The holy relics of St. Barsanuphius are in the Vladimir Church

Brief Life

Reverend Barsanuphius was one of the great Optina elders. According to the review of the Monk Nektarios, “from a brilliant military man, in one night, by the will of God, he became a great old man.” Father Barsanuphius bore the name Paul in the world, and this miracle that happened to him is reminiscent of the miraculous calling of his heavenly patron, the Apostle Paul, who, by the will of God, overnight turned from the persecutor of Christians, Saul, into the Apostle Paul.

Elder Barsanuphius possessed all the fullness of the gifts inherent in the Optina elders: insight, miracle-working, the ability to cast out unclean spirits, and heal diseases. He was honored with true prophecies about paradise. He was seen at prayer illuminated by an unearthly light. After his death, he appeared several times to the Optina monks.

Vivid characteristics Hegumen Innocent (Pavlov), the elder’s spiritual child, gave him: “He was a giant of spirit. Without his advice and blessing, the abbot of the monastery, Father Xenophon himself, did nothing, and his spiritual qualities and the great charm that he had on all his spiritual children can be judged by a short expression from the funeral tribute: “a giant cannot be replaced by small trees.”

The path to Optina of Elder Barsanuphius turned out to be longer than all the other Optina elders: he came here with the blessing of the Monk Ambrose in the forty-seventh year of his life, when strong gray hair had already appeared in his hair. What was this path like?

Almost no documents or evidence have been preserved about the life of the elder before he joined the brethren of Optina Pustyn, and this is forty-six years - much here remains unknown. But Father Barsanuphius himself often talked about himself in conversations with his spiritual children - their records brought to us information about his life before Optina.

The Monk Barsanuphius, in the world Pavel Ivanovich Plikhankov, was born in 1845 in Samara on the day of remembrance of the Monk Sergius of Radonezh, whom he always considered his patron. His mother Natalia died during childbirth, and the child himself remained alive thanks to the sacrament of Baptism, which the priest immediately performed on him. His father came from Cossacks and was engaged in trade.

The boy's grandfather and great-grandfather were very rich. Almost all the houses on Kazanskaya Street belonged to the Plikhankov family. All family members were pious and deeply religious people, they helped a lot to the Church of the Kazan Icon located on the same street Mother of God. The family believed that their family was under the special protection of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God.

After the death of his mother, his father remarried, and in the person of his stepmother, the Lord sent the baby a deeply religious, kind-hearted mentor who replaced him. my own mother. And here is Pavlusha with early age- a true Orthodox man. He goes to church with his mother (that’s what he called his stepmother), takes communion regularly, and reads the house rules. He later recalled: “Mom also loved to pray at home. Sometimes an akathist would read, and I would sing in a thin voice throughout the entire apartment: “Most Holy Theotokos, save us!” At the age of five, Pavlusha began to serve at the altar and often heard people predicting: “You will be a priest!”

A significant incident happened to a child when he was about six years old. He himself recalled later: “I was in the garden with my father. Suddenly a wanderer walks along the alley. And it’s amazing how he could get into the garden when the garden is surrounded by large dogs that don’t let anyone through without barking. The wanderer quietly approached his father and, pointing at me with his hand, said: “Remember, father, this child will one day drag souls from hell!” And after these words he left. Then we couldn't find him anywhere. And God knows who this stranger was.”

At the age of nine, Pavlusha was enrolled in a gymnasium, he studied very well, read a lot, and knew world literature very well. Later, as an old man, he often spoke about the benefits of book knowledge, primarily the lives of saints. He recalled about his studies at the gymnasium: “In the summer, we were moved for vacation to a picturesque state-owned estate... There was a beautiful birch alley... The students usually got up at six o’clock, and I got up at five o’clock, went into that alley and, standing between those birches, I prayed. And then I prayed as I had never prayed again: it was the pure prayer of an innocent youth. I think that’s where I begged for myself, begged God for monasticism.”

Then there was study at the Orenburg Military School, and staff officer courses in St. Petersburg. Gradually rising in rank, he soon became the head of the mobilization department, and then a colonel. He had not yet thought about entering the monastery, he imagined monastic life like this: “terrible boredom, there is only radish, vegetable oil and bows.” But he was already called, often imperceptibly, but sometimes very clearly the Lord led him to the monastery . Hence the numerous “oddities” of officer Pavel Ivanovich Plikhankov.

Pavel Ivanovich was a young military man, his colleagues spent their lives in entertainment, but he came to more and more asceticism in his life. His room resembled a monk’s cell in its simplicity of decoration, order, and many icons and books. Years passed. His comrades got married one after another.

Later, the elder recalled this time: “When I was thirty-five years old, my mother turned to me: “Why are you, Pavlusha, still avoiding women, soon your years will be over, no one will marry you.” For obedience, I fulfilled my mother's wish... On this day, some friends were hosting a dinner party. “Well,” I think, “whoever I have to sit next to, I’ll enter into a lengthy conversation with.” And suddenly, at dinner, a priest stood next to me, distinguished by his high spiritual life, and started a conversation with me about the Jesus Prayer... When the dinner was over, I had a firm decision not to get married.”

Military service, brilliant career. He had the most excellent record in his service, and the rank of general was not far off for him. A direct opportunity to acquire all worldly goods. And... giving up everything. Colleagues and acquaintances could not understand: what kind of “flaw” was in the slender, handsome colonel, whose whole appearance so breathed some amazing inner nobility? He does not get married, he avoids balls and dinner parties, as well as other social entertainments. I used to go to the theater, but then I quit. Sometimes they even said behind Pavel Ivanovich’s back: “He’s crazy, what a man he was!..”

One day Pavel Ivanovich went to the opera house at the invitation of his military superiors. In the midst of an entertaining performance, he suddenly felt an inexpressible melancholy. He later recalled: “In my heart, it was as if someone was saying: “You came to the theater and are sitting here, but if you die now, what then? The Lord said: “What I find you in, that’s what I judge... With what and how will your soul appear to God if you die now?”

And he left the theater and never went there again. Years passed, and Pavel Ivanovich wanted to know what the date was then, whose memory it was. He inquired and learned that there was a commemoration of Saints Gurias and Barsanuphius, the Kazan wonderworkers. And Pavel Ivanovich realized: “Lord, it was Saint Barsanuphius who brought me out of the theater! What a deep meaning in the events of our life, how it is arranged - as if according to some special mysterious plan.”

There were also other signs. Pavel Ivanovich once went to the Kazan monastery for confession and found out by chance that the abbot of the monastery was called Abbot Barsanuphius. When Pavel Ivanovich noticed that this name was difficult to hear, they answered him: “Why is it difficult? It’s familiar to us... After all, in our monastery rest the relics of St. Barsanuphius and Archbishop Guria...” From that day on, Pavel Ivanovich began to often pray at the relics of the Kazan Wonderworker, asking him for protection for himself: “St. Father Barsanuphius, pray to God for me! » While visiting this monastery, he involuntarily drew attention to its poverty and began to help: he bought a lamp, a case for a large icon, something else... “And he fell in love with everything in this monastery! Truly, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Now his colleagues no longer invited Pavel Ivanovich to parties or to the theater. But he made little friends. Pavel Ivanovich's orderly, Alexander, a kind-hearted man, helped him find poor children who lived in poor houses and huts, in basements. Subsequently, the Elder said: “I really loved organizing children’s feasts. These feasts brought me and the children joy equally... And I also told them about something useful for the soul, from the lives of saints, or generally about something spiritual. Everyone listens with pleasure and attention. Sometimes, for greater edification, I invited one of the monks or hieromonks with me and let him speak, which made an even greater impression... In front of us is a clearing, behind it is a river, and beyond the river is Kazan with its wonderful arrangement of houses, gardens and churches ... And it was good for me then - how much joy - and pure joy - I experienced then and how many good seeds were thrown then into these children's receptive souls!

In Moscow, Pavel Ivanovich met with the holy and righteous Father John of Kronstadt. This fateful meeting he remembered for the rest of his life; later he would write: “When I was still an officer, I had to go to Moscow as part of my service. And then at the station I find out that Father John is serving mass in the church of one of the buildings. I immediately went there. When I entered the church, mass was already ending. I went to the altar. At this time, Father John transferred the Holy Gifts from the throne to the altar. Having placed the Cup, he suddenly comes up to me, kisses my hand, and, without saying anything, goes back to the throne. All those present looked at each other and said afterwards that this meant some event in my life, and decided that I would be a priest... And now you see how inscrutable the fate of God is: I am not only a priest, but also a monk.”

Finally, Pavel Ivanovich became convinced of the idea of ​​going to a monastery, but which one, where - there was complete uncertainty. During the period of these thoughts, Pavel Ivanovich came across a spiritual magazine, and in it there was an article about Optina Hermitage and the Venerable Elder Ambrose. “So who will tell me which monastery to enter,” thought the young military man and took a leave of absence.

When he was just approaching the Optina monastery, one blessed woman who was in Elder Ambrose’s “hut” unexpectedly joyfully said: “Pavel Ivanovich has arrived.”

“That’s thank God,” the Monk Ambrose calmly responded... They both knew in spirit that he had arrived future elder. When Pavel Ivanovich came to the Elder’s cell, he found there, in addition to Father Ambrose, also Father Anatoly (Zertsalov). Both of them met him, as he recalled, “very joyfully,” and the ailing Father Ambrose even stood up, showing special honor to the newcomer.

Here, in the “hut”, Pavel Ivanovich heard the words of the monk that struck him: “The trial must continue for two more years, and then come to me, I will accept you.” He was also given the obedience to donate some sums from his rather high salary as a colonel to certain churches.

In 1881, Pavel fell ill with pneumonia. When, at the request of the sick colonel, the orderly began to read the Gospel, a miraculous vision followed, during which the sick man had spiritual insight. He saw the heavens open, and shuddered all over, with great fear and light. His whole life flashed instantly before him. Pavel Ivanovich was deeply imbued with the consciousness of repentance throughout his life, and heard a voice from above commanding him to go to Optina Pustyn. It opened up for him spiritual vision. According to Elder Nektarios, “from a brilliant military man, in one night, by the will of God, he became an old man.”

To the surprise of everyone, the patient began to recover quickly, and upon recovery he went to Optina. Reverend Ambrose ordered him to finish all his work in three months, with the understanding that if he did not arrive on time, he would die. And this is where the obstacles began. He went to St. Petersburg for his resignation, but they offered him a more brilliant position and delayed his resignation. His comrades laugh at him, payment of money is delayed, he cannot complete his business, looks for money on loan and does not find it. But Elder Barnabas from the Gethsemane monastery helps him out, shows him where to get money, and also urges him to fulfill God’s command. People resist his departure from the world, they even find him a bride. Only his stepmother, who replaced his own mother, rejoiced and blessed him for his monastic feat.

With God's help, Colonel Plikhankov overcame all obstacles and appeared in Optina Pustyn on the last day of his three-month sentence. Elder Ambrose lay in a coffin in the church, and Pavel Ivanovich clung to his coffin. On February 10, 1892, he was enrolled in the brotherhood of St. John the Baptist Skete and dressed in a cassock. Every evening for three years Paul went to talk to the elders: first to the Monk Anatoly, and then to the Monk Joseph, the successors of the elder Ambrose.

The Monk Anatoly gave the novice the obedience to be the cell attendant of Hieromonk Nektarios, (the last great Optina elder). Near Father Nektary, his cell attendant passed through all the monastic degrees within ten years: a year later, on the twenty-sixth of March 1893, during Great Lent, the novice Pavel was tonsured into the ryassophore; in December 1900, due to illness, he was tonsured into the mantle with the name Barsanuphius, twenty On December 9, 1902, he was ordained a hierodeacon, and on January 1, 1903, he was ordained a hieromonk.

In 1903 Venerable Barsanuphius was appointed assistant to the elder and at the same time confessor of the Shamorda women's hermitage and remained so until the outbreak of the war with Japan.

Begins in 1904 Russo-Japanese War, and the Monk Barsanuphius goes to the front for obedience: to serve the infirmary named after St. Seraphim of Sarov, to confess, give communion, and administer unction to the wounded and dying soldiers. He himself is repeatedly exposed to mortal danger.

Upon his return to Optina Pustyn after the end of the war, in 1907, Father Barsanuphius was elevated to the rank of abbot and appointed by the Holy Synod as rector of the Optina monastery.
By this time, his fame was spreading throughout Russia. The holy righteous father John of Kronstadt has gone to his eternal abode, reverend elder Barnabas of Gethsemane. The country was approaching terrible war and an immeasurably more terrible revolution, the worldly sea, agitated by the whirlwinds of crazy ideas, had already “raised up a storm of misfortunes”, people were drowning in its waves...

