EL ESPIRITU DE RUSIA ES EL ESPIRITU DE CRISTO. ENTREVISTA CON UN MONJE DE OPTINA PUSTINA QUE SERIA LUEGO ASESINADO POR SATANISTAS

“THE SPIRIT OF RUSSIA IS CHRIST” A pre-death interview with Hieromonk Vasily (Roslyakov) Hieromonk Vasily (Roslyakov) This is the last interview that Hieromonk Vasily (Roslyakov) is known to have given, shortly before Pascha, April 18, 1993, when he and two other monks—Trophim and Therapont—were killed by the hand of a satanist at Optina Pustyn. Hieromonk Vasily (Roslyakov) Hieromonk Vasily (Roslyakov) —Fr. Vasily, what do you think—will Optina be reborn? —Holy Scripture tells us that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. In God, all are alive. We serve precisely this God, Who arose and conquered death by His resurrection; God has no death, and in God there is no death; it exists only outside of God. Therefore, it is wholly natural that Optina is alive. For a believer, this question does not even exist. —And are there living elders? —Of course. —And the spirit of Russia—what is it? —The spirit of Russia is Christ. He tells us, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Inasmuch as spirituality cannot be outside of Christ, for Russia it is expressed in one word: Christ. He is everything. —Maybe this is where our tragedy comes from —Without a doubt. —We are devoted to Christ, and therefore we are persecuted? —That is undoubtedly so, as Christ said, In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world (Jn. 16:33). The promises of the Lord are immutable, and no one can ever abolish them. We live today only by these promises. It’s the only way. —I realize that it’s probably impossible to ask, but anyways, tell us, as far as possible, about your internal life. —The internal life of Optina is a mystery, a Sacrament. Our Church has seven Sacraments, as you know. Everything is anchored on these Sacraments, and every Sacrament has some external coloring—some prayers are read, some actions are completed—but during the Sacraments it’s Christ Himself Who acts, invisibly. It is His grace that completes the Sacrament. It’s the same with the external and internal life of Optina. You see the external, but the internal life is impossible to speak about. Again: The internal life of Optina Pustyn is Christ Himself. We can understand this internal life only if we join ourselves to God. It can be opened to you no other way. I am the door, says the Lord, by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture (Jn. 10:9). The door to the inner spiritual life of Optina is Christ. —And all of this is unspoken? —Unspoken, because how can you speak about how God acts? It’s impossible. —But can you speak about how you feel, for example? —It’s possible. Take the Psalms of David. He says, O taste and see that the Lord is good. Please—eat and see. For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth (Heb. 12:6). We are God’s beloved sons because we possess the truth of Orthodoxy, and therefore, naturally, we are chastened, for the Lord especially loves us. As any father, who loves his son, he does not leave him without chastisement. He chastises out of love, not out of cruelty. Do you understand? We’re used to chastising only out of cruelty. We don’t know such a feeling—love, and we don’t know what chastisement with a feeling of love is. The Lord chastises us precisely with love, to teach us. We are sent some sorrows for this purpose, for our admonishment, that we would know the truth of Christ. Therefore, there is nothing frightful in this; we must be ready for sorrows at all times. And I assure you that there is no person on earth who will never mourn. And that it is so with us, I believe that we have it the best. We are good only because we are Orthodox, if we are Orthodox. There is nothing better than us; if we embrace Orthodoxy, then we are good. —And why has Christ chosen us? —Well, He has chosen and taken us. How do we know the Providence of God? When He gathered His disciples, He said to them, “You think you have chosen Me? No, I have chosen you and ordained you to serve” (cf. Jn. 15:16). Why did the Lord choose the Jewish people? We don’t know. Why did He give them the holy prophets, and the Old Testament? Why did He choose the Russian people and grant them to preserve the truth of Orthodoxy? We do not know the ways of God, and for us it is a closed secret, sealed, and perhaps forever. Perhaps even after death it will not be opened to us. But as this gift has been given to us, we are obliged to preserve it and keep it holy. But how and why—it’s not our business. —What is service for you? —We perform our service to God. The Lord says, “You will worship Me in spirit and in truth, in every place” (cf. Jn. 4:21-24). This service is communion with God—conversation. Prayer is our conversation with God, our standing before Him, our service to Him. Therefore, it’s always alive, never-dying; there is life, and there is the presence of Christ Himself. —And you do not grow weary of this service? —Well, we are not angels, so we get tired. We are people, but the Lord strengthens us as much as He deems necessary. He gives us to be tired, and to work hard. St. Isaac the Syrian writes, “If your prayer was without contrition of heart, and without bodily labor, then consider that you prayed as the Pharisees.” So it is necessary to spill some sweat, and to force your body, and your soul, of course. So it is work. But remember what Elder Silouan says: “To pray for the world is to shed blood.” This is prayerful labor. And take the Gospel, where the Lord prayed about the cup: And his sweat was as it were great drops of blood (Lk. 22:44). That’s what prayer can be. This is unfamiliar and unknown to us, but such prayer also exists. —So to achieve something, we have to pass through pain? —Inevitably. It is a rule of life. The Lord Himself established it. Why did He endure the Cross; why did He suffer? —Everyone must pass through his own cross, otherwise nothing will work out in his internal life? —It will not work out in any way. Take up [your] cross and follow me (Mt. 16:24)—these are the Lord’s words. That means we necessarily must take up our cross and follow the Lord with faith. “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me, and you will be My disciples” (cf. Mt. 16:24). This is the whole law. But, basically, as the holy fathers teach, all that a monk fulfills, a pious Christian should