monastery. Before long the Metropolitan Alexis left this life, in the year 6885 (1378); and once more the princes implored the saint to accept the rank of bishop; but, firm as adamant, he would in no way consent. Then a certain archimandrite, Michael, was raised to the bishopric; but this man, with great presumption, not only invested himself with the episcopal robes, but also proceeded to plot against the saint, in the belief that the venerable Sergius would put a check on his audacity, wishing to occupy the episcopal throne himself. Blessed Sergius, hearing of Michael's threats against him, remarked to his disciples that Michael, vaunting himself of his sacred appointment, would not obtain his wish for, overcome by pride, he would not reach the imperial city. The saint's prophecy was fulfilled. On his way by boat to Constantinople ²⁰ Michael fell ill and died. Thereupon everyone regarded Saint Sergius as one of the prophets.

One day the blessed father was praying, as was his wont, before the image of the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ. Having sung the "Magnificat" of the Blessed Virgin he sat down to rest a while, saying to his disciple, Micah, "Son, be calm and be bold, for a wonderful and fearful event is about to happen." Instantly a voice was heard, "The Blessed Virgin is coming." Hearing this the saint hurried from his cell into the corridor. A dazzling radiance shone upon the saint, brighter than the sun, and he beheld the Blessed Virgin, with the two Apostles, Peter and John, in ineffable glory. Unable to bear so resplendent a vision, the saint fell to the ground. The Blessed Virgin, touching the saint with her hand, said, "Be not afraid, mine own elect, I have come to visit thee. Thy prayers for thy disciples for whom thou prayest, and for thy monastery, have been heard. Be not troubled; from henceforth it will flourish, not only during thy lifetime but when thou goest to the Lord, I will be with thy monastery, supplying its needs lavishly, providing for it, protecting it."

Having thus spoken, she vanished. The saint, in ecstasy, stood in trembling awe and wonder. Returning slowly to his senses, he saw his disciple, terror-struck, lying on the ground, whereupon he raised him up; but the other flung himself down at the feet of the elder, saying, "Tell me, father, for God's sake what miraculous vision was this, for my spirit almost loosed its bonds with the flesh from so resplendent a vision."

The saint, so filled with ecstasy that his face glowed therewith, was unable to answer other than a few words, "Wait a while, son, for I, too, am trembling with awe and wonder at this miraculous vision." They continued in silent adoration until, finally, the saint said to his disciple, "Son, call hither Isaac and Simon." When these two came he recounted to them all that had happened, how he beheld the Blessed Virgin with the Apostles, and what a wonderful promise she had given him. Hearing this their hearts were filled with indescribable joy, and they all sang the "Magnificat," and glorified God. All night long the saint remained in meditation on this ineffable vision.

After a while, a Greek bishop came from Constantinople to Moscow but, although he had heard a great deal about the saint, his doubts about him prevailed for, he reasoned, "How can such a light have appeared in this savage land, more especially in these latter days?" He, therefore, resolved to go to the monastery and see the saint. When he drew near to the monastery, fear entered his soul and, as soon as he entered the monastery and beheld the saint, blindness fell upon him. The venerable Sergius took him by the hand and led him to his cell. The bishop, with tears, confessed his doubts to the saint, and prayed for the recovery of his sight. The gentle lover of humility touched his blinded pupils and, as it were, scales fell from his eyes, and instantly he recovered his sight. The bishop proclaimed to all that the saint was indeed a man of God and that in God's mercy, he himself had been deemed worthy to behold a celestial man and an earthly angel.

A money-lender, living near the saint's monastery, and who, like the strong in all ages, oppressed the poor, ill-treated a certain poor orphan and, moreover, carried off his pig which was being fattened, and without paying for it had it killed. The ill-used orphan went to the saint in great distress and, weeping, begged for help. The saint, moved by compassion, sent for the offender, convicted him of wrongdoing and said, "My son, do you believe that God is a Judge of the righteous and of sinners; a father to widows and orphans; that He is quick to avenge, and that it is a fearful thing to come under the wrath of God?" Having reproached him and told him he must pay what he owed to the orphan, he added, "Above all, do not oppress the poor." The man, overcome by fear, promised to amend and to pay the orphan, then returned to his own house. Little by little the effect of the saint's rebuke grew faint, and he decided not to pay his debt to the orphan. And, thinking it over in his mind, he went as usual into his larder, where he found the pig halfdevoured and swarming with maggots although it was midwinter. He was stricken with fear, and without delay paid the debt; and ordered the pig to be thrown to the dogs and birds to eat, but they would not touch it and clear the usurer of his offence.

Now, again, one day, the saint was reciting the divine liturgy with one of his disciples, venerable Simon, the ecclesiarch, of whom we have already spoken, when a wonderful vision was vouchsafed to Simon. While the saint was saying the liturgy Simon saw a flame pass along the altar, illuminating it and surrounding the holy table; as the saint was about to partake of the Blessed Sacrament the glorious flame coiled itself and entered the sacred chalice; and the saint thus received Communion. Simon, who saw this, trembled with fear. The saint, when he moved away from the altar, understood that Simon had been deemed worthy of this miraculous vision, and telling him to approach, asked, "Son, why are you fearful?" The other replied, "Master, I beheld a miraculous vision; the grace of the Holy Spirit operating with you." The saint forbade him to speak of it, "Tell no one of this which you have seen, until the Lord calls me away from this life."

The saint lived a number of years, continually chastening himself with fasting, and working unceasingly. He performed many unfathomable miracles, and reached an advanced age, never failing from his place at divine service; the older his body grew, the stronger grew his fervour, in no way weakened by age. He became aware of his approaching end six months before, and assembling the brotherhood he appointed his dearest disciple to take his place, one perfect in all virtue, following his master in all things, small of stature, but in mind a continual blossoming, whose name was Nicon. The saint exhorted him to guide Christ's flock with patient care and justice. The great ascetic soon began to lose strength and in September was taken seriously ill. Seeing his end, he again assembled his flock and delivered a final exhortation. He made them promise to be steadfast in orthodoxy and to preserve amity among men; to keep pure in body and soul; to love truth; to avoid all evil and carnal lusts; to be moderate in food and drink; above all, to be clothed with humility; not to forget love of their neighbour; to avoid controversy, and on no account to set value on honour and praise in this life, but rather to await reward from God for the joys of heaven and eternal blessings. Having instructed them in many things, he concluded, "I am, by God's will, about to leave you, and I commit you to Almighty God and the Immaculate Virgin, Mother of God, that they may be to you a Refuge and Rock of Defence against the snares of your enemies." As his soul was about to leave his body, he partook of the Sacred Body and Blood, supported in the arms of his disciples and, raising his hands to heaven, with a prayer on his lips, he surrendered his pure, holy soul to the Lord, in the year 6900 (1392), September 25, probably at the age of seventy-eight. After his death an ineffable sweet odour flowed from the saint's body.

The entire brotherhood gathered around him and, weeping and sobbing, laid on its bier the body of him who in life had been so noble and unresting, and accompanied him with psalms and funeral oraisons. The saint's face, unlike that of other dead, glowed with the life of the living, or as one of God's angels, witnessing to the purity of his soul, and God's reward for all his labours. His body was laid to rest within the monastery of his own creation. Many were the miracles that took place at his death and after, and still are taking place, giving strength to the weaker members of the community, deliverance from the crafts and wiles of evil spirits, and sight to the blind. The saint had no wish during his life for renown, neither in death, but by God's Almighty Power he was glorified. Angels were present at his passing into the heavens, opening for him the gates of paradise and leading him towards the longed-for blessings, into the peace of the righteous, the ever-looked-for glory of the Blessed Trinity.

(1433-1508)

Nilus The great monastery of the Holy Trinity founded by St. Sergius, although set in the midst of a virgin forest, was only fifty-odd miles to the North, from the city of Moscow. The disciples of St. Sergius took different directions, founding distinct schools of spiritual life which can even be located geographically. The school later called after the name of St. Joseph of Volotsk - ascetical, liturgical, social, and disciplinarian - built monasteries in and around Moscow, or in towns directly subject to the authority of the prince of Moscow. The lovers of silence and contemplation, on the other hand, withdrew into Northern Russia, where a vast territory, almost totally uninhabited, was open to their solitary settlements. Since the series of cells and monasteries which they built extended to the North, beyond the Volga River, the hermits were called Transvolga "startzy" ("elders"), or simply Transvolgians.

The dwelling which they preferred was a solitary cell in the wood with a small chapel nearby. But the world from which they fled overtook them in the persons of their disciples and the peasants who would settle down close by the hermit's cell, which would be gradually transformed into a monastery; then a large settlement would arise, and even, in the course of time, a town. Yet the practice of contemplation and mystical prayer did not die out in these areas, but only receded deeper into the wilderness. By far the greater proportion of Russia's canonized saints of the fifteenth century belong to the Transvolgians. No one of them, with the exception of Nilus, left any writings; to St. Nilus' treatises only a few letters of St. Cyril of Belozersk can be added. The numerous Lives which have been preserved are, for the most part, only traditional accounts of their spiritual experience. Sometimes the occurrence in a Life of one or two sentences couched in the technical terminology of Greek mysticism leads the modern scholar to the conclusion that the subject belonged to the Hesychast school of prayer. The descriptions of celestial visions, such as those in the Life of St. Sergius, confirm the induction from the religious terminology. The true "holy Russia," the mystical one, remained silent, and in this she was faithful both to her deeply instinctive kenotic humility and to the mystical appreciation of silence as the necessary school of prayer.