As if to a haven of salvation, they strove to the blessed Optina monastery to the Monk Barsanuphius for the healing of not only their bodies, but also their tormented, sin-weary souls; they strove for an answer to the question: how to live in order to be saved? He saw human soul, and, through prayers, the most secret things in a person were revealed to him. And this gave him the opportunity to raise up the fallen, direct them from the wrong path to the true one, heal illnesses, mental and physical, and cast out demons.

His gift of insight was especially evident when he performed the Sacrament of Confession. S. M. Lopukhina told how, having arrived as a 16-year-old girl in Optina, she ended up in a “hut” where the elder received her. The Monk Barsanuphius saw her and called her into the confessional and there he recounted her whole life, year after year, offense after offense, not only indicating the exact dates when they were committed, but also naming the names of the people with whom they were associated. And having completed this terrible retelling, he ordered: “Tomorrow you will come to me and repeat to me everything that I told you. I wanted to teach you how to confess.”...

And here are the amazing memories of the elder’s confession that his spiritual daughter left:
“We reached the monastery, the enemy distracted me in every possible way and encouraged me to leave, but, having crossed myself, I firmly entered the hut... I crossed myself there at the icon of the Queen of Heaven and froze.
Father came in, I was standing in the middle of the cell... Father walked up to Tikhvinskaya and sat down...
- Come closer.
I approached timidly.
- Get down on your knees... It’s customary for us, we sit, and around us, out of humility, they kneel down.
I just collapsed, not that I became... Father took me by both shoulders, looked at me infinitely affectionately, like no one had ever looked at me, and said:
- My dear child, my sweet child, my precious child! Are you twenty-six?
- Yes, Father.
-You are twenty-six, how old were you fourteen years ago?
After thinking for a second, I answered:
- Twelve.
-That’s right, and from this year you have sins that you began to hide in confession.
Do you want me to tell you them?
“Tell me, Father,” I answered timidly.
And then Father began to tell my sins by year and even by month as if he was reading them from an open book...
The confession thus lasted twenty-five minutes. I was completely destroyed by the consciousness of my sinfulness and the consciousness of what great person in front of me.
How carefully he revealed my sins, how he was obviously afraid of hurting me and at the same time how powerfully and severely he denounced them, and when he saw that I was suffering cruelly, he moved his ear close to my mouth so that I could only whispered:
- Yes...
But in my conceit I thought that I stood out from people because of my Christian life. God, what blindness, what spiritual blindness!
- Get up, my child!
I stood up and went to the lectern.
“Repeat after me: “Create a pure heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit in my womb.” Where do these words come from?
— From the Fiftieth Psalm.
- You will read this psalm morning and evening every day.
—What icon is in front of you?
- Queen of Heaven.
- What kind of Queen of Heaven is this? Tikhvinskaya. Repeat the prayer after me...
When I bowed my head, and Father, covering me with his stole, began to read the prayer of permission, I felt that such incredible weights had been lifted from me, it was becoming so easy and unusual for me...
- After everything that the Lord has revealed to me about you, you will want to glorify me as a saint, this should not happen - do you hear? I'm a sinful man, you can't tell anyone...
You are my treasure..., God help and save you!
Father blessed me again many, many times and let me go...

During conversations with spiritual children, Elder Barsanuphius said:

“There are different paths to salvation. The Lord saves some in the monastery, others in the world... You can be saved anywhere, just don’t leave the Savior. Cling to the robe of Christ - and Christ will not leave you.

Speaking about peace, I consider it my duty to say that by this word I mean service to the passions, wherever it is performed, one can live in a worldly way in a monastery. Walls and black clothes alone do not save.

A sure sign of the death of the soul is evasion from church services. A person who grows cold towards God, first of all, begins to avoid going to church, first tries to come to the service later, and then completely stops visiting the temple of God. Those who seek Christ find Him, according to the true gospel word: “Knock and the opening will be opened to you, seek and you will find,” “In My Father’s house are many mansions.” And note that here the Lord speaks not only about heavenly, but also about earthly abodes, and not only about internal, but also about external.

The Lord puts each soul in such a position, surrounds it with such an environment that is most conducive to its prosperity. This is the outer abode, but the inner abode that the Lord prepares for those who love and seek Him fills the soul with peace and joy.

We must remember that the Lord loves everyone and cares about everyone, but even if, humanly speaking, it is dangerous to give a beggar a million so as not to ruin him, and a hundred rubles can more easily put him on his feet, then all the more the Omniscient Lord knows better who benefits what . You cannot learn to fulfill God’s commandments without labor, and this labor is threefold: prayer, fasting and sobriety.

The hardest thing is prayer. Every virtue from practice turns into a habit, and in prayer you need compulsion until death. Our old man resists it, and the enemy especially rises up against the one who prays. Prayer is a taste of death for the devil; it strikes him. Even saints, such as Venerable Seraphim, and they had to force themselves to pray, not to mention us sinners.

The second remedy is fasting. Fasting can be twofold: external - abstinence from modest food and internal - abstinence from all senses, especially vision, from everything unclean and nasty. Both are inextricably linked with each other. Some understand only external fasting. For example, such a person comes into society, conversations begin, condemnation of his neighbors, he takes an active part in them. But then it’s time for dinner. The guest is offered cutlets, roast... He resolutely declares that he does not eat meat.

“Well, come on,” the owners persuade, “eat it, because it’s not what’s in the mouth, but what’s out of the mouth.”

- No, I'm strict about this.

And such a person does not understand that he has already broken his internal fast by condemning his neighbor.

This is why sobriety is so important. Working for his salvation, a person little by little cleanses his heart from envy, hatred, slander, and love is implanted in him.”

Throughout his monastic life, the Monk Barsanuphius left Optina only a few times - only out of obedience. In 1910, also “for obedience,” he went to Astapovo station to give farewell to the dying L.N. Tolstoy. Subsequently, he recalled with deep sadness: “They didn’t allow me to see Tolstoy... I prayed to the doctors and relatives, nothing helped... Although he was a Leo, he could not break the ring of the chain with which Satan bound him.”

In 1912, the Monk Barsanuphius was appointed rector of the Staro-Golutvin Epiphany Monastery. He humbly asked to be left in the monastery to live in peace, asked to be allowed to stay at least as a simple novice. But, despite the elder’s great spiritual gifts, there were those dissatisfied with his activities: through complaints and denunciations, he was removed from Optina.

Courageously enduring the grief of separation from his beloved Optina, the elder sets about improving the monastery entrusted to him, which is extremely upset and neglected. And, as before, people flock to the Monk Barsanuphius for help and consolation. And as before, he, already exhausted from numerous painful ailments, accepts everyone without refusal, heals physical and mental ailments, instructs, directs them on a narrow and sorrowful, but the only saving path.

Here, in Staro-Golutvin, through his prayers, a miracle of healing of a deaf-mute young man was performed. “A terrible disease is a consequence grave sin committed by a young man in childhood,” the old man explains to his unfortunate mother and quietly whispers something in the deaf-mute’s ear. “Father, he can’t hear you,” the mother exclaims in confusion, “he’s deaf...” “He can’t hear you,” the elder answers, “but he can hear me,” and again he says something in a whisper in his ear. young man. His eyes widen with horror, and he obediently nods his head... After confession, the Monk Barsanuphius gives him communion, and the illness leaves the sufferer.

The elder ruled the monastery for less than a year. His suffering during his dying illness was truly martyrdom. Refusing the help of a doctor and any kind of food, he only repeated: “Leave me alone, I’m already on the cross...” The elder took communion every day.

On the first (fourteenth) April 1913, he gave up his pure soul to the Lord. The Monk Barsanuphius was buried in Optina, next to his spiritual father and teacher, the Monk Anatoly (Zertsalov). In 1996, the Monk Barsanuphius was canonized as a locally revered Saint of Optina Pustyn, and in August 2000 - by the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church glorified for church-wide veneration. His relics rest in the Vladimir Church of Optina Pustyn.

The Monk Barsanuphius was one of the great Optina elders. According to the review of the Monk Nektarios, “from a brilliant military man, in one night, by the will of God, he became a great old man.” Father Barsanuphius bore the name Paul in the world, and this miracle that happened to him is reminiscent of the miraculous calling of his heavenly patron, the Apostle Paul, who, by the will of God, overnight turned from the persecutor of Christians, Saul, into the Apostle Paul.

Elder Barsanuphius possessed all the fullness of the gifts inherent in the Optina elders: insight, miracle-working, the ability to cast out unclean spirits, and heal diseases. He was honored with true prophecies about paradise. He was seen at prayer illuminated by an unearthly light. After his death, he appeared several times to the Optina monks.

Hegumen Innocent (Pavlov), the elder’s spiritual child, gave him a vivid description: “He was a giant of spirit. Without his advice and blessing, the abbot of the monastery, Father Xenophon himself, did nothing, and his spiritual qualities and the great charm that he had on all his spiritual children can be judged by a short expression from the funeral tribute: “a giant cannot be replaced by small trees.”

The path to Optina of Elder Barsanuphius turned out to be longer than all the other Optina elders: he came here with the blessing of the Monk Ambrose in the forty-seventh year of his life, when strong gray hair had already appeared in his hair. What was this path like?

Almost no documents or evidence have been preserved about the life of the elder before he joined the brethren of Optina Pustyn, and this is forty-six years - much here remains unknown. But Father Barsanuphius himself often talked about himself in conversations with his spiritual children - their records brought to us information about his life before Optina.

The Monk Barsanuphius, in the world Pavel Ivanovich Plikhankov, was born in 1845 in Samara on the day of remembrance of the Monk Sergius of Radonezh, whom he always considered his patron. His mother Natalia died during childbirth, and the child himself remained alive thanks to the sacrament of Baptism, which the priest immediately performed on him. His father came from Cossacks and was engaged in trade.

The boy's grandfather and great-grandfather were very rich. Almost all the houses on Kazanskaya Street belonged to the Plikhankov family. All family members were pious and deeply religious people, they helped a lot to the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, located on the same street. The family believed that their family was under the special protection of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God.

After the death of his mother, his father remarried, and in the person of his stepmother, the Lord sent the baby a deeply religious, kind-hearted mentor who replaced his own mother. And from an early age Pavlusha is a true Orthodox person. He goes to church with his mother (that’s what he called his stepmother), takes communion regularly, and reads the house rules. He later recalled: “Mom also loved to pray at home. Sometimes an akathist would read, and I would sing in a thin voice throughout the entire apartment: “Most Holy Theotokos, save us!” At the age of five, Pavlusha began to serve at the altar and often heard people predicting: “You will be a priest!”

A significant incident happened to a child when he was about six years old. He himself recalled later: “I was in the garden with my father. Suddenly a wanderer walks along the alley. And it’s amazing how he could get into the garden when the garden is surrounded by large dogs that don’t let anyone through without barking. The wanderer quietly approached his father and, pointing at me with his hand, said: “Remember, father, this child will one day drag souls from hell!” And after these words he left. Then we couldn't find him anywhere. And God knows who this stranger was.”

At the age of nine, Pavlusha was enrolled in a gymnasium, he studied very well, read a lot, and knew world literature very well. Later, as an old man, he often spoke about the benefits of book knowledge, primarily the lives of saints. He recalled about his studies at the gymnasium: “In the summer, we were moved for vacation to a picturesque state-owned estate... There was a beautiful birch alley... The students usually got up at six o’clock, and I got up at five o’clock, went into that alley and, standing between those birches, I prayed. And then I prayed as I had never prayed again: it was the pure prayer of an innocent youth. I think that’s where I begged for myself, begged God for monasticism.”

Then there was study at the Orenburg Military School, and staff officer courses in St. Petersburg. Gradually rising in rank, he soon became the head of the mobilization department, and then a colonel. He had not yet thought about entering the monastery, he imagined monastic life like this: “terrible boredom, - there is only radish, vegetable oil and bows.” But he was already called, - often imperceptibly, but sometimes very clearly the Lord led him to the monastery . Hence the numerous “oddities” of officer Pavel Ivanovich Plikhankov.

Pavel Ivanovich was a young military man, his colleagues spent their lives in entertainment, but he came to more and more asceticism in his life. His room resembled a monk’s cell in its simplicity of decoration, order, and many icons and books. Years passed. His comrades got married one after another.

Later, the elder recalled this time: “When I was thirty-five years old, my mother turned to me: “Why are you, Pavlusha, still avoiding women, soon your years will be over, no one will marry you.” For obedience, I fulfilled my mother's wish... On this day, some friends were hosting a dinner party. “Well,” I think, “whoever I have to sit next to, I’ll enter into a lengthy conversation with.” And suddenly, at dinner, a priest stood next to me, distinguished by his high spiritual life, and started a conversation with me about the Jesus Prayer... When the dinner was over, I had a firm decision not to get married.”