fulfill, except perhaps that we give an oath of celibacy. It used to be this way. The life of ancient Christians differed little from monks. Hieromonk Vasily before the graves of the Optina elders Hieromonk Vasily before the graves of the Optina elders —But, all the same, your life is more internal… —It’s not for us to judge. The Lord is the Judge—where we are. He knows what we live by, and how we live. —How difficult for you, and simply painful! —Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven (Mt. 5:12), and again I say, Rejoice (Phil. 4:4). These are the promises we have, and you say difficult. —But all the same, is it difficult for you? —The Lord helps us, and therefore it’s easier for us. —He helps everyone, but it’s still harder for you. —After all, a father has his favorite sons, right? Monks are the beloved sons. Who does God love more; who does He help more? Monks. Therefore, it’s easier for us. But people who are distant from God as if become prodigal sons. Then it becomes difficult for them. Why difficult? Because it’s harder for the Lord Himself to help them. Do you understand? This is what difficulty arises from in life—when a person takes something upon himself and removes himself from God, Who helps him. The world carries all these sorrows because it has walked away from God, pulled itself away from Christ, and taken upon itself this unbearable load. But we have come to God, and the Lord Himself carries us and does everything. —But again, if we are more loved, then we have more suffering, although it is not externally visible? —Everyone has pain, and everyone has suffering. Monks are the Lord’s beloved children. Take, for example, the elders. What did they come to? To unceasing joy. They were sources of joy for us. Imagine you go to Batiushka Ambrose and say, “Batiushka, Fr. Ambrose, you are grieving, probably, right?” Looking at them, such questions did not arise. It’s in looking at us, so feeble, that such questions can arise. Hieromonk Vasily (Roslyakov) Translated by Jesse Dominick Pravoslavie.ru 4/18/2017 See also

el abad de un monasterio ruso en las kuriles en el mar de japón

RUSSKY ISLAND AND ITS INHABITANTS A Talk with the Abbot of St. Seraphim’s Monastery Abbot Clement (Krivonosov) Photo from the archives of Abbot Clement (Krivonosov) Photo from the archives of Abbot Clement (Krivonosov) Igumen Clement (Krivonosov), the abbot of St. Seraphim’s Monastery on Russky island in the Sea of Japan, shares with us his thoughts on neophytes with a quarter of a century of experience, the border between individuality and selfhood, modern monks and Patericons, and many other interesting and important things. The brethren of the monastery with Abbot Clement The brethren of the monastery with Abbot Clement God’s providence acts with spiritual tact We constantly live in the flow of God’s providence, in everything. Occurrences and events are always happening that don’t fit into the usual laws of nature. And these cases can be classified as miracles of God, special manifestations of God’s providence for us. We take the bees out to the apiary—the car breaks down, we look for another—help immediately comes. Then there’s the weather and other things… The brothers get sick, money is scarce—and again, miraculous help. Everything is somehow arranged providentially—we live in this mode all the time. For a believer, the providence of God is obvious in everything, and if it’s not obvious, it’s still visible. But for a non-believer—even if you tell him about a clear miracle, you lay it out on a platter—he’ll say: “So what?!” He remains insensitive to the miracle. The providence of God always acts with spiritual tact—the Lord comes into our life very tactfully, with peace and love. Not on the tongue, but in the heart It is important for each of us to meet a true Christian on our path in life. Whether a priest or layman, what matters is that he’s a living bearer of spiritual values, for whom these values are not on the tongue, but in the heart. For me it was a priest—Archpriest Leonty Kolnogorov. He serves in the Edinovertsi Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Nizhny Tagil. The Edinovertsi are Old Believers who are in prayerful and Eucharistic communion with us. I didn’t know such subtleties then, it just so happened that I first had a heart-to-heart talk with this batiushka when I was still unbaptized. I was so affected by talking with him that I asked him to baptize me. And he has remained a living example of a Christian for me for the rest of my life. This was my first, most important encounter. The Lord later sent me more mentors. There was Metropolitan Benjamin (Pushkar) of Vladivostok and Primorye, who was our ruling hierarch for almost a quarter of a century. You could say he created the clergy of the diocese. With rare exceptions, all of our monks and priests today were tonsured and ordained by him. St. Seraphim’s Monastery St. Seraphim’s Monastery Is spiritual mentorship possible in our days? It’s often said now that there are no more true spiritual guides in our days, there can be no guidance, you just have to live with spiritual advice. I believe that spiritual mentoring is possible in our days too; it’s just that this relationship requires a certain spiritual, cultural, intellectual, and even simply psychological level from the spiritual child and from the mentor himself. Neophytes with a quarter of a century of experience In the 1990s, many new people came to the Church, including our brethren. There is practically no one in our monastery who was raised Orthodox from childhood. I grew up in an unbelieving family and wasn’t baptized until I was twenty-four. So we are, generally speaking, neophytes, though with fifteen years of experience, or twenty or twenty-five. During this period, we experienced a variety of temptations and mistakes, including in spiritual leadership. We learned from these mistakes. Thus the Lord worked providentially on the scale of our entire Local Church, because there was a similar situation in all of our monasteries. Exceptions are exceptions. Sporadic monasteries remained where the spiritual succession was preserved. This period was very difficult for all of us, but we survived it with God’s help. Even the Lavra elders who nourished us spiritually also made mistakes in guiding other people. Now we’re entering a different period—we already have some experience. It’s