The only exception to this rule is St. Nilus. He left a treatise on the spiritual life and prayer based upon the Greek fathers, and a short instruction or rule for the monastic life. Some personal letters are of further assistance in the reconstruction of his moral character and his religious ideal, but there is no extant biography of this saint; his Life is supposed to have been lost in the sixteenth century. This age, as we know, suppressed the school of Nilus and could have little interest in the preservation of his memory. Not until the nineteenth century was there a revival of his cult and a fresh interest in his literary remains.

Thus biographical data concerning Nilus are very scanty. He was probably of peasant origin and surnamed Maikov. After he had renounced the world and entered the famous monastery of St. Cyril, he journeyed to Greece in order to study monastic life at its sources. Here he was initiated into the Hesychast doctrine and practice. It is highly probable that he knew Greek, although the bulk of Greek ascetical and mystical literature had already been translated into Slavonic. He returned to Russia saturated with spiritual erudition; undoubtedly he was one of the most learned men in the Russia of his day. For a time Nilus lived again in the monastery founded by Sergius' disciple St. Cyril, which was second in greatness and influence only to the Holy Trinity of St. Sergius. St. Cyril's monastery, a large cenobitical brotherhood, was the center for the contemplative hermits of Northern Russia who settled down, nearby or at a distance, in the surrounding wilderness. Nilus chose for his solitary dwelling a wild and lonely spot in the forest bordering the River Sora (whence his monastic surname), about ten miles from St. Cyril's. A handful of his disciples, or "friends," settled in huts around him, forming what is called a "skete" (or "skit"). This was the type of life of which Nilus was most in favor: neither eremitical nor cenobitical, but a middle way which avoided the disadvantages of both.

In this retreat Nilus spent the remainder of his life. That his withdrawal from the world was not complete is evidenced by the letters which he addressed to disciples, some of whom were laymen, but the only established fact in his biography is his presence, towards the end of his life, at a council held in Moscow in 1503, to which he and the other outstanding abbots (St. Joseph among them), had been invited.

In the presence of this gathering, quite unexpectedly, Nilus began to inveigh against the holding of land by monasteries, declaring that it was contrary to the principle of spiritual poverty and labor. This daring attempt at reform was obstructed by Joseph and the majority of the other abbots, and the resentment which it aroused was the main reason for the subsequent persecution of the Transvolgian hermits.

The bulk of Nilus' literary work can only with reservations be considered original. He has composed a mosaic of quotations from the Greek fathers. He provides the framework, adds his own explanations of the difficult passages, especially of philosophic definitions, and some practical exhortations. He displays no inconsiderable art in achieving a unit), of this heterogeneous material, so that it reads as the work of one mind and spirit. The author has a living knowledge of his sources; obviously, he has tested his authorities in practice, and he has given an unique form to the collective experience of the praying Church.

One can distinguish among the sources of St. Nilus those which belong to the ancient monastic tradition and those which represent the later Hesychast school of mystical experience. The former, of which Nilus' main teachers in the present work are John Climacus, Nilus of Sinai and John Cassian, laid the foundations of asceticism. The latter was the Latin intermediary of the Egyptian tradition in the West, particularly recommended by St. Benedict of Nursia in his rule. In accordance with these authorities, the Russian author emphasizes, not bodily asceticism, but the interior struggle against the passions and the temptations of the mind, in the perpetual spiritual work of self-examination.

The mysticism of the Hesychasts reveals to him the positive aim of the spiritual life - the ecstatic union with God achieved by a particular method of prayer, beginning with the constant repetition of a short invocation of Jesus and ending in prayer without words, purely of the mind or spirit. The necessary condition is a specific manner of controlling respiration and the beating of the heart (perhaps after the Indian pattern), It is accompanied by the experience of ineffable joy and the vision of uncreated light, all other visions being excluded. Simeon the New Theologian, a Byzantine mystic and poet of the eleventh century, provides Nilus with the most sublime expression of the mystical love attained in the union with Jesus.

What, then, can we determine to have been the spiritual character proper to the Russian Nilus himself? Without question, he is a strong personality. Although the very depth and complexity of his nature may give the reader the impression of sharp contradictions, his character presents a finely wrought integration, but of a kind remote from the experience of the modern mind.

On the one hand, Nilus is terribly aware of the reality of sin in all its ramifications in human nature. The most natural, innocent-seeming motions of the human heart contain mortal dangers for him: devout conversations with fellow-monks defile the soul; the soul, enraptured by Divine Love, longs to hide itself in a pit, burying itself alive in order to escape the world; not only is the possession of monastic property sinful, but even the delight of the senses in the beauty of church ornaments. In repudiating the spiritual value of estheticism in liturgical worship, Nilus is unique among the Russian saints. This is the most radical direction taken by kenoticism; it verges on iconoclasm.

On the other hand, this world-denying ascetic is a great friend of liberty. He protests against the persecution of heretics. He does not wish to be called teacher or abbot by his disciples; they are his friends; he speaks, not of teaching, but of sharing the spiritual experience. He does not think highly of living authorities; the only true authority for him is the "divine writings" -by which, however, he means not Scripture only but the whole Church tradition in written form. In transcribing the lives of saints, he even tries to exercise moderate criticism. He holds the human intellect of all his readers and followers in high esteem, and as for human charity, his letters are instinct with a fiery, vibrant love which is scarcely surpassed or even equalled in all Russian religious literature. It was such characteristics as these that made Nilus the favorite saint of the Russian liberal intelligentsia.

Nilus is the consistent representative of kenoticism among the saints of Russia, but as in the case of St. Sergius, his kenoticism was purified and elevated by the Divine Love, and ennobled by lofty conceptions of human dignity and freedom.

A. The Tradition to the Disciples. ¹

It is my conviction that if it is by God's will that we are gathered together, then we should be faithful to the traditions of the saints and the holy fathers and to our Lord's commandments, instead of seeking to exempt ourselves by saying that nowadays it is impossible to live according to the Scriptures and the precepts of the fathers. We are weak indeed, but we must nevertheless follow, according to the measure of our strength, the example of the blessed and venerable fathers, even though we are unable to become their equals. And anyone who does not hold this principle must cease to harass me, wretched sinner that I am. I send such persons away and give them nothing, as I have said before. I have no desire to be their master, yet they would force me to teach them. As for those who live with us, if they do not attend to our teaching, which we derive from Holy Scripture, I will not answer for them, for I am not responsible for their self-will. But those who have the desire to follow our way of life freely and without worldly care, I do accept, imparting to them the word of God, even though I do not accomplish it myself, in the hope that with God's grace and the prayers of those who have profited by my words, I may be in a condition comparable to that described by John Climacus of the Ladder when he says: ² "Men sunk in a mire warn passers-by of their own danger, and for the sake of those who are thus preserved, Our Lord will rescue the fallen also."

We have been instructed by the holy fathers to gain our daily bread and other necessities by manual labour, as Our Lord and His Immaculate Mother have commanded. "If any man will not work, neither let him eat," says the Apostle. This work must be performed indoors, for Holy Writ ³ specifies that whereas the monks of a community may drive a pair of oxen in the open fields in order to plough the land, this is culpable in the case of hermits living apart from other men. If, because of physical disability, or for some other good reason, we cannot earn a sufficient livelihood by our own efforts, we may accept a few donations from laymen, but these alms must never be excessive. It is not to be thought of that we should take the fruit of other men's labor by force, for then how should we, who are a prey to our passions, be able to keep God's commandment that "if a man will contend with thee in judgment and take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him"? We must resist and avoid like deadly poison the desire to possess earthly goods.

In buying or selling necessary commodities, we should not bargain to the disadvantage of our brother, but should prefer to suffer a loss ourselves. If we employ laymen, we should never withhold what we owe them, but should give them their pay, with our blessing, and let them go in peace. It is not good to have anything in excess. As for giving alms or lending, ⁴ St. Basil stipulates that this is not expected of a monk, since a man who has nothing in excess of his needs is not obliged to give. And anyone who says, under such circumstances, "I have nothing to give," is not lying, according to Barsanuphius the Great. ⁵ True monks are dispensed from alms-giving, since they may honestly say: "We have given up all things to follow Thee." St. Isaac ⁶ writes: "Non-covetousness is above charitable gifts." The monk's alms are a helpful word spoken to his brother and the spiritual advice with which he gives comfort in the time of sorrow or any other necessity. And even this applies only to monks who are able to give as much. As for novices - "their patience in bearing with the annoyances, humiliations and rebukes inflicted upon them by their brothers will be spiritual alms of a higher order than any material offerings, in proportion as the soul is superior to the body," says St. Dorotheus. ⁷ If a traveler visits us, let us accommodate him as well as we can. After we have given him bread with our blessing, we should allow him to go his way.