Military service, brilliant career. He had the most excellent record in his service, and the rank of general was not far off for him. A direct opportunity to acquire all worldly goods. And... giving up everything. Colleagues and acquaintances could not understand: what kind of “flaw” was in the slender, handsome colonel, whose whole appearance so breathed some amazing inner nobility? He does not get married, he avoids balls and dinner parties, as well as other social entertainments. I used to go to the theater, but then I quit. Sometimes they even said behind Pavel Ivanovich’s back: “He’s crazy, what a man he was!..”

One day Pavel Ivanovich went to the opera house at the invitation of his military superiors. In the midst of an entertaining performance, he suddenly felt an inexpressible melancholy. He later recalled: “In my heart, it was as if someone was saying: “You came to the theater and are sitting here, but if you die now, what then? The Lord said: “What I find you in, that’s what I judge... With what and how will your soul appear to God if you die now?”

And he left the theater and never went there again. Years passed, and Pavel Ivanovich wanted to know what the date was then, whose memory it was. He inquired and learned that there was a commemoration of Saints Gurias and Barsanuphius, the Kazan wonderworkers. And Pavel Ivanovich realized: “Lord, it was Saint Barsanuphius who brought me out of the theater! What a deep meaning in the events of our life, how it is arranged - as if according to some special mysterious plan.”

There were also other signs. Pavel Ivanovich once went to the Kazan monastery for confession and found out by chance that the abbot of the monastery was called Abbot Barsanuphius. When Pavel Ivanovich noticed that this name was difficult to hear, they answered him: “Why is it difficult? It’s familiar to us... After all, in our monastery rest the relics of St. Barsanuphius and Archbishop Guria...” From that day on, Pavel Ivanovich began to often pray at the relics of the Kazan Wonderworker, asking him for protection for himself: “St. Father Barsanuphius, pray to God for me! » While visiting this monastery, he involuntarily drew attention to its poverty and began to help: he bought a lamp, a case for a large icon, something else... “And he fell in love with everything in this monastery! Truly, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Now his colleagues no longer invited Pavel Ivanovich to parties or to the theater. But he made little friends. Pavel Ivanovich's orderly, Alexander, a kind-hearted man, helped him find poor children who lived in poor houses and huts, in basements. Subsequently, the Elder said: “I really loved organizing children’s feasts. These feasts brought me and the children joy equally... And I also told them about something useful for the soul, from the lives of saints, or generally about something spiritual. Everyone listens with pleasure and attention. Sometimes, for greater edification, I invited one of the monks or hieromonks with me and let him speak, which made an even greater impression... In front of us is a clearing, behind it is a river, and beyond the river is Kazan with its wonderful arrangement of houses, gardens and churches ... And it was good for me then - how much joy - and pure joy - I experienced then and how many good seeds were thrown then into these childish, receptive souls!”

In Moscow, Pavel Ivanovich met with the holy and righteous Father John of Kronstadt. He remembered this fateful meeting for the rest of his life; later he would write: “When I was still an officer, I had to go to Moscow as part of my service. And then at the station I find out that Father John is serving mass in the church of one of the buildings. I immediately went there. When I entered the church, mass was already ending. I went to the altar. At this time, Father John transferred the Holy Gifts from the throne to the altar. Having placed the Cup, he suddenly comes up to me, kisses my hand, and, without saying anything, goes back to the throne. All those present looked at each other and said afterwards that this meant some event in my life, and decided that I would be a priest... And now you see how inscrutable the fate of God is: I am not only a priest, but also a monk.”

Finally, Pavel Ivanovich became convinced of the idea of ​​going to a monastery, but which one, where - there was complete uncertainty. During the period of these thoughts, Pavel Ivanovich came across a spiritual magazine, and in it there was an article about Optina Hermitage and the Venerable Elder Ambrose. “So who will tell me which monastery to enter,” thought the young military man and took a leave of absence.

When he was just approaching the Optina monastery, one blessed woman who was in Elder Ambrose’s “hut” unexpectedly joyfully said: “Pavel Ivanovich has arrived.”

“That’s glory to God,” the Monk Ambrose calmly responded... They both knew in spirit that the future elder had arrived. When Pavel Ivanovich came to the Elder’s cell, he found there, in addition to Father Ambrose, also Father Anatoly (Zertsalov). Both of them met him, as he recalled, “very joyfully,” and the ailing Father Ambrose even stood up, showing special honor to the newcomer.

Here, in the “hut”, Pavel Ivanovich heard the words of the monk that struck him: “The trial must continue for two more years, and then come to me, I will accept you.” He was also given the obedience to donate some sums from his rather high salary as a colonel to certain churches.

In 1881, Pavel fell ill with pneumonia. When, at the request of the sick colonel, the orderly began to read the Gospel, a miraculous vision followed, during which the sick man had spiritual insight. He saw the heavens open, and shuddered all over, with great fear and light. His whole life flashed instantly before him. Pavel Ivanovich was deeply imbued with the consciousness of repentance throughout his life, and heard a voice from above commanding him to go to Optina Pustyn. His spiritual vision opened. According to Elder Nektarios, “from a brilliant military man, in one night, by the will of God, he became an old man.”

To the surprise of everyone, the patient began to recover quickly, and upon recovery he went to Optina. The Monk Ambrose told him to finish all his business in three months, with the understanding that if he did not arrive on time, he would die. And this is where the obstacles began. He went to St. Petersburg for his resignation, but they offered him a more brilliant position and delayed his resignation. His comrades laugh at him, payment of money is delayed, he cannot complete his business, looks for money on loan and does not find it. But Elder Barnabas from the Gethsemane monastery helps him out, shows him where to get money, and also urges him to fulfill God’s command. People resist his departure from the world, they even find him a bride. Only his stepmother, who replaced his own mother, rejoiced and blessed him for his monastic feat.

With God's help, Colonel Plikhankov overcame all obstacles and appeared in Optina Pustyn on the last day of his three-month sentence. Elder Ambrose lay in a coffin in the church, and Pavel Ivanovich clung to his coffin. On February 10, 1892, he was enrolled in the brotherhood of St. John the Baptist Skete and dressed in a cassock. Every evening for three years Paul went to talk to the elders: first to the Monk Anatoly, and then to the Monk Joseph, the successors of the elder Ambrose.

The Monk Anatoly gave the novice the obedience to be the cell attendant of Hieromonk Nektarios, (the last great Optina elder). Near Father Nektary, his cell attendant passed through all the monastic degrees within ten years: a year later, on the twenty-sixth of March 1893, during Great Lent, the novice Pavel was tonsured into the ryassophore; in December 1900, due to illness, he was tonsured into the mantle with the name Barsanuphius, twenty On December 9, 1902, he was ordained a hierodeacon, and on January 1, 1903, he was ordained a hieromonk.

In 1903, the Monk Barsanuphius was appointed assistant to the elder and at the same time confessor of the Shamordino women's hermitage and remained so until the outbreak of the war with Japan.

In 1904, the Russian-Japanese War began, and the Monk Barsanuphius went to the front for obedience: to serve the infirmary named after St. Seraphim of Sarov, to confess, give communion, and administer unction to the wounded and dying soldiers. He himself is repeatedly exposed to mortal danger.

Upon his return to Optina Pustyn after the end of the war, in 1907, Father Barsanuphius was elevated to the rank of abbot and appointed by the Holy Synod as rector of the Optina monastery. By this time, his fame was spreading throughout Russia. The holy righteous father John of Kronstadt and the venerable elder Barnabas of Gethsemane have gone to their eternal abodes. The country was approaching a terrible war and an immeasurably more terrible revolution, the sea of ​​life, agitated by the whirlwinds of crazy ideas, was already “rising up a storm of misfortunes,” people were drowning in its waves...

As if to a haven of salvation, they strove to the blessed Optina monastery to the Monk Barsanuphius for the healing of not only their bodies, but also their tormented, sin-weary souls; they strove for an answer to the question: how to live in order to be saved? He saw the human soul, and, through prayers, the most intimate things in a person were revealed to him. And this gave him the opportunity to raise up the fallen, direct them from the wrong path to the true one, heal illnesses, mental and physical, and cast out demons.

His gift of insight was especially evident when he performed the Sacrament of Confession. CM. Lopukhina told how, having arrived as a 16-year-old girl in Optina, she ended up in a “hut” where an old man received her. The Monk Barsanuphius saw her and called her into the confessional and there he recounted her whole life, year after year, offense after offense, not only indicating the exact dates when they were committed, but also naming the names of the people with whom they were associated. And having completed this terrible retelling, he ordered: “Tomorrow you will come to me and repeat to me everything that I told you. I wanted to teach you how to confess.”...

And here are the amazing memories of the elder’s confession that his spiritual daughter left: “We reached the monastery, the enemy distracted me in every possible way and encouraged me to leave, but, having crossed myself, I firmly entered the hut... I crossed myself there at the icon of the Queen of Heaven and froze. Father came in, I was standing in the middle of the cell... Father walked up to Tikhvinskaya and sat down... - Come closer. I approached timidly. - Get on your knees... It’s customary for us, we sit, and around us, out of humility, they kneel. I just collapsed, not that I became... Father took me by both shoulders, looked at me infinitely affectionately, like no one had ever looked, and said: “My dear child, my sweet child, my precious child!” Are you twenty-six? - Yes, Father. - You are twenty-six, how old were you fourteen years ago? After thinking for a second, I answered: “Twelve.” -That’s right, and from this year you have sins that you began to hide in confession. Do you want me to tell you them? “Tell me, Father,” I answered timidly. And then Father began to tell my sins by year and even by month as if he was reading them from an open book... Thus, the confession lasted twenty-five minutes. I was completely destroyed by the consciousness of my sinfulness and the consciousness of what a great man was in front of me. How carefully he revealed my sins, how he was obviously afraid of hurting me and at the same time how powerfully and severely he denounced them, and when he saw that I was suffering cruelly, he moved his ear close to my mouth so that I could only she whispered: “Yes... But in my conceit I thought that I stood out from people with my Christian life.” God, what blindness, what spiritual blindness! - Get up, my child! I stood up and went to the lectern. - Repeat after me: “Create a pure heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit in my womb.” Where do these words come from? - From the Fiftieth Psalm. - You will read this psalm morning and evening every day. - What icon is in front of you? - Queen of Heaven. - What kind of Queen of Heaven is this? Tikhvinskaya. Repeat the prayer after me... When I bowed my head, and Father, covering me with his stole, began to read a prayer of permission, I felt that such incredible weights had been lifted from me, it was becoming so easy and unusual for me... - After everything that the Lord revealed to me about you, you want to glorify me as a saint, this shouldn’t happen - do you hear? I am a sinful man, you won’t tell anyone... You are my treasure..., God help and save you! Father blessed me again many, many times and let me go...

During conversations with spiritual children, Elder Barsanuphius said:

“There are different paths to salvation. The Lord saves some in the monastery, others in the world... You can be saved anywhere, just don’t leave the Savior. Cling to the robe of Christ - and Christ will not leave you.

Speaking about peace, I consider it my duty to say that by this word I mean service to the passions, wherever it is performed, one can live in a worldly way in a monastery. Walls and black clothes alone do not save.

A sure sign of the death of the soul is avoidance of church services. A person who grows cold towards God, first of all, begins to avoid going to church, first tries to come to the service later, and then completely stops visiting the temple of God. Those who seek Christ find Him, according to the true gospel word: “Knock and the opening will be opened to you, seek and you will find,” “In My Father’s house are many mansions.” And note that here the Lord speaks not only about heavenly, but also about earthly abodes, and not only about internal, but also about external.

The Lord puts each soul in such a position, surrounds it with such an environment that is most conducive to its prosperity. This is the outer abode, but the inner abode that the Lord prepares for those who love and seek Him fills the soul with peace and joy.

We must remember that the Lord loves everyone and cares about everyone, but even if, humanly speaking, it is dangerous to give a beggar a million so as not to ruin him, and a hundred rubles can more easily put him on his feet, then all the more the Omniscient Lord knows better who benefits what . You cannot learn to fulfill God’s commandments without labor, and this labor is threefold: prayer, fasting and sobriety.

The most difficult thing is prayer. Every virtue from practice turns into a habit, and in prayer you need compulsion until death. Our old man resists it, and the enemy especially rises up against the one who prays. Prayer is a taste of death for the devil; it strikes him. Even saints, like St. Seraphim, for example, had to force themselves to pray, not to mention us sinners.

The second remedy is fasting. Fasting can be twofold: external - abstinence from modest food and internal - abstinence from all senses, especially vision, from everything unclean and nasty. Both are inextricably linked with each other. Some understand only external fasting. For example, such a person comes into society, conversations begin, condemnation of his neighbors, he takes an active part in them. But then it’s time for dinner. The guest is offered cutlets, roast... He resolutely declares that he does not eat meat.