good to learn from your own experience—from practice, not just theory. The monastery The monastery We could write our own Patericons We have these books called Patericons. They describe the mistakes, falls, and temptations of the fathers who lived the monastic life. We could write our own Patericons, because we experienced all of this. We haven’t just read about it in books, but experienced it for ourselves: prelest,[1] madness, pride, and inexperienced “elders.” Temptations from the right are when a monk is drawn to pride, vanity, and prelest, and temptations from the left are when he is a drawn into fornication, gluttony, lust, love for the world—towards the flesh. We have experienced and still experience all this. We learn from this. St. Seraphim St. Seraphim I’m only now starting to understand what spiritual guidance is I’ve had to learn what spiritual guidance is. I’ve been the abbot of the monastery for ten years and I’m only now beginning to understand what spiritual guidance is. It’s like in family life. I even think the situation in a monastery is better than in a family. There is no one to teach family life. People get married and they’re completely unprepared for it, and they don’t have any examples of normal family life, because their parents also didn’t have any proper worthy examples. Everything has to be learned. After all, the relationship between spouses should be very subtle, tender. You need both worldly and spiritual tact and discernment; you have to respect the personality of your loved one, not crossing any boundaries that ought not be crossed. It’s the same in monasticism. We read in the Patericons that you need obedience—so you go and drop the hammer, and people are outraged and grumbling. But you don’t have spiritual discernment, and you don’t know how to drop the hammer correctly. Or, I decided: The elders were kind, and I will try to become a good abbot; I will love everyone and forgive everyone everything. This also leads to distortions, only on the other side—the brothers stop perceiving you as their elder, they walk all over you, and passions grow in them like wild flowers. A spiritual leader must sometimes also be a spiritual whip. You need to learn all this from your own experience. Where is the border between hardness and softness? Between condescension and mercy and strictness and exactingness? Where is the border between individuality and egotism? We have to clearly understand where the border between individuality and egotism runs. This is that which a spiritual father shouldn’t touch, where he shouldn’t intrude. It is the image of God in man, given him by the Creator. And if a spiritual guide begins to harshly intrude, then most often there will be a conflict with the spiritual child. On the other hand, a spiritual father is a spiritual doctor. He should help his spiritual child renounce his passionate nature, his egotism, so he can grow spiritually and bear fruit. The ego must be broken, but individuality—never. Go figure… After all, man is not a Kalashnikov [machine gun], but a living being. It’s hard to get good results even with a plant—how much to water it, what kind of fertilizer to use; but man is much more difficult, and therefore that spiritual guidance is a whole science. How to be happy in a family or a monastery? The familial and monastic paths both require a man to display the same spiritual virtues; both require a struggle with the passions. Otherwise, a man will not be happy either in a family or in monasticism. It depends on the spouses whether a family will have Paradise or hell, warmth or cold. It’s the same in a monastery—it will become either happiness or a prison for a monk. Of course, the personality of the abbot is important, but still, much depends on the monk himself. The passions in a family and in a monastery are the same. To be happy even in the earthly plane, if we’re speaking about earthly peace, we mustn’t repay evil with evil, but love others, bear one another’s infirmities, as the Apostle Paul says: Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2). We have to be merciful and patient. Why are people unhappy in families? Because they can’t get over their selfishness. It’s the same in a monastery. You have to renounce your old man, renounce the ego. Don’t take revenge, don’t contradict. Let’s say there’s a family conflict. The wife says one word to the husband, he says five in return, she says ten, and the conflict develops. Whoever stops first is a martyr: He allows the anger to stop on himself. From a worldly point of view, he lost, but from the spiritual point of view, he conquered his egotism, he overcame this argument. The same thing happens in monasticism. You can argue with the brethren about anything, but it’s more correct to cut off your own will and peacefully fulfill your obediences. You have to understand that you can’t remake someone else. This is how he is. You can’t change yourself in any way, and so how are you going to remake someone else, or even prove something to him by raising your voice?! The Lord spoke about this: Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye (Mt. 7:5). Every monastery is a spiritual family Personality is unique. If a spiritual father starts breaking a person under himself, starts stepping all over his personality, this is incorrect. “I told you to do this!” You have to separate the person from the ego. There must be spiritual discernment; you have to be able to see where a person bends, and where he breaks. Age is important here. A young branch can bend, but you can’t bend an old one anymore. The young can and must bend, but they also have to know their own measure. Let’s say Fr. Agafangel came at seventy years of age, was tonsured at seventy-two, and now he’s already ninety, and I’m forty-five. How am I going to remake him?! He has lived his life—he is how he is. Every monastery is a spiritual family. Even in families that aren’t the best, the parents love their children. Thus, in a monastery, the abbot should be like the parents in a family: He should love his children and condescend to their infirmities, and at the same time, educate them. Because the Lord will ask him: Why did you allow them to become so undisciplined?! I gave you authority! Just like a parent’s authority over his children. The monastery church The monastery church Which path is more difficult: family or monastic? For me personally, the