With regard to the decoration of churches, St. John Chrysostom writes: "If a man wishes to donate sacred vessels or other furnishings to a church, tell him to give them to the poor. "For," he adds, "no one has ever been condemned for not decorating a church." The teaching of other saints concerning this matter is the same. St. Eugenia the Martyr, for example, would not accept the sacred vessels of silver which were brought to her, for she said that it was not proper for religious to possess silver. Therefore neither should we have gold and silver and other unnecessary ornaments in our possession, but only what is necessary to the church. The great Pachomius ⁸ would not even allow the interior of a church to be decorated. After he had built the church of the Mochos monastery with brick pillars of great beauty, he came to the conclusion that it was not right to admire the work of human hands and to take pride in the beauty of a building, so he tied ropes around the pillars and kept exhorting the brethren to pull hard, until the pillars began to lean and the beautiful proportions were destroyed. And he then said: "This has been done so that our infirm spirit may not fall into the snare of the devil through vainglory." If so great and saintly a man spoke and acted in this fashion, how much the more should we, who are weak-minded and enslaved by our passions, do likewise?

We should keep no vessels or other valuable objects in our cells. Likewise the hermitage and other lodgings should be built of poor materials and left undecorated, according to the instructions of Basil the Great; indeed every article should be made of stuff that is easily purchased and everywhere available. Women should not be allowed to enter our monastery, nor should we keep within our enclosure any female beast for work or other uses. ⁹ We should have no youths in our service and should beware of all beardless and womanish faces.

From the writings of the Holy Fathers on "mental doing." ¹⁰ Wherein its profit consists and how zealously we should seek to attain to it.

Many of the holy fathers have spoken of the "doing of the heart," the "guarding of the spirit," and "mental concentration," each using the words which came to him under the inspiration of divine grace; but one thing is to be understood by these various expressions, for the writers first of all received the divine words: "from the heart come forth evil thoughts to defile a man; therefore we must purify the inner vessel and worship God in spirit and truth." St. Agathon ¹¹ says: "Bodily action is like a leaf; interior action - that is, spiritual labor - is the fruit." Terrible are the pronouncements quoted by the saints with regard to this. "Every tree that does not bring forth good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire." And the fathers say, in addition, that if prayers are only uttered by the lips, while the spirit is negligent, it is like offering prayer to the empty air; for God listens to the spirit. The great Barsanuphius says: "If interior action does not fortify a man with the help of God, his exterior labors will have been in vain." And St. Isaac writes: "Bodily action in the absence of spiritual action may be compared to barren loins and dry breasts, for God's wisdom is inaccessible to it." Many of the fathers have made similar observations, and all are in agreement upon this point. Blessed Philotheus of Sinai ¹² describes certain monks who, owing to their lack of experience, are content with performing good works, but know nothing of spiritual contests, victories and defeats, and who therefore neglect the mind; and he counsels us to pray for these monks and to teach them, while they guard themselves against evil actions, to purify the mind, which is the eye of the soul.

In the past it was not only the holy fathers living as hermits in the solitude of the desert who kept themselves under spiritual restraints and attained grace and purity of soul; this discipline was likewise maintained by monks leading a community life, and even by those who had not removed from the world but lived in large cities, such as Simeon the New Theologian, and his staretz, Simeon the Studite, of the great Studion monastery in so vast and populous a city [as Constantinople], whose spiritual gifts shone like stars. Blessed Hesychius of Jerusalem ¹³ says: "Just as it is impossible to preserve life without eating and drinking, so it is impossible to achieve anything spiritual without that guarding of the mind which is also called 'sobering,' even for those who force themselves to avoid sin for fear of the pain of hell." The technique of this exquisite, light-giving action, according to Simeon the New Theologian, is communicated to many souls through instruction; but there are some who are enabled by ardent faith to receive it directly from God. The same statement is made by Gregory of Sinai ¹⁴ and by other fathers who say that it is no easy task to find a sure and trustworthy teacher to guide a soul in this wonderful operation; for a trustworthy guide, they explain, must be one who is grounded in practice and wisdom tested by the holy writings, and who has acquired spiritual discretion. Even in the days of those saints such teachers were hard to find, and in our sterile times they must be sought with even greater diligence. However, if such a teacher cannot be found, then the holy fathers order us to turn to the Scriptures and listen to our Lord Himself speaking. "Study the Scriptures, and you shall find eternal life in them." For the saints, who have labored bodily and have exercised themselves in the vineyard of the soul, and have purified their minds of sensuality, have found our Lord and attained spiritual wisdom. As for us, who are inflamed with desires, we are told to draw the waters of life from the sources of the divine writings, which will quench the fires of our concupiscence and guide us towards the grasping of truth. And so, although I am a sinner confirmed in my folly, I, too, have applied myself to the Holy writings in accordance with the advice of the god-inspired fathers. Like a dog picking up scraps from under the table, I have gathered the words uttered by those blessed fathers and have written all this down as a reminder to us to be their imitators, if only in a small way.

The fathers describe a variety of conflicts by which the soul is engaged, with their victories and defeats. First there is the assault of thoughts and imaginings, then there is conjunction with them, then acceptance, then, enslavement, and finally, passion. ¹⁵

The assault, say the fathers, John Climacus and Philotheus of Sinai and others, is a bare thought ¹⁶ or image concerning some object or event entering our heart and presenting itself to our mind; Gregory of Sinai says that such a thought may be inspired by the devil suggesting that we do this or that, as he tempted our Lord to command that stones should be turned into bread. In simpler words, this is an ordinary thought fleeting through our minds. Such a thought, the fathers say, is no sin, for it is impossible for us to be immune from the thoughts and imaginings inspired by the devil. It is the privilege only of those who have made great progress in perfection to remain unmoved, and even they are occasionally troubled.

"Conjunction" or "intercourse" the fathers tell us, occurs when a thought or image has been suggested by the devil to a man, and he enters wilfully, with or without passion, into conversation with it; in other words, when he ponders and reflects on a thought which may happen to enter his mind. Such intercourse, the fathers say, is not always sinless; however, it may be made the occasion of merit if discrimination is employed in making the issue pleasing to God. If we do not cut off the first impulse of the evil thought, but begin intercourse with it, and the enemy makes us think of it with passion, let us then strive to turn it to good. How this should be done, will be explained hereafter, with the help of God. ¹⁷

The second form of enslavement - that is, passion - is when an evil thought becomes nested in the soul and, by force of habit, is made part of a man's nature. He has admitted it by his own choice, and now he is constantly disquieted by thoughts inspired by the enemy: again and again an image which exercises upon the agitated soul, willing or unwilling, an attraction above all others, is presented to it, and a spiritual defeat is sustained. Now this usually occurs when a man has attended to this thought through negligence and has entered intercourse with it - that is, has willingly given way to improper thoughts. This is a sin which incurs either repentance in proportion to its gravity or the torments of the future life. That is, we should repent and ask in prayer for deliverance from this perturbation. For our future punishment will be incurred by our failure to repent, and not by the fact that we have been assaulted by temptations. Otherwise no one could receive forgiveness unless he were perfectly impassible. ¹⁸

A wise and excellent means of struggle, the fathers tell us, is to uproot at the very first impulse - that is, at the assault - the thought which comes to us. They also advise us to pray constantly. For by resistance in the beginning, we cut off the whole sequence. A man who struggles in this prudent manner, turns away the mother of all evil - that is, the baneful assault. Especially should he strive to render his mind deaf and dumb in prayer, as Nilus of Sinai ¹⁹ says, keeping his heart silent and aloof from any thought whatever, even if it be a good one. For after the dispassionate thoughts come the passionate, as experience demonstrates, and it is to the entrance of the former that the latter owe their admittance. It is for this reason that we should endeavor to maintain our mind in silence, remote even from such thoughts as may seem legitimate. Let us constantly look into the depths of our heart, ²⁰ saying: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me." ²¹ Some of the time we should repeat only part of this prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me," then again, resuming, say: "Son of God, have mercy upon me"; since, according to Gregory of Sinai, this is easier for beginners. However, due order should be observed in this, and such alternations not made too frequently. The fathers in our day add still another sentence: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me, a sinner." This is also good, and most appropriate for us sinners. Recite the prayer attentively in this manner, standing, sitting, or reclining. Enclose your mind in your heart and, moderating your respiration so as to draw breath as seldom as possible (as Simeon the New Theologian and Gregory of Sinai teach us), call upon God with fervent desire, in patient expectation, turning away all thoughts. ²²

One of the saints tells us from his own experience that we should concentrate all our efforts on the prayer itself, reciting psalms only to dissipate accidie, ²³ or dejection, with the addition of a few penitential troparia ²⁴ but without any chanting. For "the pain of the heart born of piety will suffice for their joy," says St. Marcus, ²⁵ "and the warmth generated by the spirit will bring them comfort." St. Marcus instructs us always to say the trisagion and alleluia. He also has given us a rule for these exercises; he tells us to pray for an hour, then read for an hour, and in this manner to spend the day. This is a good practice within the limitations of time and the resources of each monk. You may do as you think best, either observing the rules given above, or practising constant recollection, which is to pursue God's work always.