Well, to be honest,” the owners persuade, “eat it, because it’s not what’s in the mouth, but what’s out of the mouth.”

No, I'm strict about this.

And such a person does not understand that he has already broken his internal fast by condemning his neighbor.

This is why sobriety is so important. Working for his salvation, a person little by little cleanses his heart from envy, hatred, slander, and love is implanted in him.”

Throughout his monastic life, the Monk Barsanuphius left Optina only a few times - only out of obedience. In 1910, also “for obedience,” he went to Astapovo station to give farewell to the dying L.N. Tolstoy. Subsequently, he recalled with deep sadness: “They didn’t allow me to see Tolstoy... I prayed to the doctors and relatives, nothing helped... Although he was a Leo, he could not break the ring of the chain with which Satan bound him.”

In 1912, the Monk Barsanuphius was appointed rector of the Staro-Golutvin Epiphany Monastery. He humbly asked to be left in the monastery to live in peace, asked to be allowed to stay at least as a simple novice. But, despite the elder’s great spiritual gifts, there were those dissatisfied with his activities: through complaints and denunciations, he was removed from Optina.

Courageously enduring the grief of separation from his beloved Optina, the elder sets about improving the monastery entrusted to him, which is extremely upset and neglected. And, as before, people flock to the Monk Barsanuphius for help and consolation. And as before, he, already exhausted from numerous painful ailments, accepts everyone without refusal, heals physical and mental ailments, instructs, directs them on a narrow and sorrowful, but the only saving path.

Here, in Staro-Golutvin, through his prayers, a miracle of healing of a deaf-mute young man was performed. “A terrible illness is a consequence of a grave sin committed by a young man in childhood,” the old man explains to his unfortunate mother and quietly whispers something in the ear of the deaf-mute. “Father, he can’t hear you,” the mother exclaims in confusion, “he’s deaf...” “He can’t hear you,” the elder answers, “but he can hear me,” and again he says something in a whisper in his ear. to a young man. His eyes widen with horror, and he obediently nods his head... After confession, the Monk Barsanuphius gives him communion, and the illness leaves the sufferer.

The elder ruled the monastery for less than a year. His suffering during his dying illness was truly martyrdom. Refusing the help of a doctor and any kind of food, he only repeated: “Leave me alone, I’m already on the cross...” The elder took communion every day.

On the first (fourteenth) April 1913, he gave up his pure soul to the Lord. The Monk Barsanuphius was buried in Optina, next to his spiritual father and teacher, the Monk Anatoly (Zertsalov). In 1996, the Monk Barsanuphius was canonized as a locally revered Saint of Optina Pustyn, and in August 2000, by the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, he was glorified for church-wide veneration. His relics rest in the Vladimir Church of Optina Pustyn.

Troparion to St. Barsanuphius of Optina

In you, father, it is known that you were saved even in the image of receiving the cross, for you followed Christ, and in your deed you taught to despise the flesh, it comes: to be diligent about souls, things more immortal: in the same way O Venerable Barsanuphius, your spirit will rejoice from the Angels.

Memorial Days:

01.04 old style/14.04 new style;

11.10 old style/24.10 new style

Venerable Barsanuphius of Optina – Great Elder of Optina. He possessed all the fullness of the gifts inherent in the Optina elders: insight, miracle-working, the ability to cast out unclean spirits, and heal diseases.

The Monk Barsanuphius (Pavel Ivanovich Plikhankov) was born in 1845 in Samara. Most of his life (46 years) was spent in the world. After graduating from the Polotsk military gymnasium and making a brilliant military career, he became a colonel.

Unexpectedly for his colleagues, Pavel Ivanovich submitted his resignation and came to Optina Pustyn.

In 1892, he was enrolled in the brotherhood of the St. John the Baptist monastery and every day for three years he went for spiritual conversations to the Optina elders: first to the Monk Anatoly, and then to the Monk Joseph.

In 1893, during Great Lent, novice Pavel was tonsured into the ryassophore.

In 1900, due to illness, he was tonsured into a mantle with the name Barsanuphius.

In 1902 he was ordained a hierodeacon, and in 1903 a hieromonk.

In 1903, the Monk Barsanuphius was appointed assistant to the elder and at the same time confessor of the Shamordino women's hermitage and remained so until the outbreak of the war with Japan.

Soon the Russian-Japanese War began, and the Monk Barsanuphius was sent to the front. He confessed, administered unction and gave communion to the wounded and dying, and was himself repeatedly exposed to mortal danger.

After the end of the war and the return to Optina Pustyn in 1907, the monk was elevated to the rank of abbot and appointed head of the monastery.

By this time, his fame had already spread throughout Russia. As if to a haven of salvation, people strove to the blessed Optina monastery to the Monk Barsanuphius for healing not only of their bodies, but also of tormented, sin-weary souls for an answer to the question: how to live in order to be saved. The monk saw the human soul, and through prayers the most hidden things in a person were revealed to him, which gave him the opportunity to raise up the fallen, direct them from the wrong path to the true one, heal illnesses, mental and physical, and cast out demons. His gift of insight was especially evident when he performed the Sacrament of Confession.

In 1910, Leo Tolstoy came to Optina Pustyn, but never decided to visit the monastery. Having learned about this, the monk himself came to the Astapovo station to see the dying writer in order to admonish him before his death and to give him the opportunity to reconcile with the Church in the last minutes of his life, but he was not allowed to see Tolstoy.

In 1912, by decision of the Synod, the Monk Barsanuphius was appointed rector of the Staro-Golutvinsky monastery with elevation to the rank of archimandrite, where through his labors the deanery of monastic life was restored. As before, people flocked to the Monk Barsanuphius for help and consolation. And as before, he, who was already exhausted from numerous painful ailments, accepted everyone without refusal, healed physical and mental ailments, instructed and directed them on a narrow and sorrowful, but the only saving path. Here, through the prayers of Elder Barsanuphius, a miracle of healing of a deaf-mute young man took place.

The elder ruled the monastery for less than a year, suffering from numerous ailments. Before his death, the elder took communion daily. Died April 1/14, 1913.

The Monk Barsanuphius was buried in Optina, next to his spiritual father and teacher, the Monk Anatoly the Elder.

In 1996, the Monk Barsanuphius was canonized as a locally revered Saint of Optina Pustyn, and in August 2000, by the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, he was glorified for church-wide veneration. His relics rest in the Vladimir Church of Optina Pustyn.

After the death of his mother, his father remarried, and in the person of his stepmother, the Lord sent the baby a deeply religious, kind-hearted mentor who replaced his own mother. From an early age, Pavlusha went to church with his mother (that’s what he called his stepmother), took communion regularly, and read the house rules. At the age of five, Pavlusha began to serve at the altar and often heard people predicting: “You will be a priest!” When the Plikhankov family lived on their estate near Orenburg, 6-year-old Pavlusha was miraculously predicted to have future spiritual service.

In 1854, Pavlusha, at the age of nine, was enrolled in a gymnasium in Polotsk, where he lived in a boarding school. He studied very well, read a lot, and knew world literature very well. He recalled about his studies at the gymnasium: “In the summer we were moved for vacation to a picturesque state estate... There was a beautiful birch alley... The students usually got up at 6 o’clock, and I got up at 5 o’clock, went into that alley and, standing between those birches, prayed. And then I prayed as I had never prayed again: it was the pure prayer of an innocent youth. I think that’s where I begged for myself, begged God for monasticism.”

In the 70s of the 19th century, Pavel graduated from the Orenburg Cossack military school, then staff officer courses in St. Petersburg. From 1884 he served as head of the mobilization department at the headquarters of the Kazan Military District, lived in Kazan, and by the end of the 1880s received the rank of colonel.

He had not yet thought about entering a monastery. But he had already been called - often imperceptibly, but sometimes very clearly the Lord led him to the monastery. Hence the numerous “oddities” of officer Pavel Ivanovich Plikhankov.

Pavel Ivanovich was a young military man, his colleagues wasted their lives in entertainment, but he came to more and more asceticism in his life. His room resembled a monk’s cell in its simplicity of decoration, order, and many icons and books. Years passed. His comrades got married one after another.

Later, the elder recalled this time: “When I was 35 years old, my mother turned to me: “Why are you, Pavlusha, you keep avoiding women, soon your years will be over, no one will marry you.” For obedience, I fulfilled my mother's wish... On this day, some friends were hosting a dinner party. “Well,” I think, “whoever I have to sit next to, I’ll enter into a lengthy conversation with.” And suddenly a priest, distinguished for his high spiritual life, sat next to me at dinner and started a conversation with me about the Jesus Prayer... When the dinner was over, I had a firm decision not to get married.”

On military service A brilliant career was opening up for Pavel Ivanovich. He was really better score, and the rank of general was not far off for him. But he refused to acquire worldly goods, although he had such an opportunity. Leading a strict prayer life, Plikhankov avoided social gatherings, went to church every day, and visited Kazan monasteries. Colleagues and acquaintances could not understand him: he would not marry; avoids secular entertainment; I used to go to the theater, but he gave up too. Sometimes they even said behind Pavel Ivanovich’s back: “He’s crazy, what a man he was!..”

One day Pavel Ivanovich went to the opera house at the invitation of his military superiors. In the midst of an entertaining performance, he suddenly felt an inexpressible melancholy. He later recalled: “In my heart, it was as if someone was saying: “You came to the theater and are sitting here, but if you die now, what then?” The Lord said: “What I find you in, that’s what I judge... With what and how will your soul appear to God if you die now?” And he left the theater and never went there again. Years passed, and Pavel Ivanovich wanted to know what the date was then, whose memory it was. He inquired and learned that there was a commemoration of Saints Gurias and Barsanuphius, the Kazan wonderworkers. And Pavel Ivanovich realized: “Lord, it was Saint Barsanuphius who brought me out of the theater! What a deep meaning in the events of our life, how it is arranged - as if according to some special mysterious plan.”

Colonel Plikhankov's orderly, Alexander, a kind-hearted man, helped him find poor children, and Pavel Ivanovich arranged children's feasts for them in nature, while telling them something useful for the soul: from the lives of saints or in general about something spiritual, throwing out good seeds into children's receptive souls.

Having once arrived in Moscow, Pavel Ivanovich met there with the holy righteous father John of Kronstadt. He remembered this fateful meeting for the rest of his life. He later recalled: “When I was still an officer, I had to go to Moscow for work. And then at the station I find out that Father John is serving mass in the church of one of the buildings. I immediately went there. When I entered the church, mass was already ending. I went to the altar. At this time, Father John transferred the Holy Gifts from the throne to the altar. Having put the cup down, he suddenly comes up to me, kisses my hand and, without saying anything, goes back to the throne. All those present looked at each other and said afterwards that this meant some event in my life, and decided that I would be a priest... And now you see how inscrutable the fate of God is: I am not only a priest, but also a monk.”

Finally, Pavel Ivanovich became convinced of the idea of ​​going to a monastery, but which one, where - there was complete uncertainty. During the period of these thoughts, Pavel Ivanovich came across a spiritual magazine, and in it there was an article about Optina Hermitage and the Venerable Elder Ambrose. “So who will tell me which monastery to enter,” thought the young military man and, taking leave, went to Optina.

At the end of August 1889, Pavel Ivanovich arrived at the blessed monastery and immediately went to the Monastery of St. John the Baptist to visit the Venerable Elder Ambrose. In his cell, he found, in addition to Father Ambrose, also Father Anatoly (Zertsalov). Both of them met him, as he recalled, “very joyfully,” and the ailing Father Ambrose even stood up, showing special honor to the newcomer. Here, in the “shack,” Pavel Ivanovich heard the words of the monk: “Come back in two years.” Obedience was also given - to make donations to some churches.

In 1891, Pavel fell ill with pneumonia. When, at the request of the sick colonel, the orderly began to read the Gospel, a miraculous vision followed, during which the sick man had spiritual insight. He saw the heavens open and shuddered all over with great fear and light. His whole life flashed instantly before him. Pavel Ivanovich was deeply imbued with the consciousness of repentance throughout his life and heard a voice from above commanding him to go to Optina Pustyn. His spiritual vision opened. According to Elder Nektarios, “from a brilliant military man, in one night, by the will of God, he became an old man.”

To the surprise of everyone, the patient recovered quickly. In September 1891, he received a blessing from Father Ambrose to enter the Optina monastery. This was his last blessing. And this is where the obstacles began. He went to St. Petersburg for his resignation, but they offered him a promotion and delayed his resignation. His comrades laugh at him, payment of money is delayed, he cannot complete his business, looks for money on loan and does not find it. But Elder Barnabas from the Gethsemane monastery helps him out and shows him where to get money. People resist his departure from the world, they even find him a bride. Only his stepmother, who replaced his own mother, rejoiced and blessed him for his monastic feat.