family path would be more difficult than the monastic path. I know how difficult it is for a person to live a Christian life in the world—to keep your own fasts, to find work to make an honest living, and to maintain a family with dignity at the same time. It’s easier for us to live a Christian life in the monastery. We’re in a quiet harbor here, but in the world they live as in a raging sea. In the world, the family’s task is to become a kind of fortress where a unified spiritual atmosphere is preserved, and parents need to preserve spiritual closeness with their children, not lose them, especially during adolescence; and this is very difficult. The world with its sinful allurements can be attractive, and it’s very difficult to retain children in true values, in faith, and to raise them as Christians. I don’t know what this is like in practice—I grew up in an unbelieving family. My grandmother was a believer, it’s true, but my grandfather was a communist, and grandma hid her faith. Although, I saw her icons, I saw her praying, but she didn’t reveal her faith to us and didn’t try to pass it on. It’s simpler in a monastery: We receive people who are already determined. If someone doesn’t agree to live by our internal rules, we say: “Well, then live how you want, just do it outside our territory.” But in a family, parents won’t say this to their own child. They have to endure, even if they have become spiritual strangers to one another. It’s a real drama. This almost never happens in monasticism. In a normal monastery, as a rule, the spiritual family is in unity, and everyone understands why they’re there. In the monastery church In the monastery church In honor of St. Seraphim Our Russky Island is located at the very edge of the Earth, in Peter the Great Bay in the Sea of Japan. Before the revolution, the 34th East Siberian Infantry Regiment served here, guarding the eastern borders of the Russian Empire. And there is still an army on the island, only now it’s spiritual—the brethren of our monastery. Our monastery is named in honor of St. Seraphim of Sarov, since the main church was built and consecrated in his honor back in 1914. At that time, it was a regimental church. After the Russo-Japanese War, the regiment was permanently stationed on the island, and the soldiers built barracks here, and for their camp church they erected a sturdy building—our church. Then the First World War began, the riflemen were sent to the front; the church was transferred to the local diocesan jurisdiction, and in the 1920s it was turned into a club. Later they even forgot that the church was once in honor of St. Seraphim… When a parish was opened here in the 1990s, it was only thanks to local historians that they remembered the saint in whose honor our church was consecrated. In 2001, the monastery was opened. We have parishioners who come here from the city and are spiritually nourished in our monastery. During a service During a service About saints in our lives Of course, we greatly venerate St. Seraphim of Sarov, since it’s his monastery. We venerate St. Matrona [of Moscow], and Blessed Xenia [of Petersburg]. Special relationships are developed with every saint. It’s hard to explain, since we don’t know them personally, but you read their lives, you pray—and when you pray, you feel closeness to the saints, sometimes even their different characters and personality traits. After all, every person is unique, each manifesting the image of God in his own way. It’s the same with the saints—each reveals facets of sanctity in a special way. I could name the top ten, so to speak, saints whom our brotherhood venerates. It’d be better to say to whom we most often turn for prayerful help: Blessed Matrona and Xenia, the Royal Passion-bearers, St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, the Optina elders, St. John the Forerunner. We also venerate Sts. Nicholas of Japan, Innocent of Irkutsk, and John of Shanghai—saints who are near to us geographically. The life of our monastery The monastery is in a new place, and we first took the typikon of the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra as our foundation, as the Lavra elders blessed us. Then life brought some changes, and we added something, changed something, of course within the bounds of the typikon, whether becoming stricter or, on the contrary, more lenient. The typikon changes sometimes, depending on the spiritual maturity of the brotherhood. It’s one thing if the monastery is very young, and another if the brotherhood is already firmly on its own feet. Since 2013, we’ve been serving Matins in the morning. It’s usually served in the evening in parishes, and it turns out the daily cycle of services is broken; and this happens everywhere. In monasteries, you can organize the daily cycle correctly, so the Midnight Office is served in the first hours after midnight, Matins is served in the morning, at sunrise, and in the evening—Vespers and Compline. We moved over to this routine. We get up at 3:30 AM and Midnight Office begins at 4:00. This is roughly how Mt. Athos serves, so it’s been sanctified by the monastic tradition. Liturgy is at 6:00 on weekdays, and later on the weekends—it’s oriented towards parishioners, so they have time to get here. Russky Island Russky Island On gobies, bees, and seafood When the monastery had just opened, the brothers were involved in fishing, roasting gobies,[2] then eating them in cutlets. But we don’t do our own fishing anymore: It requires a boat that has to be properly maintained and stored somewhere, and you need a permanent person dedicated to this. Sometimes people ask about seafood during the fasts. What can I say? We’re not Greeks; we don’t eat seafood during the fasts: They’re living organisms, not plants. But we have a rather large apiary with forty hives, and an experienced beekeeper, Monk Pitirim. He’s seventy-five but still strong. The island is often foggy and very humid, so we take the hives every year to the taiga to harvest the honey, with two or three brothers living in the taiga[3] during this time. We also have a farm: six dairy cows, calves, chickens. We have a bakery. We bake bread and pastries, including for sale. These are our trades by which we support the monastery. But we don’t catch fish. It’s actually not so easy. You have to have official documents, permission, approval, and it didn’t work out for us for some reason. There are picturesque places around the monastery, there are trails, and in previous years I would often go for a walk around the island. I would go out into the woods, but now I hardly go out. Maybe I’m just not as young as I used to be. Russky Island Russky Island In closing, I wish all the readers of OrthoChristian.com God’s help. Come visit us! Russky Island Russky Island Abbot Clement (Krivonosov) Translated by Jesse Dominick Pravoslavie.ru 9/7/202