To those who, for the sake of controversy, cite the holy fathers with reference to celebrating the all-night service or practising continuous chanting, Gregory of Sinai permits us to make this answer: "Not all souls attain perfection in all things because of the defects of our human nature, the lack of zeal, bodily exhaustion. But what is small in the great ones is not entirely small, and what is great in the small ones is not entirely perfect; indeed, not all the ascetics of present or past have walked the same way or followed it to the end." Those who are in progress and in a state of enlightenment are not asked to recite psalms; they must practise silence, abundant prayer, and contemplation, for such souls are united with God and should not detach their mind from Him and permit it to be troubled; for the mind which turns away from the thought of God and busies itself with inferior matters commits adultery. ²⁶

Now in this prayer, too many words disperse the mind, but a few words assist in recollection. When we are assailed by imaginings, St. Isaac advises us to turn to reading. When our mind is scattered, we should occupy ourselves more with reading than with prayer, or we should apply ourselves to some manual work, as the angel taught the great St. Anthony. ²⁷ Manual labor, or some other assigned task, is most profitable to souls who have not had much experience of the assaults of imaginations, and especially in the course of accidie. Blessed Hesychius of Jerusalem prescribes four methods of this mental exercise: to guard oneself consciously against the impetus of thought; or to keep the heart silent in its depths, free from all imaginings, and to pray; or to call Jesus Christ to one's aid; or to think of the hour of death. All these methods, says the father, conquer evil thoughts; whichever way is chosen, all of them are called "sobering," ²⁸ in other words, "mental doing." Examining all these methods, each of us has to fight according to his own way.

The fathers tell us that there are various methods of resisting the temptations of the mind and various ways of defeating them, according to the strength of the one who struggles: one may either pray against evil thoughts or enter into contention with them, or else turn them away by contempt. The last method is that of the most perfect souls. As for contending with our thoughts, this too is a method suitable to those who are in progress. Beginners and weak souls should pray, evoking good thoughts, against evil imaginings, for St. Isaac teaches that passions should be circumvented by the guile of virtues. When we are assailed by delusions, so that we cannot pray humbly and in interior silence, we should take arms against them, displacing evil thoughts by good ones. And how this can be done, we shall further explain from the holy writings. The fathers say ²⁹ that there are eight principal vices of the soul, of which numerous temptations are the offspring; these are: Gluttony, Fornication, Covetousness, Anger, Sadness, Accidie, Vainglory, and Pride.

Of the Time When Food Should Be Taken - Now with regard to the duration of the daily abstinence from food: the fathers prescribe fasting until the ninth ³⁰ hour. Anyone who wishes to fast longer, may do so. As a general rule, we should wait until the decline of day - that is until two hours after noontime according to the sun. This is the ninth hour in spring and autumn, but in summer and in winter, in northern countries, the hours of sunrise and sunset are different from those in the countries around the Mediterranean, in Palestine and Constantinople. Therefore we should fast in accordance with the season and the rule of right reason. On the days when no fasting is prescribed, we may advance the hour of meals and if necessary partake of a small collation in the evening.

When we are harried by the temptation to fornication, I believe that it is salutary also to think of our monastic state; for we have assumed the form of angels, ³¹ and how can we trample on our conscience and defile this holy form with such an abomination? We may likewise picture to ourselves the shameful and scandalous example that we should present to the eyes of men, and this too might help us to resist these unworthy thoughts. For should we not rather die than be seen in this shameful condition? Thus the means by which, with zeal and perseverance, these wicked thoughts may be cut off are various.

The pride of monks is discussed as follows in the holy writings: If a man has undergone considerable suffering for the sake of his many undertakings and good works, he is tempted by the spirit of pride because of the piety of his life. And if pride is based upon the good name of the monastery ³² and the number of the brethren, the fathers call this worldliness. Pride may also be occasioned by the acquiring of land and other property, or even, in the case of certain monks today, by success in the world - what shall we say of them? Yet there are others who have nothing to be proud of but their proficiency in the art of chanting, reading aloud, or reciting the Office. But what praise do they deserve from God for the natural gifts which they could not have acquired by their own efforts? Then there are those who pride themselves on their handicraft, and they are like these others. Some monks are proud of belonging to families who are powerful in the world, or of being related to distinguished men, or of having enjoyed honor and rank themselves when they were still in the world. This is the height of folly. Such distinctions should be concealed. It is greatly to be deplored that those who have renounced the world should have an appetite for the honor and glory received from men. They should be ashamed instead of proud, for their prominence is disgraceful. But those who are harassed by thoughts of pride because of their pious life have no resort but the prayer: "My Lord God, take the spirit of pride away from me, and give Thy servant the spirit of humility."

There are some men who have not yet acquired the gift of tears in its plenitude, and who may obtain it in different ways: either by contemplating the mystery of God's Providence, or by reading about the lives of the saints, their labors and teachings, or merely by reciting the prayer of Jesus or other prayers composed by the saints, for in this manner they will attain to contrition. Still others may reach this condition by reading the prayer-canons ³³ and the troparia ³⁴ or by recalling their sins, or by thinking of death and the day of judgment, or by longing for the joys of eternity, and in many other ways.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, I leave the following will to be executed by my lords and brethren who are of the same spirit as myself. I pray you, cast away my body in the desert, to be devoured by the beasts and birds, for that body has greatly sinned before God and is unworthy of burial. If you will not do this, then dig a pit on the grounds where we live and bury me in it with every kind of dishonor. ³⁵ Take heed of the words with which the great Arsenius charged his disciples: "I will prosecute you if you give up my body to anyone; I have done all I could not to be granted fame and honor either in life or in death." I ask everyone to pray for my sinful soul, and I beg everyone to forgive me, as I myself forgive; may God forgive everyone.

I leave to my lords and brethren, who will continue to labor on these grounds, the large cross containing the passionstone, as well as the little books that I have written. I earnestly and humbly request that prayers be said for me until the fortieth day after my death. The small volumes of John Damascenus, the breviary, the Irmologion, ³⁶ I also leave to them. The psalter in quarto copied by Ignatius shall be sent to the Kirillov monastery: other books and objects belonging to that monastery which were given to me for the love of God, should likewise be returned, and the rest distributed to the poor, to other monasteries, and to laymen; to whomsoever these things belong, let them be returned.

The Life of Archpriest Avvakum by Himself .¹

I was born in the region of Nizhny-Novgorod, ² beyond the river kudna, in the village of grigorovo. My father, Peter by name, was a priest. My mother, Maria, took the veil under the name of Martha. My father was given to drink, but my mother practised prayer and fasting and constantly taught me the fear of God. One day I saw a neighbor's ox fall dead, and that night I arose and wept before the holy icon, sorrowing for my soul and meditating upon death, since I likewise should die. From that time on it became my custom to pray each night. Then my mother was widowed and I became an orphan in my early days, and we were exiled by our kin. My mother decided that I should marry. I besought the Mother of God to give me a wife who would help me to attain salvation. In that same village there was a maiden, also an orphan, who was wont to go frequently to church, and whose name was Anastasia. Her father was the blacksmith, Marco, a rich man; but after his death his whole substance was wasted. The maiden lived in poverty, and she prayed to God that she might be united to me in marriage; and it was God's will that this should come about. Then my mother returned to God after a life of great piety, and as for me, being turned out, I went to live in another place. I was ordained deacon at the age of twenty and priest two years later. I exercised the functions of ordinary priesthood for eight years and was then made archpriest by the Orthodox bishops, and that was twenty years ago; and I have now been in holy orders for thirty years.

At that time my son Procopy was born, the one who is now imprisoned underground with his mother. ³ I took my staff, and she the unbaptized child, and we went wherever God should speed us; on our way we baptized the child as, of old, Philip had baptized the eunuch. ⁴ When I arrived at Moscow and went to the Tsar's confessor, Archpriest Stephen, and to Archpriest John Neronov, they both told the Tsar about me, and from that time on the Tsar knew me. The Fathers sent me back with a certificate of safe-conduct, and I dragged myself home; but the very walls of my house were destroyed, and I began to establish myself afresh, and again the devil raised a storm against me.