Pavel Ivanovich, with God's help, overcame all temptations and went to Optina Pustyn, where he appeared on December 24, 1891, but did not find Elder Ambrose alive. Pavel Ivanovich was then 46 years old. Upon arrival at the monastery, he was received by the head of the St. John the Baptist monastery, Rev. Anatoly (Zertsalov). Being under the spiritual guidance of the Monk Anatoly, the novice Paul compiled the lives of the saints, descriptions miraculous icons, wrote spiritual poems, articles about monasticism, eldership, and the Jesus Prayer. On March 26, 1893, during Lent, he was tonsured a ryasophore. After the death of St. Anatoly, St. Joseph (Litovkin) became the monk’s spiritual father in 1894. With his blessing, monk Pavel served as a clerk until April 1902, kept the “Chronicle of the Skete,” and collected materials for the biography of the Optina elders Macarius, Ambrose, and Anatoly. In December 1900, during a serious illness, Monk Paul was tonsured into the mantle with the name Barsanuphius, on December 29, 1902 he was ordained a hierodeacon, and on January 1, 1903 he was ordained to the rank of hieromonk.

In 1903, the Monk Barsanuphius was appointed assistant to the elder and at the same time confessor of the Shamordino women's hermitage and remained so until the outbreak of the war with Japan.

After the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, the Monk Barsanuphius was sent to active army, served at a soldier’s hospital, in which he built a church (he brought the antimension from Moscow). For his diligence in providing spiritual care to soldiers, he received several awards, including a pectoral cross in May 1904. After the end of the war, on November 1, 1905, he returned to the Optina monastery. In 1907, Father Barsanuphius was elevated to the rank of abbot and appointed Holy Synod abbot of the Optina monastery.

By this time, his fame was spreading throughout Russia. The holy righteous John of Kronstadt and the venerable elder Barnabas of Gethsemane have gone to their eternal abode. The country was approaching a terrible war and revolution, the sea of ​​life was already “rising up in a storm of misfortune,” people were drowning in its waves...

As if to a haven of salvation, they strove to the blessed Optina monastery to the Monk Barsanuphius for the healing of not only their bodies, but also their tormented, sin-weary souls; they strove for an answer to the question: how to live in order to be saved? The elder saw the human soul, and through prayers the most secret things in a person were revealed to him. And this gave him the opportunity to raise up the fallen, direct them from the wrong path to the true one, heal mental and physical illnesses, and cast out demons.

His gift of insight was especially evident when he performed the sacrament of confession. CM. Lopukhina told how, having arrived as a 16-year-old girl in Optina, she ended up in a “shack” where an old man received her. The Monk Barsanuphius saw her, called her into the confessional and there he recounted her whole life, year after year, misdemeanor after misdeed, not only indicating the exact dates when they were committed, but also naming the names of the people with whom they were associated.

Elder Barsanuphius predicted the onset of revolution and persecution of the faith of Christ. He said that perhaps the persecution and torment of the first Christians would be repeated. All monasteries will be closed, and this time is not far off. Even during the heyday of Optina, the elder said that the monastery would be destroyed, and cattle would graze in the monastery.

In 1907, a modest young man Nikolai Belyaev came to Optina Pustyn and became a student of the monastery leader, St. Barsanuphius. Elder Barsanuphius passed on all his spiritual experience, all the knowledge accumulated over the years of asceticism to his beloved student, novice Nicholas. A true example of ancient eldership and discipleship was the relationship between Father Barsanuphius and his spiritual child Nikolai Belyaev. And the wonderful fruit of this amazing nourishment was that the novice Nikolai himself later became the Optina elder - Venerable Nikon, a worthy successor and successor to Father Barsanuphius.

Throughout his monastic life, the Monk Barsanuphius left Optina only a few times - only out of obedience. In 1910, “for obedience,” he went to Astapovo station to give farewell to the dying L.N. Tolstoy. Subsequently, he recalled with deep sadness: “They didn’t allow me to see Tolstoy... I prayed to the doctors and relatives, nothing helped... Although he was a Leo, he could not break the ring of the chain with which Satan bound him.”

In 1912, the Monk Barsanuphius was appointed rector of the Staro-Golutvin Epiphany Monastery. He humbly asked to be left in the monastery to live in peace, asked to be allowed to stay at least as a simple novice. But, despite the elder’s great spiritual gifts, there were those dissatisfied with his activities: through complaints and denunciations, he was removed from Optina.

Courageously enduring the grief of separation from his beloved Optina, the elder sets about improving the monastery entrusted to him, which is extremely upset and neglected. And, as before, people flock to Saint Barsanuphius for help and consolation. And he, who himself was already exhausted from numerous painful ailments, accepts everyone without refusal, heals physical and mental illnesses, instructs, directs them on a narrow and sorrowful, but the only saving path.

Here, in Staro-Golutvin, through his prayers, a miracle of healing of a deaf-mute young man was performed. “A terrible illness is a consequence of a grave sin committed by a young man in childhood,” the old man explains to his unfortunate mother and quietly whispers something in the deaf-mute’s ear. “Father, he doesn’t hear you,” the mother exclaims in confusion, “he’s deaf...” “He doesn’t hear you,” the elder answers, “but he hears me,” and again he says something in a whisper at the very beginning. young man's ear. His eyes widen with horror, and he obediently nods his head... After confession, the Monk Barsanuphius gives him communion, and the illness leaves the sufferer.

The elder ruled the monastery for less than a year. From the beginning of 1913, he fell ill and began to weaken rapidly. On March 22, a week before his death, the Monk Barsanuphius wrote a petition to Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow (Nevsky, †1926, commemorated February 16), where he asked “for the dismissal from the post of abbot of the Staro-Golutvin Monastery with transfer to the brotherhood of the Optina Monastery monastery.” He dreamed of ending his days in his beloved Optina. But he was getting worse. His suffering during his dying illness was truly martyrdom. Refusing the help of a doctor and any kind of food, he said: “Leave me, I’m already on the cross...” The elder took communion daily.

On April 1 (14), 1913, he gave up his pure soul to the Lord. According to the determination of the Holy Synod and with the blessing of Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow, the elder was buried in Optina, where during his life he aspired with all his heart. So Elder Barsanuphius returned to his native Optina in a grave, but this also served as a considerable consolation to the brethren. He was buried next to his spiritual father and teacher, the Monk Anatoly (Zertsalov). The holy relics of the venerable elder were found on June 27/July 10, 1998 and currently reside in the temple-tomb in honor of Vladimir icon Mother of God.

The Monk Barsanuphius possessed all the fullness of the gifts inherent in the Optina elders: insight, miracle-working, the ability to cast out unclean spirits, and heal diseases. He was seen at prayer illuminated by an unearthly light. After his death, he appeared several times to the Optina monks. Hegumen Innocent (Pavlov), the elder’s spiritual child, gave him a vivid description: “He was a giant of spirit. Without his advice and blessing, the abbot of the monastery, Father Xenophon himself, did nothing, and his spiritual qualities... can be judged by the short expression from the tombstone: “You cannot replace a giant with small trees.”

In 1996, the Monk Barsanuphius was canonized as a locally revered saint of the Optina Hermitage, and in August 2000, the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church glorified him for church-wide veneration. His relics rest in the Vladimir Church of Optina Pustyn.

April 14 (April 1, Old Style) 2013 marked 100 years since the repose of St. Barsanuphius of Optina.

The Optina Patericon contains the memoirs of the spiritual children of the Venerable Elder Barsanuphius and his spiritual advice to them:

…Continuing the traditions of the Optina elders, he healed the souls of people, “dragged souls from hell.” By the grace of God, the lives of people who came to him were revealed to him. Helping believers remember forgotten sins, carefully denouncing them, he taught repentance; through his prayer, people were healed mentally and physically.

As if to a haven of salvation, they strove to the blessed Optina monastery to the Monk Barsanuphius for the healing of not only their bodies, but also their tormented, sin-weary souls; they strove for an answer to the question: “How to live in order to be saved?” He saw the human soul, and through prayers the most hidden things in a person were revealed to him, and this gave him the opportunity to raise up the fallen, direct them from the wrong path to the true one, heal illnesses, mental and physical, and cast out demons. His gift of insight was especially evident when he performed the Sacrament of Confession. The spiritual daughter of the Monk Barsanuphia told how, having arrived as a 26-year-old girl in Optina, she ended up in a shack where the elder received her. The Monk Barsanuphius saw her and called her into the confessional and there he recounted her whole life, year after year, offense after offense, not only indicating the exact dates when they were committed, but also naming the names of the people with whom they were connected: “We have reached monastery, the enemy distracted me in every possible way and encouraged me to leave, but, having crossed myself, I firmly entered the hut... I crossed myself there at the icon of the Queen of Heaven and froze. Father came in, I was standing in the middle of the cell... Father walked up to Tikhvinskaya and sat down.. .

Come closer.

I approached timidly.

Get down on your knees... It’s customary for us, we sit, and people around us kneel down in humility.

I just collapsed, not that I became... Father took me by both shoulders, looked at me infinitely affectionately, like no one had ever looked at me, and said:

My dear child, my sweet child, my precious child! Are you twenty-six?

Yes, father.

You are twenty-six, how old were you fourteen years ago?
After thinking for a second, I answered:

Twelve.

That’s right, and from this year you have sins that you began to hide in confession. Do you want me to tell you them?

Tell me, father,” I answered timidly.

And then the priest began to tell my sins by year and even by month as if he was reading them from an open book...

Confession lasted 25 minutes in this manner. I was completely destroyed by the consciousness of my sinfulness and the consciousness of what a great man was in front of me.

How carefully he revealed my sins, how he was obviously afraid of hurting me and at the same time how powerfully and severely he denounced them, and when he saw that I was suffering cruelly, he moved his ear close to my mouth so that I would just whisper :

But in my conceit I thought that I stood out from people with my Christian life. God, what blindness, what spiritual blindness!

Arise, my child!

I stood up and went to the lectern.

Repeat after me: Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in my womb. Where do these words come from?

Queen of Heaven.

And what kind of Queen of Heaven is this? Tikhvinskaya. Repeat the prayer after me...
When I bowed my head, and the priest, covering me with the stole, began to read the prayer of permission, I felt that such incredible weights had been lifted from me, it felt so easy and unusual for me...

After everything that the Lord has revealed to me about you, you will want to glorify me as a saint, this should not happen - do you hear? I am a sinful man, you won’t tell anyone... You are my treasure... God help and save you!
Father blessed me again many, many times and let me go...."
During conversations with spiritual children, Elder Barsanuphius said:
“There are different paths to salvation. The Lord saves some in the monastery, others in the world... You can be saved everywhere, just do not leave the Savior. Cling to the robe of Christ - and Christ will not leave you.”

“A sure sign of the death of the soul is avoidance of church services. A person who grows cold towards God, first of all, begins to avoid going to church, first tries to come to the service later, and then completely stops visiting the temple of God.

Those who seek Christ find Him, according to the true gospel word: Knock and the door will be opened to you, seek and you will find [cf. Matt. 7, 7], in My Father’s house are many mansions [John. 14, 2]. And note that here the Lord speaks not only about heavenly, but also about earthly abodes, and not only about internal, but also about external."

“The Lord puts each soul in such a position, surrounds it with such an environment that is most conducive to its prosperity - this is the external abode. The soul is filled with the peace of peace and joy - the internal abode that the Lord prepares for those who love and seek Him.”

“Do not read godless books, remain faithful to Christ. If they ask about faith, answer boldly. You cannot learn to fulfill the commandments of God without work, and this work is three-part - prayer, fasting and sobriety...”

“Life is bliss... Life will become bliss for us when we learn to fulfill the commandments of Christ and love Christ. Then we will live joyfully, joyfully endure the sorrows that come our way, and ahead of us will shine with indescribable light the Sun of Truth - the Lord... All gospel the commandments begin with the words: Blessedness - blessedness of meekness, blessedness of mercy, blessedness of peacemakers... [cf. Matthew 5:3-12]. From here it follows as a truth that fulfilling the commandments brings people the highest happiness."

"Our whole life is great secret God's All circumstances of life, no matter how insignificant they may seem, are of great importance... There is no accident in life, everything happens according to the will of the Creator. To become like God, you must fulfill His holy commandments.

How to escape? The only way is through humility: “Lord, I am a sinner in everything, I have nothing good, I only hope for Your boundless mercy.”

When the valve in the heart closes to perceive worldly pleasures, then another valve will open to perceive spiritual ones. But how to acquire this? First of all, peace and love for neighbors: Love is long-suffering, merciful, love does not envy, love is not arrogant, is not proud, does not act outrageously, does not seek its own, is not irritated, does not think evil, does not rejoice in untruth, but rejoices in the truth... [cf.: 1 Cor. 13, 4–6].