MADRE ABADESA DE KIEV DICE QUE LA IGLESIA DEL PATRIARCADO UCRANIO MANTIENE SUS FUERTES VINVULOS COON LA MADRRE RUSA Y CALIFICA LA GUERRA COMO UNA MANIUOBRA DE SOROS

“THE MONASTIC COMMUNITY IN UKRAINE IS DETERMINED TO MAINTAIN UNITY WITH ITS MOTHER, THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH” Abbess Seraphima (Shevchik) During the plenum of the Inter-Council Presence of the Russian Orthodox Church, abbots and abbesses of monasteries from various countries come to Moscow to collectively discuss documents prepared by the relevant commissions of the Presence. By the grace of God, neither political differences between the states where the Russian Church is located nor the heat of the passions in the media prevent the sons and daughters of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from participating in this forum, so important for Orthodox people. Taking advantage of the opportunity, we asked Abbess Seraphima (Shevchik), the abbess of the Convent of the Archangel Michael in Odessa and head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s Synodal Department for Church and Culture, to answer questions from the website, Monastic Bulletin. And, of course, we began with the most important issue: —Mother, we know how difficult life is for Orthodox people in Ukraine today. But we would like to hear from you how you live. Is it difficult to be an inhabitant of a monastery of the Church of the Moscow Patriarchate? —We live in peace, thanking the Lord for His great mercies, because all of us monastics of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church know perfectly well that our foundation is unshakable. The Church was created By the Lord Himself. He is its Head and no one else! Not the Patriarch of Constantinople, as one of the Phanariots said—this statement can be found on the internet. We know precisely who our Head is, so nothing can threaten us. —But, in the monasteries, besides the monastics, there are the parishioners of the monastery churches, and the monastics have relatives whose opinions about the events taking place in Ukraine sometimes do not coincide with their views, but, conversely, are diametrically opposed… —We should note the fact that not a single monastery of the Ukrainian Church has transferred to the new structure—the OCU—and we have not even heard that any of the monastics have expressed such a desire. If in the parishes of Western Ukraine there were cases when some part of the parishioners expressed such a desire, then in the monasteries there was nothing like this, including in monasteries in Western Ukraine. In Volyn, Rivne, and the Lvov region, which are probably the most problematic areas, the inhabitants unanimously support His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and pray for their primate. This shows that the monastic community in Ukraine is determined to maintain unity with its Mother—the Russian Orthodox Church. —The next question probably concerns everyone whose relatives are on different sides of the conflict in the countries whose political relations have deteriorated. Tell us, how and for whom do you pray? —As befits Orthodox Christians, we pray for the authorities and the troops of our God-protected country of Ukraine every day in the Divine services. And, of course, we especially commemorate His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, our great master and father. This is the direct duty of all members of the Church—to commemorate our primate. I constantly commemorate His Holiness Patriarch Kirill both during the services and while reading my cell rule. My personal attitude towards him is filled with reverent love and esteem. I consider His Holiness one of the pillars of modern Orthodoxy. I also commemorate many other hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church whom I know personally, whom I met on my life’s path and who entreated holy prayers, and I do this with joy in my heart. I commemorate many of my friends who live in the Russian Federation. They are dear, kind people, whom I respect. From this, I remember that we are all, first of all, Christians. The sisters commemorate their relatives, near and far, who live in Russia—they are native people for them, for whom, of course, they pray. We always pray for peace in the whole world, and especially in Ukraine, as His Holiness the Patriarch commanded us. At every service, when we’re reading the prayer for peace in Ukraine, everyone prays on his knees. Even on great feasts, when kneeling is not called for, I see that parishioners pray on their knees. They do this, hoping that the Lord will see their zeal, hear their requests, and help. People want peace and are really suffering from the lack of it. They experience it as a personal grief. —Mother, the 18th International Nativity Educational Readings, held at the end of January, were dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Victory of the soviet people in the Second World War. Is Victory Day still a holiday for believers in Ukraine? —The 75th anniversary of the Victory in WW2 is a great holiday for all of us; a holiday with tears in our eyes. When the question of whether to celebrate it today arises in Ukraine, neither I, nor the sisters, nor any of the Odessans I know have any opinion other than that we must celebrate it! Odessa greatly suffered during the war. Unique architectural monuments were barbarously destroyed, and several hundred thousand people were destroyed, including several tens of thousands of Jews. The fascists mocked us, then burned us alive, placing people in old barracks, and then dousing them with gasoline. There’s a Holocaust museum in Odessa, founded by the Jewish community. We recently met a ghetto prisoner there who is now ninety-two. He’s alive, healthy, alert; I was very glad to talk with a living witness of those terrible events, and I wished him healthy and long life, and shook his hand… He was one of the witnesses of the