To my village came dancing bears with tambourines and lutes, and I, miserable sinner, full of zeal for Christ, drove them out. I broke the tambourines and lutes and smashed the clowns' masks out in the field, I alone, against a great number. I took from them two great bears; one I struck senseless, but he revived, and I set the other loose in the fields. Because of this Vasily Petrovich Sheremetev, who was sailing down the Volga to Kazan, to assume the office of governor, summoned me aboard his ship. He upbraided me and ordered me to bless his son Matthew, whose face was shaven. But I did not bless him and reprimanded him from the Scriptures when I looked upon his lewd countenance. In great wrath the nobleman commanded that I should be thrown into the Volga. After I had been dealt many injuries, they cast me out. But afterwards they were good to me; we were reconciled in the Tsar's antechamber, and Vasily's wife became my younger brother's spiritual daughter. Thus God leads his own. ⁵

That night he sent his men to fetch me, and they cried out, weeping bitterly, "Father, Yefimy Stepanovich is close to death, and he is crying and moaning and beating his breast, saying, "I want Father Avvakum. God is punishing me on his account." Thinking that this was a trap, I was seized with fear and prayed to God thus: "O Lord Who hast taken me from my mother's womb, Who has brought me from nothingness into being! If I am strangled, do Thou sanctify me with Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow; ⁶ if they stab me, do Thou sanctify me with the prophet Zacharias; if they drown me, do Thou save me as Thou didst Stephen of Perm." ⁷ Praying in this manner, I went to Yefimy's house. As I was conducted into his yard, his wife Neonila came running out to meet me and seized my hand and cried, "Come, Father, my lord; come, our dear provider!" I answered, "'Tis strange indeed! Yesterday I was 'son of a harlot,' and now I am 'Father.' Biting, in truth, must be the scourge of Christ! Your husband is quick to repent!"

Soon after this Nicon, our friend, brought the relics of Metropolitan Philip from the Solovki Monastery to Moscow. Before he arrived, Stephen, the Tsar's confessor, spent a week in prayer and fasting with the brethren on behalf of the patriarch (and I was with them), that God should grant us a pastor for the salvation of our souls. ⁸ Together with the Metropolitan of Kazan, we wrote, and signed with our own hand, a petition which we presented to the Tsar and Tsarina in favor of Stephen, that he should be made Patriarch. But Stephen would not have it so, and suggested Metropolitan Nicon. The Tsar followed his advice. He sent a letter, to be delivered on his way to Moscow: "To Nicon, the Most Reverend Metropolitan of Novgorod and Velikia Luki and of all Russia, greetings," and so on. And once he was there, he was all bows and compliments with us, like a fox. He knew that he was going to be Patriarch and feared lest some obstacle should arise. There would be much to tell about these wily dealings. And when he was installed patriarch, he would not even let his friends enter his chapel, and soon he spewed forth all his poison.

During Lent ⁹ he sent a letter to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, ¹⁰ addressed to John Neronov. The latter was my spiritual father; I lived at his church and took charge of it when he was absent. It was said that I should have been appointed to the post of the late Silas at the Savior's Church in the palace, but God had not willed it, and I myself had no great desire to be sent there. I loved the church of Our Lady of Kazan and was content to serve in it. I read holy books to the faithful, who came in great numbers. In his letter (dated such and such a year and month), Nicon wrote: "According to the tradition of the holy apostles and fathers, it is not fitting to make genuflections; suffice it to bow from the waist; and the sign of the cross must be made with three fingers." ¹¹ We assembled and reflected upon this. We saw that winter was near; our hearts were frozen, and our limbs shaking. Neronov entrusted the church to me and hid himself in the Chudov Monastery, where, in a cell, he spent a week in prayer. As he prayed, a voice came from the icon: "This is the time of tribulation: you must suffer without weakening." He related this to me, weeping, also to Bishop Paul of Kolomna, whom Nicon afterwards had burned at the stake at Kostroma; then he likewise told all the brethren about it. With Daniel, I copied excerpts from the Holy Fathers concerning the fingers used in the sign of the cross and the bows to be made during prayer, and these were submitted to the Tsar. There were a great many of these excerpts, but I know not where the Tsar hid them; I believe he gave them to Nicon.

Soon after this Nicon ordered Daniel to be seized and had his head shorn ¹² in the Monastery at the Tver Gates, in the Tsar's presence. They tore his cassock from his back, and, heaping insults on him, took him to the Chudov Monastery and locked him in the bakery. After many torments had been inflicted on him, he was banished to Astrakhan; there he was crowned with a wreath of thorns, and they let him die in a dungeon.

After me, they seized Longin, Archpriest of Murom; he was shorn at Mass in the cathedral, in the Tsar's presence. During the procession of oblation, the Patriarch took the paten with Christ's body from the archdeacon's hand and placed it on the altar; meanwhile Therapon, Archimandrite of Chudov, was standing with the chalice outside the altar, near the royal doors. Alas, such a division of Christ's body was worse than the doing of the Jews! ¹³ Having shorn him, they tore his cassock and his kaftan off his back. But Longin was incensed with the fire of holy wrath; reproving Nicon, he spat into his eyes across the threshold of the sanctuary; undoing his girdle, he tore off his shirt and hurled it into Nicon's face. O wonder! The shirt spread and covered the paten on the altar like a corporal. The Tsarina also was in the Cathedral at the time. Longin was put into chains, dragged outside the church and beaten with brooms and whips all the way to the Monastery of the Epiphany. And he was thrown into a cell and musketeers were set to guard him. But during the night, God gave him a new fur coat and a hat. In the morning Nicon was informed of this happening and laughingly exclaimed: "I know these would-be saints!" He took the hat away from him but left him the fur coat.

In Tobolsk the Archbishop appointed me to a church, ¹⁴ and there I suffered great trials. In a year and a half, I was accused five times of treason against the Tsar. A certain Ivan Struna, secretary of the Archbishop's Chancery, persecuted me; while the Archbishop was away in Moscow, Struna was inspired by the devil to fall on me. Without cause he tormented Deacon Anthony, and the latter ran away from him and came to my church. Ivan Struna called his attendants and also came to the church on another day. I was singing Vespers, and he rushed into the choir and clutched Anthony by the beard, while I closed the church doors and let no one in. Struna was alone in there, carrying on like the devil. And I, interrupting the office, seated Struna in the middle of the church with the help of Anthony and thrashed him with a leather strap for disturbance in church. And the others, about twenty strong, fled, driven by the Holy Ghost. Having received Struna's repentance. I sent him home.

There came an ukase ordering that I should be taken away from Tobolsk, because I had condemned Nicon for his heresy, speaking from the Scriptures. At that time I received a letter from Moscow, informing me that two of my brothers, who lived in the palace in the Tsarina's apartments, ¹⁵ had died of the plague, with their wives and children; and many others among my kinsmen and friends had also died. God had let flow on the Kingdom the vial of His wrath, and the wretched ones did not repent; they continue to cause trouble in the Church. Neronov had often warned the Tsar: There will be three visitations resulting from the schism in the Church: plague, the sword, division. And this is what has happened today.

Once more I sailed in my ship, as had been shown to me in the vision already described. I made my way to the Lena River. When we reached Yeniseisk there came another ukase ordering me to Dauria, ¹⁶ twenty thousand versts and more from Moscow; I was to be given over to Afanasy Pashkov and his regiment. He had six hundred men under his command. He was a rough man, for my sins, and he burned, flogged and tortured people unceasingly. I had often tried to stay him, but finally I had fallen into his hands. From Moscow he had received Nicon's orders to torment me.

After we left Yeniseisk, as we reached the great Tunguzka River, a storm almost wrecked my barge; it floated in midstream and filled with water, and its sails were torn. All but the deck was submerged. My wife, bareheaded, ¹⁷ pulled the children out of the water, and I, lifting my eyes to heaven, cried: "Lord, help us and save us!" By the will of God we were blown toward the shore. 'Tis a long story to tell. Two men in another barge were pitched overboard and drowned. And we, having regained our composure on shore, resumed our journey.

When the barge was towed ashore, the executioners seized me and led me before him. He stood, sword in hand, and shaking. First he asked me: "Are you a true pope ¹⁸ or an unfrocked one?" I answered: "I am Avvakum, Archpriest. Speak, what is it you want of me?" He roared like a wild beast and struck me on one check and then on the other, and beat me on the head, and knocked me down, and seizing his battle-axe, he struck me three times on the back, as I lay there. Then, tearing off my garment, he applied seventy-two strokes of the whip on that very same back of mine. And I cried: "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, help me!" And I repeated these words unceasingly, and he was sorely vexed, because I did not say: "Have mercy." At each stroke of the whip, I recited the prayer; then, in the middle of the thrashing, I cried out: "Enough of this beating," and he ordered the thrashing to be stopped. I asked him: "Do you know why you beat me? Why?" And once more he ordered that I should be struck in the ribs, and then they let me go, I trembled and fell. And he had me placed in the ammunition-boat; they fettered me hand and foot and threw me onto a beam. It was autumn, and rain beat on me all night. I lay under the downpour. While they had been flogging me, I had felt no pain, thanks to my prayer, but now, as I lay there, a thought crossed my mind: "Son of God, why didst Thou permit such a hard beating? Did I not defend Thy widows? Who shall be the judge between Thee and me? When I was committing evil Thou didst not afflict me so cruelly. And now, I know not in what way I have sinned." Ah, what virtue I displayed! I, another dung-faced pharisee, dared to take issue concerning the Lord's justice! If Job could speak thus, it is because he was just and sinless; moreover, he did not know the Scriptures, for he lived outside the Law in the land of barbarians, and knew God through the creation. As to myself, I am first of all a sinner; and secondly, I am supported by the Law, fortified in all things by the Scriptures, "We must through much tribulation enter the Kingdom of God." And I had committed such folly. Woe to me! How was it that the boat did not sink with me?