Then patience. Who will be saved? - Endured to the end [cf.: Matt. 10, 22; 24, 13; Mk. 13, 13].

I do not want to say that reading the works of our great writers was a sin, but there is reading that is more useful and edifying. Firstly, reading the Psalter... This book, although written by the holy king and prophet David, is inspired by the Holy Spirit, the prophet David himself says: My tongue is the reed of a scribe [Ps. 44, 2].

Then - the lives of the saints represent irreplaceable reading, which has such a beneficial effect on the soul, especially when read in the Slavic language...
Visit monasteries, especially on holidays... to rest your soul...."
“Although monastic life is full of sorrows and temptations, it also brings with it great consolations, about which the world has not the slightest idea.
However, no matter how hard it is to be saved, just to be saved and achieve the Kingdom of Heaven, which may the Lord vouchsafe us all.”…

Troparion, tone 8:

In you, father, it is known that you were saved in the image: / for you accepted the cross, you followed Christ, / and you taught in action to despise the flesh, for it passes away, / to be diligent about the souls, things that are immortal. / In the same way, your spirit also rejoices with the angels, O Reverend Barsanuphius.

(Orthodox church calendar 2013 – Publishing House of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, 2013 – Pp. 2-5; azbyka.ru. Illustrations - www.pravoslavie.ru; verapravoslavnaya.ru; days.pravoslavie.ru; www.photosight.ru; ruskline.ru).

(1845 – 1913)

Optina Pustyn is one of the brightest lamps of Orthodox Rus' in the 19th - early 20th centuries. Home distinctive feature The optina of the desert was eldership. People from all walks of life flocked to Optina, like living water, like a multi-healing spring. There were peasants and representatives of the upper classes, illiterate craftsmen and highly educated writers, philosophers, artists, statesmen, people of outstanding intelligence and talent. In their instructions, the elders taught the people how to understand the gospel teaching and how to heal their spiritual infirmities. Their instructions were simple, truthful, free from any artificiality, cordial, their answers breathed love and calm. It seemed that the elder saw through the soul of the person who came, saw all the illnesses of the soul, knew how to help, and helped and consoled.

Thanks to the eldership, Optina Hermitage was an outstanding phenomenon in the life of Russian monasticism. But Optina's influence is not limited by time. The spiritual heritage of the elders, which has come down to our time, is letters, diaries, instructions. All this is an opportunity to again and again come into contact with the experience of perfect faith and internal transformation of the individual, leading to gospel perfection.

Among the names of the great Optina elders, the name of St. Barsanuphius (Plikhankov) occupies a special place. He left the world at an advanced age, at the age of 46, when strong gray hair had already appeared in his hair. With the blessing of Elder Ambrose, a former staff officer, a colonel who led a moral life in the world, came to the Optina monastery on Christmas Day 1891. What was this path like?

The Monk Barsanuphius, in the world Pavel Ivanovich Plikhankov, was born in 1845 in Samara on the day of remembrance of the Monk Sergius of Radonezh, whom he always considered his patron. His mother Natalia died during childbirth, and the child himself remained alive thanks to the sacrament of Baptism, which the priest immediately performed on him. His father came from Cossacks and was engaged in trade.

The boy's grandfather and great-grandfather were very rich. All family members led a pious life of deeply religious people, and they helped a lot to the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, located on the same street. The family believed that their family was under the special protection of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God.

After the death of his wife, the father little Pavel He married a second time, and in the person of his stepmother, the Lord sent the baby a deeply religious, kind-hearted mentor who replaced his own mother. Later the elder recalled:

“My stepmother was deeply religious and unusually kind woman, so she completely replaced my mother. And even, perhaps, my own mother could not have given me such an upbringing. She got up very early and was with me every day at Matins, despite my infancy.

Early morning. I woke up, but I didn’t want to get up. The maid helps my mother wash, I wrap myself in a blanket. Now the mother is ready.

“Oh, Pavel is still sleeping,” she says, “bring it here.” cold water, - she turns to the maid.

I instantly lean out from under the blanket.

- Mom, I’m already awake!

They dress me, and my mother and I go to church. It’s still completely dark, and at times I fall into the snowdrifts and rush after my mother.

Otherwise, she loved to pray at home. Sometimes the akathist reads, and I sing in a thin voice throughout the apartment:

– Holy Mother of God, save us!

The father reproached the mother more than once:

- Why are you dragging it so early, he’s small, he’ll get tired.

But the mother always answered this:

- I wish him well. You entrusted me with his upbringing, and therefore leave me to do as I see fit.”

The elder later said: “How grateful I am now to my mother! When I entered the monastery, she was still alive, and I wrote to her: “These are the fruits of your upbringing.”

When Pavel was three or four years old, he and his father often went to church. The elder said that many times, when he, as a child, stood at the icon of the Mother of God, it seemed to him that he saw the Mother of God looking at him from the icon, smiling and beckoning him. He ran up to his father.

Dad, dad, She's alive!
- Who, my child?
- Mother of God.

His father didn't understand him.

A significant incident occurred with a child when he was about six years old. Elder Barsanuphius recalled later: “For six years I was in the garden with my father, digging through the sand in the alley. Suddenly a wanderer walks along the alley. And it’s amazing how he could get into the garden when the garden is surrounded by large dogs that don’t let anyone through without barking. The wanderer quietly approached his father and, pointing at me with his hand, said: “Remember, father, this child will one day drag souls from hell!” And after these words he left. Then we couldn't find him anywhere. And God knows what kind of wanderer he was.”

At the age of nine, Pavlusha was enrolled in a gymnasium. He studied very well, read a lot, and knew world literature very well. Later, as an old man, he often spoke about the benefits of book knowledge, primarily the lives of saints. He recalled about his studies at the gymnasium: “In the summer we were moved for vacation to a picturesque state estate... There was a beautiful birch alley... The students usually got up at six o’clock, and I got up at five o’clock, went into that alley and, standing between those birches, prayed. And then I prayed as I had never prayed again: it was the pure prayer of an innocent youth. I think that’s where I begged for myself, begged God for monasticism.”

Then there was study at the Orenburg Military School, and staff officer courses in St. Petersburg. Gradually rising in rank, he soon became the head of the mobilization department, and then a colonel. He had not yet thought about entering a monastery; he imagined monastic life like this: “terrible boredom - there is only radish, vegetable oil and bows.”

Pavel Ivanovich was a young military man, his colleagues spent their lives in entertainment, but he came to more and more asceticism in his life. His room resembled a monk’s cell in its simplicity of decoration, order, and many icons and books. Years passed. His comrades got married one after another. More than once they approached him with an offer to start a family. “Think, Pavlusha,” his stepmother advised him, “maybe you want to get married, take a closer look at the young ladies, do you like which one of them?”

One day, out of obedience, Pavel Ivanovich went to a big dinner party to get a closer look at the brides. “Well, I think,” the elder recalled, “whoever I have to sit next to, I’ll enter into a lengthy conversation with.” The Lord wisely arranged it so that a priest, a man of high spiritual life, sat down next to the young officer and began a conversation with him about the Jesus Prayer. Pavel Ivanovich was so carried away listening to him that he completely forgot about his intention to look closely at the brides. When dinner was over, a firm desire to never get married matured in the young man’s heart, which he immediately told his kind stepmother, which made her happy, for she always had a secret desire for Paul to devote his entire life to the Lord.

But the world did not yet want to let him out of its insidious networks. “I had to,” the priest later said, “to do evenings and receptions for work... It was very burdensome for me...”

Military service, brilliant career. He had the most excellent record in his service, and the rank of general was not far off for him. The direct road to acquiring all worldly blessings. And... giving up everything. Colleagues and acquaintances could not understand: what kind of “flaw” was in the slender, handsome colonel, whose whole appearance breathed some kind of amazing inner nobility? He does not get married, he avoids balls and dinner parties, as well as other social entertainments. I used to go to the theater, but then I quit. Sometimes they even said behind Pavel Ivanovich’s back: “He’s crazy, what a man he was!..”

One day Pavel Ivanovich went to the opera house at the invitation of his military superiors. In the midst of an entertaining performance, he suddenly felt an inexpressible melancholy. He later recalled: “In my heart, it was as if someone was saying: “You came to the theater and are sitting here, but if you die now, what then? The Lord said: “What I find you in, I judge you in...” With what and how will your soul appear to God if you die now?

And he left the theater and never went there again. Years passed, and Pavel Ivanovich wanted to know what the date was then, whose memory it was. He inquired and learned that there was a commemoration of Saints Gurias and Barsanuphius, Kazan wonderworkers. And Pavel Ivanovich realized: “Lord, it was Saint Barsanuphius who brought me out of the theater! What a deep meaning in the events of our life, how it is arranged - as if according to some special mysterious plan.”

There were also other signs. Pavel Ivanovich once went to the Kazan monastery for confession and accidentally found out that the abbot of the monastery was Abbot Barsanuphius. When Pavel Ivanovich noticed that this name was difficult to hear, they answered him: “Why is it difficult? It’s familiar to us... After all, in our monastery rest the relics of St. Barsanuphius and Archbishop Guria...” From that day on, Pavel Ivanovich began to often pray at the relics of the Kazan wonderworker, asking him for protection for himself: “St. Father Barsanuphius, pray to God for me! » While visiting this monastery, he involuntarily drew attention to its poverty and began to help: he bought a lamp, a case for a large icon, something else... “And he fell in love with everything in this monastery! Truly, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

“Many years have passed since then. I was already in the monastery, preparing to take monastic vows. Suddenly he became dangerously ill. Everyone despaired of my recovery and decided to take tonsure as soon as possible. I remember leaning over me and asking: “What name do you want to get?” I could hardly answer: “It doesn’t matter.” I hear that during tonsure they call me Barsanuphius. Consequently, the saint did not leave me here either, but wanted to be my patron.”

Now his colleagues no longer invited Pavel Ivanovich to parties or to the theater. But he made little friends. Pavel Ivanovich's orderly, Alexander, a kind-hearted man, helped him find poor children who lived in huts and basements. Subsequently, the elder said: “I really loved organizing children’s feasts. These feasts brought me and the children joy equally... And I also told them about something useful for the soul, from the lives of saints or generally about something spiritual. Everyone listens with pleasure and attention. Sometimes, for greater edification, I invited one of the monks or hieromonks with me and let him speak, which made an even greater impression... In front of us is a clearing, behind it is a river, and beyond the river is Kazan with its wonderful arrangement of houses, gardens and churches ... And it was good for me then, how much joy - and pure joy - I experienced then and how many good seeds were thrown then into these childish, receptive souls!”

In Moscow, Pavel Ivanovich met with the holy righteous father John of Kronstadt. He remembered this fateful meeting for the rest of his life; later he would write: “When I was still an officer, I had to go to Moscow for work. And then at the station I find out that Father John is serving mass in the church of one of the buildings. I immediately went there. When I entered the church, mass was already ending. I went to the altar. At this time, Father John transferred the Holy Gifts from the throne to the altar. Having placed the Cup, he suddenly comes up to me, kisses my hand and, without saying anything, goes back to the throne. All those present looked at each other and said afterwards that this meant some event in my life, and decided that I would be a priest... And now you see how inscrutable the fate of God is: I am not only a priest, but also a monk.”

Finally, Pavel Ivanovich became convinced of the idea of ​​going to a monastery, but which one, where - there was complete uncertainty. One day, when he came to the headquarters with a report, he saw on one of the tables a spiritual magazine, in which there was an article about Optina Hermitage and about Elder Ambrose. Pavel Ivanovich immediately sat down, read it and somehow immediately decided to go to Optina Pustyn.

At the end of August 1889, Pavel Ivanovich Plikhankov, wearing a white tunic with colonel's shoulder straps, arrived at the blessed monastery and immediately went to the monastery of St. John the Baptist to see the Venerable Elder Ambrose.

The sight of a military man did not surprise anyone here: religious believers have also been to Optina. But this officer was still special. Blessed Mother Paraskeva, who was then in Elder Ambrose’s cell, felt this. Not yet seeing Pavel Ivanovich (he was just approaching the hotel), she said: “Pavel Ivanovich has arrived!” “Thank God,” Fr. calmly answered. Ambrose. Both of them knew in spirit that the future elder had arrived. Pavel Ivanovich told the elder that he had a desire to enter a monastery. The elder said: “The trial must continue for two more years, and then come to me, I will accept you.”

Father Ambrose invited him to pray four times before the Nativity Fast and make donations to some churches. Before leaving, Pavel Ivanovich visited the monastery again. He fell in love with it, quiet, blooming, like a garden. Everything touched here - the quiet, deserted ringing of bells, the touching service in the church in honor of the Council of John the Baptist, the solemnity of ancient chants, the silence of the centuries-old forest around...