diabolical cruelty of fascism and can speak about the horrors created by the Nazi invaders, possessed by a misanthropic ideology. It was very instructive to meet him as a living embodiment of history. Odessa is a multinational city. There are 132 nationalities in the Odessa Province, and we all peacefully coexist with one another. Peace is a very important concept for Odessans, so it’s very important for us to remember WW2 and the Victory! —It’s also important because, whatever our differences, it’s necessary to join forces in defending Orthodoxy and our paternal faith. If it doesn’t happen, the consequences will be tragic… —Yes, you’re right. By the way, during WW2, the schisms and Church disorder worsened in Ukraine, because the occupying Nazi authorities strongly supported them. The so-called Autocephalous Church was created, headed by Polycarp Sikorsky, who not only separated from the Moscow Patriarchate, but also called for hostility towards everything connected with the Russian Orthodox Church, inciting enmity between Christians. At about the same time, the autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church was created, which was in unity with the Moscow Patriarchate but was persecuted by the Nazi authorities. Bishops and clergy were arrested. The Gestapo arrested Metropolitan Alexei (Gromadsky), the head of the autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and in 1944, he was killed by followers of Stepan Bandera. The armed formations of the Ukrainian insurgent army, which were fighting with the soviet army then and, as their followers now claim, with the German fascist invaders, dealt harshly with members of the autonomous Orthodox Church who supported the Moscow Patriarchate. They killed more than forty priests, and clergymen were tortured and abused. Some of them were drowned alive in wells and others were shot. Bishop Manuel (Tarnavsky) was kidnapped by Banderites and hanged in the forest just for being in canonical unity with the Moscow Patriarchate. Few know about it, but it’s a bitter page in the history of Ukraine. —The plenum of the Inter-Council Presence gathers representatives of the episcopate, clergy, monastics, and laity of the Russian Orthodox Church to discuss documents prepared by the relevant commissions. Why do you think it’s so important today to take the situation in Ukraine into account when preparing these texts? Isn’t the need to preserve Church unity obvious to everyone? —The unity of the Church is the fulfillment of the prayer of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to His Heavenly Father before His sufferings and death on the Cross, when He said in prayer: That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us (Jn. 17:21). The unity of the Church is a commandment given by God. The Lord Himself blesses us to preserve this unity, and whoever breaks it, who calls for extremism, taking actions aimed at inciting hostility between Christians, goes against the will of God, against Christ and His commandments of love and unity. What’s happening during the meeting of the Inter-Council Presence is extremely important. The plenum is examining the text of a document that reflects the pressing problems of modern Church life. I thank the Lord that I am among those who are now gathered under the arches of the hall of Church Councils of the Christ the Savior Cathedral. There are famous theologians, respected experts on various Church issues, people with vast experience and deep, versatile knowledge—the real elite of the Church. Such cooperation enriches a Church person, expanding his spiritual horizon. I am grateful to the hierarchy that the sons and daughters of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have the opportunity to be in this family, to be involved in making crucial decisions that affect, as I think, the life of the universal Church. At this plenum, we spoke about the consequences of schisms and heresies, about the schism in Ukraine, and about the position of the Local Churches, several of which, unfortunately, blasphemously violate the Christian principles of fraternal communion and unity in Christ to please the interests of world elites. I would also like to say that during the working days of the plenum of the Inter-Council Presence, we have the happy opportunity to communicate more closely with His Holiness the Patriarch. Personally, it is extremely valuable for me to observe how our primate works, to listen to his speeches, to watch how he communicates with the audience, how tactfully he expresses his observations and comments on the issues being discussed. He is a man of great wisdom, encyclopedic knowledge, and priceless spiritual experience. Communicating with our primate spiritually enriches and delights. We love our patriarch, we pray for him, and we empathize with him. His cross is very heavy! At a time when there are tectonic faults, dangerous for the whole of world Orthodoxy, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill courageously stands for God’s truth, opposing the heresy of Phanariot papism and the unacceptable interference of Constantinople in the life of the Local Churches. He firmly defends the foundations of the Orthodox faith, and we are called to support him in this. —Matushka, when you return home, do you tell the sisters about what happens during your trips? Do you discuss the issues that you participate in resolving out of obedience to the Church? —Of course. Moreover, not only the sisters, but the parishioners of the monastery, and even completely secular people with whom I have good, friendly relations, and my friends on social networks are all interested in what is happening in the Church. I have more than 5,000 friends on Facebook, and it’s clear from their comments that even those who are far from the Church are interested in the work of the plenum of the Inter-Council Presence, the Nativity readings, and other Church forums and events. Social networks are one of the most successful missionary platforms at the moment. People are concerned with what’s being discussed in the Church; they begin to get involved in Church topics, to talk about issues of the spiritual life, to think about what’s happening in the Church realm, and to discuss these truly important matters with one another. —But surely there are those who disagree with your position? Do you have time for online discussions? —Many of the sisters