Then I was taken to Fort Bratsky and thrown into jail, and given a little straw. I remained there till St. Philip's fast, ¹⁹ in a frozen tower; it is already winter at that time in this land, but God warmed me in want of clothing. I lay like a little dog on the straw; some days they would feed me and some days not; there were a great many mice, and I hit them with my biretta -the fools would not even give me a stick. I lay all the time on my belly: my back was sore, and there were many fleas and lice. I wanted to cry out to Pashkov: "Pardon!" but God's will forbade it and ordered me to be patient. Later I was transferred to a warm house, and there I spent the winter in chains with the hostages ²⁰ and the dogs. My wife and children had been sent far from me, some twenty versts away. And all that winter she was plagued and rebuked by her servant Xenia. My son Ivan, a small lad, came to stay with me for a while after Christmas. Pashkov had him thrown into the cold cell where I had lain. He spent the night there, poor dear lad, and almost froze to death. In the morning, he was sent back to his mother. He reached home with his hands and feet frozen.

My wife had only one cloak left that had not rotted. It would have been worth twenty-five rubles in Russia, and more over here, but he gave four sacks of rye for it, and they lasted one or two years, while we lived on the river Nercha, eating mostly grass. He let all his men die of hunger; there remained a small troop, roaming through the steppes, digging for roots and grass, and we did as the others. In winter we fed on pine-bark, and sometimes, by luck, on horse flesh and the carcasses of beasts killed by wolves. What the wolves did not devour, we ate. And some would feed on frozen wolves and foxes and every other kind of filthy beast they could find. If a mare foaled, the foal was devoured in secret, together with the caul. When Pashkov heard about it, he would have them flogged to death. ²¹ Sometimes the mare would die because she had not been allowed to foal naturally: they tore the foal out as soon as the head appeared, and they drank the foul blood. Ah, what sad times were these!

Then I arrived in Moscow and the Tsar received me joyfully, as if I were an angel of God. I went to Fedor Rtishchev; ²² he came out of his chamber to meet me, asked for my blessing, and we talked for a long while: he would not let me go for three days and three nights, and then he announced my presence to the Tsar. The Tsar immediately received me in audience and spoke to me kindly: "How fares it with you, Archpriest? God has let us meet once more." I kissed his hand and pressed it, answering: "God lives and my soul lives, Tsar, my Lord! From now on, It will be as God ordains." And he, dear soul, sighed and went to attend to some business. We had spoken a few words more, but it is no use recalling them, it all belongs to the past. He ordered that I should be given lodgings in a monastery in the Kremlin; when he passed my house, he would bow to me, saying: "Bless me and pray for me." One day, as he rode by on horseback, he took off his hat. And when he drove in a carriage, he would lean out of the window to see me. And all the boyars did as much, each one bowing to me: "Archpriest, bless us and pray for us."

When I was still in Tobolsk, I had received a warning in a light sleep: "Beware that you be not slit in two by Me." Seized with great fear, I sprang to my feet and fell before the icon, saying: "Lord, I shall not go there, where they chant the office according to the new way." I had attended Matins at the Cathedral for the namesday of a princess; I had committed the folly of entering that church in the presence of the governors; and upon my arrival, two or three times I had watched the celebration of the oblation, ²³ standing in the sanctuary near the sacrificial table; and I had reproved them for the way they celebrated, but when I grew accustomed to it, I did not scold any more. I was stung by the spirit of the Antichrist. And my dear Lord Christ put fear into my soul: "Do you want to perish after so much suffering? Beware lest I slit you in two." I did not go to the Mass, but I went to dine with the prince and told them everything. And the good boyar, Prince Ivan Andreievich Khilkov, ²⁴ began to weep. Accursed am I, if I forget God's mercy.

They saw that I was not going to be reconciled with them. So the Tsar ordered Rodion Streshnev to persuade me to be silent. And I did so, in order to please him. He was the Godestablished Tsar, and good to me. I hoped he would advance little by little. On St. Simeon's day ²⁵ I was promised an appointment to the Printing Office, to correct the books, and I was extremely pleased; I liked this better than being confessor to the Tsar. He did me a favor, sending me ten rubles, and the Tsarina gave me ten rubles; and Lucas, the Tsar's confessor, ten; and Rodion Streshnev, ten. As for my old friend Fedor Rtishchev, he told his treasurer to put sixty rubles in my bonnet - to say nothing of the others. Each one brought me something or other.

From that time on the Tsar was hostile towards me. He did not like my speaking again. He wanted me to be silent, but this did not suit me. And the bishops sprang on me like goats. They wanted to exile me once more from Moscow, for many came to me in Christ's name, and, when they had heard the truth, gave up attendng their mendacious services. The Tsar reprimanded me: "The bishops complain of you, they say you have emptied the churches. You shall be exiled once more." It was Boyar Peter Mikhailovich Saltikov who brought me the message. They took me to Mezen. The good people had given me many things in the name of Christ, but I had to leave everything behind and was accompanied on my journey only by my wife, children and family. And again I taught the people of God in the towns and condemned the piebald beasts. So they brought me to Mezen. ²⁶ After holding me there a year and a half, they took me back to Moscow with two of my sons, Ivan and Procopy. Dame Avvakum and all the others remained at Mezen. Having brought me to Moscow, they first took me to the Monastery of St. Paphnutius. ²⁷ And there they sent me a message, always repeating the same thing: "How long will you torment us? Reunite yourself with us, dear brother Avvakum." I rejected them like the devils, and they flew into my eyes. And I wrote a long and wrathful declaration and sent it through Cosmas, deacon of Yaroslavl and clerk in the Patriarch's chancery. This Cosmas was I know not what kind of man. In public he tried to persuade me, and in private he upheld me, saying: "Archpriest, do not renounce the old (way of) piety. You will be a man great in the eyes of God if you suffer to the end. Do not heed us if we perish." And I said to him that he should return to Christ. He answered: "This I cannot do; Nicon has caught me in his snares." To say the truth, the poor man had renounced Christ for Nicon and could not get back on his feet. I wept, blessed him, poor wretch; that was all I could do for him. God knows how it will go with him.

Then officer Joseph Salov and his musketeers took me to St. Nicholas' Monastery at Ugresha. ²⁸ They sheared off my beard, the enemies of God! And why not? They are wolves and have no pity for the sheep. They tore off all my hair - the dogs! - leaving but a forelock, such as the Poles have on their heads. They drove us to the monastery, not along the roads, but through marshes and mire, so that people should not see us. They were well aware of their folly, but were unable to give it up. The devil had clouded their minds. How can we blame them? Were it not they, it would be others. The time is at hand when, according to the Gospels: "It must needs be that scandals come." And the other evangelists teaches us: "It is impossible that scandals should not come. But woe to him through whom they come."

At St. Nicholas I was locked up in a cold hall above the icecellar for seventeen weeks. There I had a vision sent by God. You may read about it in my letter to the Tsar. ²⁹ And the Tsar came to the monastery and walked around my prison and sighed, but did not come in to see me. They had prepared the road and sprinkled it with sand. He thought and thought, and did not come in. I think he pitied me, but such was the will of God. When I had been shorn, there had been a great dispute at the palace between the Tsar and the late Tsarina. The dear lady was at that time on our side, and she had preserved me from mutilation. ³⁰ There would be much to say about that. May God forgive them. I do not hold them responsible for my sufferings, not even in the other world; it is fitting that I should pray for them, alive or dead. The devil has cleft us in two, but they were always kind to me. Enough of this.

Then they took me once more to the monastery of St. Paphnutius and locked me up in a dark hall and kept me in chains for a little less than a year. Here Nicodemus, the cellarer, was good to me in the beginning, but hater he became cruel, poor wretch. He well-nigh suffocated me, blocking the windows and the door, so that there was no vent for the smoke. The nobleman Ivan Bogdanovich Kaminin, a good man, who provided an endowment for the monastery, came to see me; he reprimanded the cellarer and tore off the shutters of bark and all the rest, and from that day on I had a window and air to breathe. But why be surprised at that cellarer? He had drunk of that tobaccoplant, sixty pounds of which were discovered at the house of the Bishop of Gaza, together with a lute and other objects for merrymaking. ³¹ I have sinned, forgive me; 'tis none of my business, but his own; let him stand or fall before his Master. I just happened to mention it. Such were the teachers of God's law most favored among them.

That Theodore had led a life of great austerity. In the daytime he behaved like a fool in Christ, ³² and he spent the night in weeping and praying. I have known many a good man, but never such an ascetic. He stayed with me six months in Moscow; I was still sick at the time. We lived in the back room. He would lie down for not more than an hour or two, and then he would rise and make a thousand prostrations; and at other times he would sit on the floor, or stand, weeping for three hours at a time. Meanwhile, I would lie there, sleeping or restless with pain. And he, having wept his fill, would come up to me, saying: "Look here, Archpriest, how long will you lie there? Only think, you are a priest! Shame upon you!" And he would end by dragging me out of bed; and he made me say my prayers seated there, he doing the prostrations for me. He was my friend true of heart.