Returning to Kazan, Pavel Ivanovich left an expensive apartment, sold the furniture and moved to live in furnished rooms, settling there almost like a monk. He took into his care a twelve-year-old boy - the son of a corridor servant. This youth entered the monastery a few years later.

In 1881, Pavel fell ill with pneumonia. When, at the request of the patient, the orderly began to read the Gospel, a miraculous vision followed, during which the patient’s spiritual insight occurred. He saw the heavens open and shuddered all over with great fear and light. His whole life flashed instantly before him. Pavel Ivanovich was deeply imbued with the consciousness of repentance throughout his life and heard a voice from above commanding him to go to Optina Pustyn. His spiritual vision opened. According to Elder Nektarios, “from a brilliant military man, in one night, by the will of God, he became an old man.”

To the surprise of everyone, the patient began to recover quickly, and upon recovery he went to Optina. The Monk Ambrose ordered him to finish all his business in three months, saying that if he did not arrive on time, he would die.

And this is where the obstacles began. He went to St. Petersburg for his resignation, but they offered him a more brilliant position and delayed his resignation. His comrades laugh at him, payment of money is delayed, he cannot complete his business, looks for money on loan and does not find it. But Elder Barnabas from the Gethsemane monastery helps him out, shows him where to get money, and also urges him to fulfill God’s command. People resist his departure from the world, they even find him a bride. Only his stepmother, who replaced his own mother, rejoiced and blessed him for his monastic feat.

With God's help, Colonel Plikhankov overcame all obstacles and appeared in Optina Pustyn on the last day of his three-month sentence. Elder Ambrose lay in a coffin in the church, and Pavel Ivanovich clung to his coffin.

On February 10, 1892, he was enrolled in the brotherhood of St. John the Baptist Skete and dressed in a cassock. Being under the spiritual guidance of Elder Anatoly (Zertsalov), novice Pavel compiled the lives of saints, descriptions of miraculous icons, wrote spiritual poems, articles about monasticism, eldership, and the Jesus Prayer. After the death of St. Anatoly, Elder Joseph (Litovkin) became the monk’s spiritual father in 1894. With his blessing, monk Pavel served as a clerk until April 1902, kept the “Chronicle of the Skete,” and collected materials for the biography of the Optina elders Macarius, Ambrose, and Anatoly. Based largely on the notes of Father Barsanuphius, Schema-Archimandrite Agapit (Belovidov) subsequently compiled the biographies of the elders Ambrose and Macarius.

Like many who took the path of monastic life, he bore many different sorrows. “When I was a cassock novice,” the elder recalled, “I suffered a lot of persecution, and I grieved so much that I even came to the idea of ​​leaving the monastery. But I told myself: I’d rather die than leave - I’ll endure everything, everything.” These were the years of his spiritual maturity, the gradual growth in him of the divinely inspired shepherd of the flock of Christ.

Father Barsanuphius's confessor was the venerable elder Nektarios, with whom Father Barsanuphius always maintained a deep understanding.

And so, when, in the silence of a solitary cell, the ascetic entered the “measure of spiritual age,” the Lord placed him in the service of the monastery and the Orthodox people.

The novice Pavel was tonsured into the cassock on March 26, 1893, and in December 1900, during what then seemed to be an incurable illness, he was tonsured in his cell into a mantle with the name Barsanuphius.

Two years later, on December 29, 1902, Father Barsanuphius was ordained a hierodeacon, and on January 1, 1903, a hieromonk. In the same year, by decree of the Kaluga Consistory, Hieromonk Barsanuphius became an assistant to the skete commander, confessor of the monastery, and also confessor of the Shamordino monastery.

In 1904, when the Russian-Japanese War began, Hieromonk Barsanuphius was sent to the front as a priest at the infirmary; he was already 59 years old. It was hard for the priest to leave his beloved blessed monastery and return to the noisy military environment that he had once left. The Monk Barsanuphius carried out his obedience at the front with honor, for which in May 1904 he was awarded the pectoral cross.

Upon returning to Optina Pustyn after the end of the war, in 1907, Father Barsanuphius was elevated to the rank of abbot and appointed by the Holy Synod as rector of the Optina monastery instead of the seriously ill Father Joseph. The elder did not seek or desire this; on the contrary, he did not dare to take on this difficult burden, realizing that he would have to part with the silence and silence of his humble cell... And only out of monastic duty, for holy obedience, did he take upon himself this heavy cross.

Elder Joseph was already so weak that he did not leave his cell. Of course, the monastery's economic affairs turned out to be somewhat neglected. “When I accepted the abbotship from Father Joseph,” recalled Father Barsanuphius, “he handed me one hundred rubles of money, from which he ordered me to pay fifty-four rubles to one Kozel merchant, from whom he took fish and other supplies for the monastery. Consequently, forty-six rubles remained for the maintenance of the monastery. At first it came to mind how I would support the monastery with such funds, but then I calmed down, trusting in the will of God. After all, the monastery is not mine, but John the Baptist’s, it will feed us, why should I be embarrassed. And indeed, John the Baptist did not leave the monastery. We didn't need anything. Donations poured in."

He kept silent, however, about the first donation made to the monastery treasury - his own savings - only sixty thousand. The new monastery commander paid off the debts with a firm hand, repaired the monastery, updated the sacristy, and built a library. He knew how to combine with severity a tender and loving attitude towards the monastery brethren, and was full of worries about them. Of course, now he had no peace at all. He often recalled what Elder Ambrose said: “A simple monk needs a cartload of patience, but an abbot needs a whole convoy.”

With the passing righteous John Kronstadt and Elder Barnabas of Gethsemane, the influx of pilgrims to Optina especially increased. Every day the Venerable Elder Barsanuphius received persons of various classes for spiritual conversations, and answered many letters that came to him...

The fame of him spread throughout Russia and, like people rushing to the blessed Optina monastery to the blessed Optina monastery to the Monk Barsanuphius “for the healing of not only bodies, but also tormented, sin-weary souls, they sought an answer to the question: how to live in order to be saved?”

The Monk Barsanuphius carried out his ministry during a special period of Russian history - the pre-revolutionary period, a time of extreme impoverishment of faith. Particularly receptive to the new teachings were young people who ardently became involved in the search for “the meaning of life without Christ” and in a very short time, losing faith, found themselves in darkness, many thinking about suicide. “Now everything is valued for money, and who needs my poor head, confused in thoughts, teachings, my soul, crying over something that is incomprehensible to itself?” - with such a mood (so familiar to modern man!) the future novice E. Shamonina ended up in Optina, one of those who left us their memories of the saint. "Almost forcefully good people they sent me to Optina,” she wrote.

People ended up in the monastery monastery in different ways, but the meeting with the elder became a miracle for each of them: with a few words, his prayer, and his very appearance, the elder directed the exhausted, confused people who had lost faith in everything to repentance, to reconciliation with God. For many, these meetings literally became fateful: they changed themselves and changed their lives. Becoming the spiritual children of Father Barsanuphius, several times a year they came to the monastery to the priest for confession, and received the Holy Mysteries of Christ here. As a rule, in the evenings the fasting people gathered in the elder’s cell to talk. This is how one of the participants recalls these meetings: “Taking first some text from Holy Scripture, or an excerpt from some book, or even a poem by a worldly writer, the priest spoke quietly all about the same thing, about the only thing needed, about the salvation of the poor human soul, about the Kingdom of Heaven, about the fight against the enemies of our salvation. The lamp glows before the image of the Savior, the prayer room is immersed in twilight, freshness and fragrance emanate from the window, and the sound of the priest’s voice goes straight into the soul, waking it up, encouraging it, refreshing it. Knowing well the souls of his listeners, the priest knew how, in his conversation, unnoticed by others, to touch on what was painful for one or the other. And it seemed to everyone that the priest’s conversation was addressed specifically to her. The elder saw the human soul, and through prayers the most hidden things in a person were revealed to him, and this made it possible to raise up the fallen, direct them from the wrong path to the true one, heal mental and physical illnesses, and cast out demons.” Himself exhausted from numerous painful ailments, he accepted everyone without refusal, healed, instructed, directing them to the narrow and sorrowful, but the only saving path.

Hegumen Innocent says about him: “He was a wonderful old man who had the gift of clairvoyance, which I myself experienced when he accepted me into the monastery and confessed me for the first time. I was speechless with horror, seeing in front of me not an ordinary person, but an angel in the flesh, who reads my innermost thoughts, reminds me of facts that I forgot, faces and so on. I was possessed by an unearthly fear. He encouraged me and said: “Don’t be afraid, it’s not me, sinful Barsanuphius, but God revealed to me about you. During my life, don’t tell anyone what you are experiencing now, but after my death you can talk.”

Many saw the elders illuminated by light during their prayer. Elder Barsanuphius was seen as if in flames during Divine Liturgy. “Once I was present when Father Barsanuphius served the liturgy,” recalled nun Alexandra. “This time I had to see and experience something indescribable. Father was enlightened by a bright light. He himself was, as it were, the focus of this fire and emitted rays. The face of the deacon serving with him was illuminated by a ray of light emanating from him.”

The monk said to one of those who addressed him: “The elders are called seers, indicating that they can see the future: yes, great grace is given to the elders - this is the gift of reasoning. This is the greatest gift given by God to man. In addition to physical eyes, they also have spiritual eyes, before which the human soul opens. Before a person thinks, before a thought arises in him, they see it with spiritual eyes, they even see the reason for the occurrence of such a thought. And nothing is hidden from them. You live in St. Petersburg and think that I don’t see you. Whenever I want, I will see everything you think and do...”

Elder Barsanuphius predicted the onset of revolution and persecution of the faith of Christ. He said that perhaps the persecution and torment of the first Christians would be repeated. All monasteries will be closed, and this time is not far off... Even during the heyday of Optina, the elder said that the monastery would be destroyed, and cattle would graze in the monastery.

In 1907, a modest young man Nikolai Belyaev, the future venerable elder Nikon, came to Optina Pustyn. The monastery leader, the Monk Barsanuphius, bright, majestic, with a head covered with white silver hair, with a quiet smile, warmly greeted him in a fatherly way. The gray-haired old man, experienced in spiritual life, and the nineteen-year-old young man, after their first conversations, felt a deep spiritual kinship. They, so different in age and development, understood each other perfectly. The invisible spiritual threads between them became more and more strengthened, forming a strong attachment. The perspicacious elder clearly saw this from the very first days of their acquaintance: “Our hearts are tuned to the same tune,” novice Nikolai once heard from him, “they sound in the same tone.”

All his spiritual experience, all the knowledge accumulated over the years of asceticism, was passed on by Elder Barsanuphius to his beloved student, novice Nicholas, as worthy to accept and preserve this gift. The priest especially strengthened the novice Nicholas in his desire to acquire unceasing prayer: “The path of the Jesus Prayer is the shortest, most convenient path. But do not complain, for everyone who follows this path experiences sorrow. Once you have decided to follow this path and have gone, then don’t complain, if you encounter difficulties or sorrows, you must endure...”

And Elder Barsanuphius loved to repeat: “We must most of all acquire humility: humble ourselves, humble ourselves. If there is humility, everything is there; if there is no humility, there is nothing.”

A true example of ancient eldership and discipleship was the relationship between Father Barsanuphius and his spiritual child Nikolai Belyaev. And the wonderful fruit of this amazing nourishment was that the novice Nikolai himself later became a spiritual elder - the Monk Nikon, a worthy successor and successor to his elder...

In July 1910, the health of the Monk Barsanuphius deteriorated sharply; he became so ill that he was tonsured into the Great Schema. “Schema is the edge: either death or recovery... I feel that the schema has raised me. I was supposed to die, but a reprieve was given,” the priest said to the monk Nikolai Belyaev.

The disciple of the elder Nikolai (Belyaev) was shocked by the words of the elder, who, out of deepest humility, spoke about the mistakes in his life and that he did not have enough time to repent: “I died and through someone’s prayers I was resurrected. I thought that I would not get up again... So, not today - tomorrow will be the end, and I will have to appear before the throne of God... What will I appear with? What will I answer? I looked back - there was a gap here, there was a mistake, it wasn’t finished, it wasn’t done - just mistakes. Scary! Well, apparently, God had mercy and left more time for repentance.”

Father Nikolai recalled: “It was terrible to hear these speeches: if the priest, looking back at his life, saw only mistakes and mistakes in it, then what would we have seen in the past, if only we had received the proper visual acuity?”

Throughout his monastic life, the Monk Barsanuphius left Optina only a few times - only out of obedience. In 1910, also for obedience, he went to the Astapovo station to give farewell to the dying Leo Tolstoy. Earlier, the elder said in a conversation with his children: “A great evil is Tolstoy’s teaching, how much it destroys young souls. Previously, Tolstoy really was a beacon in literature, but later his lantern went out, and he found himself in darkness, and like a blind man he wandered into a swamp, where he got stuck and died.”