of our monastery used to have the view that being on social networks doesn’t bring a Church person anything but unnecessary fuss. I had to explain that in our present times, when anti-Church forces are interfering in the life of Orthodoxy in the most unacceptable and aggressive way, it’s not only useful, but also extremely necessary to expand the influence of the Church to various communities of people, including the secular. For example, under the former president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, a whole campaign to discredit our holy canonical Church descended upon the citizens of Ukraine, affecting the entire nation and all circles of the population! The situation has changed for the better now. Nevertheless, when such things happen, we can’t just hole up in our cell, close the door tightly and not notice what’s going on. We can’t, unfortunately. Monasteries are called to conduct educational work and engage in missionary activities, and they should elucidate the position of the Church. —What’s more, it is precisely the monasteries that enjoy a special trust not only among the faithful, but also secular people… —You’re absolutely correct. Thank God that our monasteries in Ukraine, wherever they are, truly enjoy great trust among the people. We have here now in the hall of Church Councils of Christ the Savior Cathedral a member of the Inter-Council Presence Abbess Raphaela of the Korets stavropegial Monastery in the Rivne region, which was nearly stormed by radicals. After the provocative rumor that the Moscow Patriarchate hides weapons for pro-Russian citizens and Cossacks in the Korets Monastery, extremists began to break into the monastery, demanding that the nuns give them the hidden arsenal. But, contrary to their expectations that the monastery had barricaded itself and was preparing for resistance, the abbess flung open the doors of the monastery and invited the stormers to find everything themselves that they thought was hidden in the monastery. Of course, nothing was found and the deception was revealed in all its disgusting essence. Mother Raphaela extinguished this hostile wave with love and humility, thereby preventing a conflict that could probably have had tragic consequences. In Western Ukraine, every monastery is a martyr. The abbess Stephana of the Zimnee Monastery and the sisters, in the most difficult years—2014-2016—endured the burden of misunderstanding, aggression, and enmity from the local population, including former parishioners, because a climate of intolerance towards the Moscow Patriarchate reigned all around. The malice reached the point of readiness to kill and expel dissenters. After all, nearly the entire media in Ukraine was talking about how the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate were a “fifth column;” that they must be pursued, isolated, and evicted from the country. Petro Poroshenko himself spoke about it many times, and many other politicians. Unfortunately, the rhetoric of hatred affected many hearts and souls at the time. The abbesses of the monasteries of the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches in the western provinces of Ukraine have told me many times that they are waiting for an assault and bloodshed any day. It was restless in the Pochaev Lavra too. The life of the monastics is accompanied by constant provocations. Now, thank God, everything has changed. The people have begun to see the light. The tension has eased. I bow before the bravery of the inhabitants of these holy habitations, who patiently and humbly endured ridicule, humiliation, insults, and threats against their communities. They endured everything, conquering evil with their love and again turned the hearts of the people to God, to His truth. This is truly a great podvig of the monasteries and monastics in western Ukraine. Cross Procession 2019, Kiev Cross Procession 2019, Kiev —Do you think that the current situation in Ukraine will prevent a new generation of monastics from coming to the monasteries of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church? —On the contrary, paradoxically enough, the number of parishioners in the churches has grown. When the Church faced persecution, people began to more actively express their position, defending the faith and the Church. You see how our all-Ukrainian cross processions only grow in number. In 2018, 250,000 people participated in the cross procession of the canonical Orthodox Church in Kiev, and in 2019, more than 300,000. People rallied, as in Montenegro, to protect their holy sites. —Today, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine has become an example of strength of faith and standing in the truth and in confessing Christ for Orthodox Christians throughout the world. Probably it wouldn’t be a transgression against the truth if we were to say that it’s largely thanks to his personal holiness and his readiness to bear a martyric witness to his faith that the people of Ukraine united and proved able to withstand this crucible. —Without a doubt it’s thanks to the personal example, courage, Christlike love, and wisdom of His Beatitude Onuphry. The Lord said to the apostles: Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves (Matt. 10: 16). Metropolitan Onuphry is a man of extraordinary fortitude, which is combined in him with purity and simplicity. He does not like the sophisticated weaving of words, and it seems he even organically does not tolerate it. The words of Metropolitan Onuphry are always very simple, but permeated with the light of Christ-like faith. His Beatitude always reminds his flock that the main thing in our life should be Christ. He reminds us of this all the time. And, you know, I’ve noticed that people need this simplicity. The secular audience is huge, and many people are thirsty for this simplicity and purity from the Church. They are repelled by long scholastic speeches and generally anything that makes it difficult to understand the meaning. Modern man does not accept long texts and complex reasoning. This is probably why His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry’s manner of communicating with his flock is so effective. Christ’s and the apostles’ evangelical preaching was devoid of rigor, but was characterized by capacity, spiritual strength, and simplicity. Their speech was understood by fishermen, shepherds, and farmers, taking into their hearts the truths presented in an accessible and loving way. His Beatitude Onuphry also follows these principles in his apostolic ministry. This is what especially attracts the hearts of millions of Ukrainian citizens who feel that this is a man of God. There is nothing superficial, not vainglorious in him—it’s a rare phenomenon today. People feel it in their hearts. I didn’t want to use the word “holiness,” but you yourself said it. You probably used this word correctly… Yes, it is the example of the life of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry and the holiness of his profession of faith that helps the children of the Church preserve unity in peace and love. Ekaterina Orlova spoke with Abbess Seraphima (Shevchik) Translated by Jesse Dominick Monastic Bulletin 2/14/2020 See also