And now I shall tell you again about my tribulations. From St. Paphnutius, they took me back to Moscow and placed me in the court of the Monastery. And they dragged me many times to the Chudov Monastery, before the ecumenical patriarchs; and our bishops all sat there like foxes. ³³ I discussed many things with the patriarchs in the words of the Scriptures. God opened my sinful lips and Christ confounded them. Their last words to me were: "Why are you stubborn? All our people of Palestine, and the Serbs, and the Albanians and Valachians and Romans and Poles, all cross themselves with three fingers. You alone in your obstinacy cross yourself with two fingers. This is not fitting." And I, miserable wretch, how bitter I felt! But I could do nothing. I reproved them as well as I could, and my last word was: "I am uncorrupted, and I shake the dust from my feet, for it is written: 'better is one that feareth God, than a thousand ungodly.' " So they cried out even louder against me: "Take him, take him, he has dishonored us all." And they began to shove me and beat me. And the patriarchs themselves rushed at me; about forty of them, I believe - 'twas a great army of the Antichrist that had mustered. Ivan Uvarov seized me and dragged me along; and I cried: "Hy, wait, don't beat me!" They staggered back and I said to the interpreter, an archimandrite: "Tell the patriarchs: Paul the Apostle says: 'It was fitting that we should have such a high-priest, holy, innocent,' and so forth. But you, how shall you celebrate Mass after beating a man?" Then they were seated, and I retired to the door and lay down on my side, saying: "Stay seated, and I shall lie down for a while." They laughed and said: "This Archpriest is a fool, without respect for patriarchs." I answered: "We are fools for Christ's sake ... we are weak but you are strong, you are honorable, but we are without honor." Then the bishops returned and began to discuss the Alleluia, and Christ helped me to confound their Roman heresy with the help of Dionysius the Areopagite. And Euthymius, the cellarer of the Chudov Monastery, said to me: "You are right; it is of no use to discuss anything further with you."

Then, after mutilating our brothers, but not me, they banished us to Pustozersk. ³⁴ From there I wrote two letters to the Tsar, the first one short, and the second, longer. I told him various things, among them, of certain signs that God had shown me in my prisons. Let him who reads understand. Moreover, I and the brethren sent, as a gift to the followers of the true faith in Moscow, the Deacon's manuscript entitled Answer of the Orthodox, along with a condemnation of heresy and apostasy. It declared the truth about the dogmas of the Church. And two letters were also sent to the Tsar by the priest Lazarus. And for all this, we too received some gifts in return: in my house on the Mezen they hanged two men, spiritual children of mine, Theodore, the fool in Christ already mentioned, and Luke Lavrentievich, servants of Christ.

Having first gone from us to Mezen, Pilate ³⁵ journeyed to Moscow. And in Moscow the rest of us were roasted and baked. They burned Isaiah and they burned Abraham, and a great many other champions of the Church were annihilated. God will count their numbers. It is amazing that the Niconians refuse to regain their senses: they propose to establish the faith through fire, whip and gallows. Who were the apostles that taught them these things? I do not know. My Christ did not order His apostles to teach in this way, to lead men to the faith with fire, whip and gallows. He commanded the Apostles: "Go ye into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature." ³⁶

I took the censer and incensed the icons and the possessed, and then I fell on the bench and wept for a long time. Then, rising, I repeated the prayer of St. Basil and cried to the devil: "Go out of that creature." The devil twisted my brother into a ring, and, writhing, went out of him and sat on the window; and my brother was like one dead. I sprinkled the window, and the devil came down and hid in the millstone corner; and my brother pointed at him, and again I sprinkled. The devil then climbed onto the stove, and my brother pointed there. Once more I sprinkled the holy water, and my brother pointed under the stove and crossed himself. I did not pursue the devil any further, but I gave my brother holy water to drink in the Lord's name. And he sighed from the very depths of his heart and spoke to me thus: "God save you, Father, for having freed me from the prince of devils and his two princelings. My brother Avvakum will thank you for your kindness. And God bless that youth who went to fetch the book and the holy water and helped you to fight them. He was in the likeness of my friend Symeon. They brought me to the river Sundovik, and there they beat me, saying: "You have been delivered to us because your brother Avvakum bartered his book against a horse and because you loved that beast. So tell your brother to take the book and pay back the money to his cousin." I said to him: "I, dear soul, am your brother." And he answered: "How should you be my brother? You are my Father, you took me away from the prince and the princelings; as for my brother, he lives at Lopatishchi, and he will thank you." ³⁷ I gave him some more holy water to drink, and he took the vessel from my hands and wanted to drain it, so sweet was that water to him. And when there was no more, I rinsed the vessel and again made him drink, but he rejected it. I spent all that winter night tending him. I lay a while at his side, and then I went to Matins; and in my absence, the devils once more assailed him, but less vigorously.

And so, my Elder, you have heard a great deal of my cackle. In the name of the Lord, I order you to write likewise for the servants of Christ, relating how the Mother of God broke that devil in her arms and gave him over to you, and how the ants devoured the secret part of your body, and how the demon set fire to your wood, and your cell was burned, but everything in it remained intact, and how you cried out to heaven, and what else you may recall for the glory of Christ and the Mother of God. ³⁸ Listen, then, to what I say: If you do not write, I shall be angry. You listened to me with enjoyment - why, then, be ashamed? Relate it, if only a little. At the Council of Jerusalem the Apostles Paul and Barnabas told "what great signs and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them." And the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And we find many instances in the Epistles and the Acts. And so, speak without fear, only keep a firm conscience. Say that you do not seek your own glory, but that of Christ and the Mother of God. Let the servant of Christ rejoice reading this account. When he reads us and we are dead, he will remember us before God. And we shall pray to God for those who read us and listen to us. They shall be our kin, there, at Christ's side, and we shall be theirs, for ever and ever, Amen.

Although a life of the late Bishop of Voronezh, Tychon, appeared under the title of a Complete Account and the biographer ¹ applied all his efforts to the task, he was unable to relate everything in full detail, having written his account from hearsay and as told by others. Whereas I, wretch that I am, lived at Tychon's side from 1770 onward and heard many things from his own saintly lips which he told me in conversation during his spare hours, speaking of his life, beginning with his early childhood and describing his various experiences. I was witness of his way of life, which was noble and of great virtue, and of this I shall have more to say further on. But here, truly and precisely rendered, are the Bishop's own words: I first remember myself in our mother's house (I do not remember my father). ² We were four brothers and three sisters. My eldest brother was a church cleric, the second was a soldier, and the other two, including myself, were very young and lived in great poverty, such that we had scarcely enough to eat and our mother was greatly concerned about our bringing-up. But in our parish there was a certain mail-coachman who was well-off and had no children. He visited us frequently, and he took a liking to me. Often he would beg my mother to let him adopt me, saying, "Give Timothy to me [Tychon's name before he became a religious was Timothy]. I will bring him up as my own son, and all I have shall be his."

I pursued my studies at the State's expense and suffered great privations, for I was without personal means. ³ When I received bread at the seminary, I would keep half of it for my needs and sell the other half. With the money thus obtained, I would buy a candle, and sitting on the stove, ⁴ I would read a book. My classmates whose fathers were rich and who spent their time playing, would taunt me. Picking up an old shoe, they would wave it at me, shouting, "We salute you!" ⁵ Later on, when I was ordained suffragan bishop and returned to Novgorod, my classmates came to me asking for my blessing. But I said to them, "When we were small boys at the seminary you laughed at me and waved an old shoe. And now it is a censer that you would wave at me." (For at that time some of my former companions were priests or deacons.) They said, "Your Grace, forgive us." I answered, "I spoke in jest."

Now I shall relate how he was ordained bishop, for this was done by the special will of Providence, as I heard from His Lordship's own lips. Here are his words: I had never thought of this high dignity [of becoming a bishop], but wanted to retire to some especially isolated monastery to receive the tonsure and lead a solitary life. But the Almighty willed that I should become a bishop - surely an unworthy one! At that time I was Archimandrite ⁶ in the city of Tver, where I was a member of the Consistory ⁷ and rector of the seminary. One day, it being the feast of Holy Easter, I was celebrating Mass together with Bishop Athanasius in the cathedral. And what should occur? During the hymn of the Cherubim, Most Reverend Athanasius was standing before the sacrificial table, cutting the particles of the holy bread and praying for the health of the living. ⁸ I went up to the sacrificial table and said, "Remember me in your prayers, Your Grace."

I was to learn afterwards that on that very day of Easter, in Petersburg, the first member of the Synod, Metropolitan Demetrius Sechenov, was casting lots ⁹ with Epiphanius, Bishop of Smolensk. There were seven candidates represented by these lots, but the Bishop of Smolensk said to the Metropolitan, "I beseech you, order Rector Tychon of Tver to be entered as a candidate."