Subsequently, Father Barsanuphius recalled with deep sadness: “They didn’t allow me to see Tolstoy... I prayed to doctors and relatives, nothing helped... Of course, Tolstoy is now on Last Judgment unresponsive; and the Metropolitan sent him a telegram, which was not even conveyed to him. The Church did everything to save him, but he did not want to be saved - and died. And once he was a pious man, but, apparently, this piety was only external... Although he was a Leo, he could not break the ring of the chain with which Satan bound him.” It was always difficult for the elder to talk about this; he was very worried.

In 1912, the Monk Barsanuphius was appointed rector of the Staro-Golutvin Epiphany Monastery near the city of Kolomna with his elevation to the rank of archimandrite. He humbly asked to be left in the monastery to live in peace, asked to be allowed to stay at least as a simple novice. But, despite the elder’s great spiritual gifts, there were those dissatisfied with his activities: through complaints and denunciations, he was removed from Optina.

The preparations of the elder, who had almost no property, were short-lived. He told his spiritual children: “I take few things with me: the images all remain, and from the paintings I will only take the portrait of the great elder and spiritual benefactor of my father Anatoly and the priest Father Ambrose. The rest will remain as it was.” With tears and kneeling, Optina said goodbye to her elder...

In April of the same year, the Monk Barsanuphius arrived in Moscow. The news of the elder's arrival spread throughout the city. The people immediately surrounded him, everyone considered it a blessing to receive the old man’s blessing.

On April 5, 1912, at the liturgy in the Epiphany Monastery, Bishop Tryphon (Turkestan) elevated the Monk Barsanuphius to the rank of archimandrite. “As if under a crown of thorns I bowed my head under a golden miter,” the elder recalled before his death.

The very next day, Schema-Archimandrite Barsanuphius arrived in Kolomna, at the ancient St. Golutvin Monastery, of which he had to be abbot in the last year of his life.

Courageously enduring the grief of separation from his beloved Optina, the monk began to improve the monastery entrusted to him.

Father Vasily Shustin, who arrived with the elder, recalled what changes Schema-Archimandrite Barsanuphius made in this neglected monastery: “Father made great reforms and internal structure monastery He established compulsory attendance at church services and set an example himself. Previously, not everyone went to the refectory, and the hieromonks did not even look in; they had their own kitchens in their cells. The housekeeper had a cook. Father forbade cooking anything at home, and everyone had to eat common food at a certain time. When the priest came to the refectory at the bell, all the simple monks were surprised that he was so close to them. The food was impossible. The cabbage soup was made from rotten cabbage and fish with a smell. The housekeeper did not come to the refectory, but the priest sent a novice for him and forced him to eat lunch from the products that he bought. The housekeeper turned away, and the priest caught him. No wonder the housekeeper wore silk robes, and goldfish could be seen in his room. “How is it possible,” said the priest, “to give such food...” Immediately the whole spirit of the monastery changed. Father took care of the clothes and food of the monks, and they, seeing such a fatherly attitude of the abbot, did not shun him, but came with love and trust, opened their souls to him, and he began to heal them... Father taught the monks of the monastery to follow the rules and to carrying out obediences. After two months, the monastery became unrecognizable.”

Very soon a rumor spread in Kolomna and throughout the entire region about the appearance of a great elder in the monastery. An unusually large number of people, unusual for Staro-Golutvin, poured into the monastery. Donations also poured in, which made it possible to carry out a major overhaul of the entire monastery - it was cleaned, painted, and repaired. Unwell and increasingly losing strength, the elder corresponded with his spiritual children, and from lunch until late evening he received visitors.

In the Staro-Golutvin Monastery, through his prayers, a miracle of healing of a deaf-mute young man took place. “A terrible illness is a consequence of a grave sin committed by a young man in childhood,” the monk explains to his unfortunate mother and quietly whispers something in the deaf-mute’s ear. “Father, he can’t hear you,” the mother exclaims in confusion, “he’s deaf...” “He’s the one who can’t hear you,” and again says something in a whisper in the young man’s ear. The young man’s eyes widen in horror, and he obediently nods his head... After confession, the Monk Barsanuphius gives him communion, and the illness leaves the sufferer...

The elder ruled the monastery for about a year. He was sixty-eight years old, but his body was undermined by sorrows, numerous labors and worries.

From the very beginning of 1913, the elder began to quickly weaken... At the beginning of February, the priest, despite his weakness, undertook a trip to Moscow on monastery business. In Moscow I suddenly felt so bad that I quickly hurried to return to Golutvin.

On March 22, a week before his death, the elder wrote a petition to Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow, asking “for dismissal from the post of abbot of the Staro-Golutvin Monastery, with transfer to the brotherhood of the Optina Monastery monastery.” He dreamed of ending his days in his beloved Optina.

But he was getting worse. The suffering of the elder during his dying illness was truly martyrdom. Father Theodosius recalled: “A huge tumor in the throat, which appeared a week and a half before death, greatly impeded breathing. Father often called by name, in addition to the holy saints of God and the Mother of God, for whom he had a childhood love, also all the Optina elders.” Realizing that this was the end, Father Barsanuphius refused the help of a doctor and any kind of food, he only repeated: “Leave me, I’m already on the cross...” The elder took communion every day. On the morning of the first (fourteenth) of April, Father sighed quietly and rested. His face, according to the cell attendants, took on an expression of extraordinary meekness, humility and joy.

The Holy Synod and Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow gave their blessing to bury the elder in Optina, where during his life he aspired with all his heart. The coffin was placed in a metal box and moved to Optina in a funeral carriage. A huge number of people saw off Father, funeral services were served continuously.

The elder’s spiritual child, nun Elena (Shamonina), recalled: “When the carts with the elder’s coffin, accompanied by a multitude of people carrying banners, a cross and icons, appeared at the crossing of the Zhizdra, the funeral bell rang out louder from the Optina bell tower. On the monastery shore there were all the brethren... as well as many people. And so the two processions united. The spectacle was as touching as it was majestic. It is impossible to describe in words the feelings that overwhelmed those present at this unusual meeting. The brethren wept, the pilgrims sobbed, and Father Theodosius, the monastery’s leader, could barely utter his lithium cries in tears... Around two o’clock in the afternoon the procession entered the holy gates of the monastery. This is how Father Barsanuphius returned to his native Optina! Even if he was in the grave - such was the will of God - but here he is, and this served as “considerable consolation for the brethren,” as the Optina residents noted.

The coffin was placed in the Kazan Cathedral, and an all-night vigil was served there, and the liturgy the next morning. At the end of the liturgy, the last requiem service began before the burial of the elder. The Monk Barsanuphius was buried next to his spiritual father and teacher, the Monk Anatoly the Elder (Zertsalov).

After his death, the Monk Barsanuphius appeared to many Optina monks. In the “Chronicle of the Skete” on November 12, 1913 it is written: “The skete guide, Hieromonk Kuksha, recently saw in a dream the deceased elder Schema-Archimandrite Barsanuphius, who, approaching him in the church, asked that after the liturgy they sing: “Under Your mercy...” At the end of the mass, Father Kuksha asked the elder if he liked the singing. “Yes,” answered the priest, “and you always do that.” On this occasion, by order of the monastery leader Father Theodosius, the above-mentioned singing was introduced into the monastery.” This rule is still strictly observed today.

The venerable elder Barsanuphius, in the host of the great elders of the Optina Monastery, stands before the Throne of the Lord Almighty and with his holy prayers preserves this monastery, and all Russian monasticism, and all of us who turn to him with faith.

About humility

And about. Macarius, and Fr. Ambrose, and Fr. Moses and all our elders always said: “humble yourself, humble yourself.” Just as John the Theologian at the end of his life only said: “Children, love one another,” so our elders repeated: “Humble yourself.” These are two virtues: love and humility seem to condition one another, as well as warmth and light.

What remains for us sinners to do? How to escape? Only through humility: Lord, I am a sinner in everything, I have nothing good, I only hope in Your mercy!

We are absolute bankrupts before the Lord, but He will not reject us for humility. And, indeed, it is better, having sins, to consider oneself great sinners, than, having some good deeds, to be puffed up by them, considering oneself righteous.

About prayer

One day a novice asked Father Macarius why they force them to pray a lot in the monastery? Instead of answering, the priest covered his nose and mouth with his hand. He got free with difficulty.

Why are you fighting back? - asked Fr. Macarius, - can’t you not breathe for a while?

Father, I almost suffocated!

You see,” the priest remarked then, “prayer is the breath of the soul.” You couldn’t help but breathe for a short time, because the body requires it, otherwise it will die, and the soul also needs breathing, i.e. in prayer, otherwise she will die spiritually.

Prayer, fasting and vigil make us conquerors of the enemies of our salvation. Prayer is the hardest of these works

Remember unfamous ascetics in prayers- this is a great thing. They do not need our prayers as much as we need their prayers. But if we pray for them, then they immediately repay us in kind.

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” every believing soul must cry out to the Lord. The Lord waits for us to call on Him and rejoices at this calling. He who prays the Jesus Prayer will certainly be saved; the Lord will not allow him to perish. He is ready to help anyone, and if we sometimes notice that the Lord seems to be leaving us, then the reason for this lies in the person himself.

During your academic or other activities, it is impossible for you to fill your whole life with the Jesus Prayer, but each of you goes through some 20, some 50, and some 100 prayers a day. Each one learns it according to its own strength. Let one succeed by an inch, another by an arshin, a third by a fathom, and the other, perhaps, went ahead a mile, what matters is that at least an inch went ahead, and glory to God for everything.

When you have any dreams, then you yourself do not contradict them or drive them away, but simply take them as a “stone,” and the stone is the Name of Christ, the Jesus Prayer.

If prayer is sometimes inattentive and absent-minded, there is no need to be discouraged. During prayer, our lips are sanctified by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you live poorly, then no one touches you, but when you start to live well, you immediately experience sorrow and temptation.

Temple of God

A sure sign of the death of the soul is avoidance of church services. A person who grows cold towards God first of all begins to avoid going to church, first tries to come to the service later, and then completely stops visiting the temple of God.

Visit the temple of God more often, especially in sorrow: it is good to stand in some dark corner, pray and cry from your heart. And the Lord will comfort you, He will certainly comfort you. And you will say: “Lord, I thought that there was no way out of my difficult situation, but You, Lord, helped me!” The path that leads to eternal life is narrow and sad.

Outer and inner monastery

The Lord puts each soul in such a position, surrounds it with such an environment that is most conducive to its prosperity; this is the external abode. The soul is filled with peace and joy - the inner abode that the Lord prepares for those who love and seek Him.

God's commandments

“Life is bliss... Life will become bliss for us when we learn to fulfill the commandments of Christ and love Christ. Then we will live joyfully, joyfully endure the sorrows that come our way, and ahead of us the Sun of Truth - the Lord - will shine with indescribable light... All the Gospel commandments begin with the words: “ Bliss – bliss of meekness, bliss of mercy, bliss of peacemakers...[cf.: Matt. 5, 3-12]. From this it follows as a truth that fulfilling the commandments brings people the highest happiness.”

Our whole life is the great mystery of God. All circumstances of life, no matter how insignificant they may seem, are of great importance... There is no accident in life, everything happens according to the will of the Creator. To become like God, you must fulfill His holy commandments.

Do not read godless books, remain faithful to Christ. If asked about faith, answer boldly. You cannot learn to fulfill God’s commandments without labor, and this labor is threefold - prayer, fasting and sobriety...

About faith

In the relationship of a student to an elder, the main thing is the faith of the student. If they ask an elder with faith, then the Lord, according to the faith of the questioner, reveals His will to the disciple.

About sorrows

When you are bothered by thoughts of fear about upcoming sorrows, you do not need to enter into a conversation with them, but simply say: “God’s will be done.” It's very calming...

The nature around us also gives us a lot of edifying things. Everyone knows the sunflower plant. It always turns its yellow head towards the sun, reaching for it, which is where it got its name. But it happens that the sunflower stops turning towards the sun, then people experienced in this matter say: “It has begun to deteriorate, a worm has appeared in it; we need to cut it off.” A soul hungry for God's justification, like a sunflower, strives and reaches out to God - the Source of light, but if it has stopped looking for Him, therefore, such a soul perishes. It is necessary to experience Christ in this life; whoever has not seen Him here will never see him there, in future life. But how to see Christ? The way to this is perhaps the unceasing Jesus Prayer, which is capable of instilling Christ in our souls.

Sources and literature used:

Website of the Holy Vvedensky Monastery Optina Pustyn: http://www.optina.ru/starets/varsonofiy_life_full/

The book “Reverend Optina Elders. Lives and Instructions”, publisher: Holy Vvedensky Monastery Optina Pustyn, 2010.