My lot was the eighth. The lots were cast three times, and each time mine was drawn. So the Metropolitan said, "No doubt God wishes it to be so. Let Tychon be ordained bishop." The Metropolitan related this to me himself, adding that his intention had been to transfer me as Archimandrite to the Monastery of the Holy Trinity. ¹⁰

At that time peasants were attached to the monasteries, ¹¹ and there was in the neighborhood of Tver an estate belonging to one of these communities. There was a grove on that land, a place both beautiful and isolated. I planned to build a cell in that grove. On a Saturday in spring, having spare time on my hands, I visited the estate. The peasants were building a bridge across a small stream, and while I walked about I watched them at work. When I heard the cathedral bell ringing for Vespers, I ordered a carriage and drove to the monastery. Entering the church, I went and stood at my usual place. Presently a servant sent by the Bishop came to me and said, "Father Rector, please go to His Grace." I replied, "I shall first hear Vespers and shall then go at once to His Grace." But scarcely had the man left the monastery when another servant came to me, saying, "Please hurry." Without waiting for the end of Vespers, I went to the Bishop's house.

In his will, His Grace wrote among other things the following: "I thank God that He protected me in the hour of calamity or mortal danger"; concerning which, this is what he told me: When I was still a teacher ¹² it happened that during vacation time the Archimandrite of the St. Alexander Monastery invited us teachers for a visit. When I arrived at the monastery I went forth alone and climbed into the bell tower, led by curiosity and wishing to survey the grounds about the monastery - a truly beautiful landscape. Without testing the solidity of the railings, I leaned on them, and suddenly they crumbled to the ground. At the same moment an invisible hand seemed to push me back, so that I fell at the foot of the bell, half-fainting. I regained my spirits with difficulty and went down the steps of the bell tower, groping my way until at last I reached the Archimandrite's cell. The persons there assembled exclaimed, "Why, you seem distraught! Look at yourself in the mirror; you are as pale as death."

Twice he visited the Tolshevsky monastery, in 1771 and 1776. I alone accompanied him, for I, the unworthy one, was entrusted with the affairs of his household. Once he had wished to settle down in that monastery for the remainder of his days, but the water in the neighborhood was polluted, the monastery being surrounded by swamps, and this caused him many ailments. Often during his stay there, he would say to me, "This indeed looks like a real monastery, and the life here is truly a solitary and monastic one. Ah!" he would add, "if it were not for that polluted water, I should never wish to live elsewhere." He always enjoyed more peaceful thoughts in this place and seemed more cheerful. Every day he went to the church for Mass and Vespers and sang in the choir, and on Sundays and feast days and throughout Easter week, he would partake of the refectory meal, eating with the monks (which he never did at the Zadonsk monastery). While staying at the Tolshevsky monastery, it was his custom to walk about the church at midnight and to pray on his knees before each of the doors, shedding burning tears, and I was witness thereof. Sometimes I would hear him praying aloud, "Gloria in excelsis," and reciting the holy psalms. Before the west doors, he would pray half an hour or more; then he would hurry back to his cell, where he would spend his time in greater labors. For sometimes he would chop wood with his own hands. He would say to me, "Sharpen the axe well and bring along your mittens, and I shall chop some fire-wood for my stove. This will stir up my blood, perhaps, and make me feel better." One day he went beyond the monastery grounds, and on returning to his cell, he said to me, "I have found in the woods a tree trunk large enough to make three cart-loads of firewood. Fetch the axe and let us go and chop up that tree trunk instead of buying our fuel."We went to the woods and began to chop the tree trunk. Throwing off his cassock, he worked in his shirt. Finally he said to me, I am quite tired and thirsty. Go to the monastery and fetch me some kvas." ¹³ Thus he set me the example of industry.

He had no bed, but only a small carpet and two cushions; he had no blankets, but used his coat of lambskin to keep himself warm at night. He girded himself with a leather belt. He had but one cassock, and it was made of worsted. He wore coarse leather shoes and thick woolen stockings, which he bound with leather straps. For two winters he was shod in shoes made of bark, although he wore these only in his cell. "How restful for my feet these bark shoes are," he would say. When he went to Mass or received visitors, he would put on his leather shoes. His beads were of the simplest kind, made of leather. He owned neither chest nor trunk, only an old leather bag into which he would pack his books and his comb when he travelled. These were all his commodities and all his clothes. It is true that Bishop Tychon ¹⁴ the Third presented him with a silk cassock, which for a long time he would not accept; only after many requests and much persuasion would he do so. Remarkable also was the fact that he took great care not to become attached to any material and corruptible object. When he returned from church, I would help him to take off his cassock and would start to fold it, but he would take it out of my hands and fling it on the floor, saying, "This is nonsense, brother. Quick, lay the table; I am hungry." There were no decorations in his cell, but only a few holy images representing our Savior's passion and other Gospel scenes. Everything was in accordance with his humility and his voluntary poverty.

I shall now speak of his mercy and charity. He lent an attentive ear to those who cried to him for help; he fed the orphans and the bereaved and had compassion upon poverty and wretchedness. In a word, he gave away all he possessed: he distributed the money which he received from the Treasury ¹⁵ or from the officers of the Don Cossacks. The noblemen and merchants of the cities of Voronezh and Ostrogozhsk likewise brought him considerable sums, but he gave away not only this money but also his underwear, keeping only such garments as he had on. He distributed the bread which the squires sent him, and even that was not enough, but he would purchase more to be given also to the poor, who moreover received from him shoes and clothing; he bought fur-lined overcoats for them as well as coats and linen; for others he acquired huts, together with cows and horses. He even went so far as to borrow money for the poor. When he had distributed everything in his possession, he would say to me, "You might go to the town of Yeletz and borrow money there from such and such a merchant. I shall repay him when I get my pension from the Treasury. For the present I have nothing; the poor brethren come to me and go away without having received any comfort. The very sight of them fills me with pity." Sometimes, having refused help to some beggar,

And so I went on my way, taking with me a considerable sum of money. I was to give five rubles to his brother Euphemius and ten rubles to another of his brothers, Peter by name, who lived in Novgorod. And I did as I had been commanded. No sooner had I returned to Zadonsk, having spent scarcely two weeks with him, than he sent me on a fresh errand. This time I was to go on foot to Petersburg, not in order to serve his personal interests, but because of his charitable wish to help the widow of a cleric. This old woman's two sons had been forcibly enrolled in the army by Archbishop Tychon II, although they had committed no crime. His Grace entrusted me with personal letters addressed to the members of the Synod, and I also carried a petition written by the widow, which I presented at the Synod, together with the letters. The Bishop's request was granted, and the widow's sons, having been restored to her, resumed their positions as church clerics. ¹⁶ Then once more I was sent with funds to Novgorod and Korotzk, where with the assistance of His Grace's brothers, we distributed the money to the poor. In 1772 he sent me for the third time to his brother in Korotzk with funds for the poor, and in 1774 I went again to Petersburg, likewise on a mission of charity. The Bishop, however, ordered me to give no more than five rubles to each of his brothers, saying, "Let my brothers work for themselves instead of counting on me; the more money I should give them, the lazier they would grow." Before sending me on these errands, he would bid me close the door of the cell, and kneeling down he would tell me to do the same and to recite the psalm "Make haste, O God, to deliver me" and a prayer to Our Lady, followed by the blessing. Then he would give me his blessing and kiss me on the brow, saying, "May your guardian angel accompany you. I order you, brother, to recite the holy psalms on your way, as well as such prayers as you know. Thus you will feel more cheerful during your journey."

He would often say, "Many tell me that I made a mistake when I left the diocese for a monastic cell. These are the reasons for my retirement: first, my poor health did not permit me to administer the affairs of the diocese; and second, the omopborium ¹⁷ in which a bishop is vested weighs heavily on his shoulders, and I did not have the strength necessary to wear it. Let those who are strong enough wear the omophorium. And this," he would repeat, "is why I am in retreat."

One day in September or October of 1777 or 1778, he went to the back porch of his quarters, absorbed in meditation. Then, entering my cell, he ordered me to take pen and ink and began to dictate the following: "On such and such a day a great flood has devastated the city of Petersburg, causing the death of many people and the destruction of many houses." And this flood had truly occurred as he described it. Afterwards he was informed of the event by letter. ¹⁸

When assisting at Mass, the saint would sometimes be so deeply absorbed in the thought of God's love for the human race, of our redemption through the ineffable mystery of the incarnation of Christ, the Son of God, of His passion and the sacrament of the Eucharist, that he would shed many tears and even sob - and this in the presence of a large congregation. If he observed that at the moment when the celebrant invokes the Holy Ghost to descend upon the holy gifts, the faithful failed to pray with the priest during the chanting of the hymn "We praise Thee," he did not hesitate to rebuke them, calling them to due attention and prayer. And if, at Sunday and feast-day Mass, the Superior or the monks neglected to read the synodical sermon ¹⁹ , he would interrupt the post-communion prayers and openly rebuke the religious, exhorting them to resume this salutary practice. And he so rebuked the Superior, Father Samuel, that one day the latter put on the stole and began to read himself.