UNA MONJA SEPTUAGENARIA UCRANIANA PRONIOSTICA TIEMPOS DUROS PARA LA FE

“THE OLD NUNS WARNED: THE TIME WILL COME AGAIN WHEN HERETICS WILL START TO SEIZE THE CHURCHES” A Nun of the Kiev Florovsky Monastery About Her Path in Life and the Modern Persecutions in Ukraine Nun Elena (Mikhaleva) Nun Elena (Mikhaleva) Nun Elena (Mikhaleva) Whatever the truth, the “care” of the Patriarch of Constantinople for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and its sacred objects, and especially the claim to some historical subordination to him of our ancient monasteries and churches looks strange, to say the least. As for Florovsky Monastery, which was included in the list of Poroshenko’s “donations” to the Patriarch of Istanbul, the situation also defies all logic. Although, there can’t be any logic in the creation of a new schism except for the political intrigue of the initiator of the establishment of the OCU and the ambitions of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Florovsky Monastery today Florovsky Monastery today The history of the ancient Florovsky Monastery is directly connected with the Russian Orthodox Church and its Kiev Metropolia. And it, like the majority of the monasteries on the territory of today’s Ukraine, it was erected with donations both from the royal treasury and from other high patrons. Suffice it to recall that in past centuries, nuns from famous Russian noble families labored here: Schemanun Nektaria, in the world Princess Natalia Borisovna Dolgorukova, daughter of the famous field marshal and friend of Emperor Peter I Count Boris Petrovich Sheremetevo, and Abbess Parthenia, in the world Apollinaria Alexandrovna Adabash from a noble Moldovan family. St. Elena of Florovsky Monastery St. Elena of Florovsky Monastery St. Elena of Kievo-Florovsky—Ekaterina Alexeevna Bekhteeva in the world (canonized in 2009)—finished her earthly life in the second half of the nineteenth century. Her relics are now in the monastery church. She was born in 1756 in a prominent family in Zadonsk. St. Tikhon of Zadonsk († 1783) was a family friend, and communication with him influenced young Ekaterina’s desire to choose monasticism. He bequeathed his grave to the saint. The founder of the St. Seraphim-Diveyevo Convent, St. Alexandra (Melgunova), received the tonsure in Florovsky Monastery. According to tradition, the young Prokhor—the future great lamp, St. Seraphim of Sarov—visited Florovsky Monastery before his tonsure. Thus, it’s not necessary to speak of any, even nominal, involvement of the Patriarchate of Constantinople with Florovsky Monastery, as with the majority of the historical monasteries of the UOC. Florovsky Monastery, at the foot of Castle Hill Florovsky Monastery, at the foot of Castle Hill An amazing acquaintance with the 85-year-old Nun Elena (Mikhaleva), one of the oldest inhabitants of the monastery, who spent sixty-three (!) years there, awaited us in the monastery. As Mother herself told us, there were ascetics living in the monastery in the 1950s who had arrived before the revolution in 1917. Thus, the school of Russian monasticism in Florovsky Monastery passes through many centuries and preserves its traditions to this day. Mother Elena’s contemporaries include the still-living nuns Marionila, Margarita, 97-year-old Schemanun Epistimia, Nun Mariam—the dean of the monastery who has labored in the monastery for more than forty years, and Nun Emilia—the ustavschitsa[1] who, according to the testimony of the nuns of the monastery, never missed a single service over the years. Abbess Antonia (Filkina, † 04.16.2018), who reposed in the Lord last year, came on obedience from the Bryansk Province and devoted her entire life to the monastery. It should be noted that the monastery’s tradition included housing and raising orphans, and even in Soviet times girls lived and were educated in Florovsky Monastery. Many nuns came here with the blessing of St. Kuksha of Odessa and Elder Nikolai Guryanov. Mother Elena welcomed us cordially and greeted us with the coming Nativity of Christ. And to the question of how she feels about the emergence in Ukraine of the new schismatic structure called the “OCU,” she answered that she has experienced various forms of persecution in her life, from open atheism in school to harassment and eviction from the monastery under Khrushchev, and that the current “initiatives” of the Ukrainian authorities headed by Poroshenko[2] are also aimed against the true Church of Christ—only now not under any atheistic slogans, but under the cunning signage of some “spirituality,” about which spoke the Savior of the world: For many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many (Mt. 24:5). Mother’s story about her life, about the Christian education she received during the fierce persecutions against the Church of God, about her desire to dedicate her life to God in a monastery of ancient Kiev where Russian monasticism was born, and about her love for her native Florovsky Monastery, flourishing near Castle Hill in Podil since the sixteenth century, serves, in our view, as a beautiful illustration of loyalty to the canonical Orthodox Church, which, according to Christ, the gates of hell shall not prevail against until the end of the ages (Mt. 16:18). My father’s upbringing shaped my faith and my inner self-discipline —Matushka, tell us about yourself: Where were you born and who led you to the Orthodox faith? After all, you entered the monastery at seventeen… —I was born in 1936 in a very religious family. My father—Mikhail Egorevich Mikhalev was from Kursk, and my mother—Maria Ulyanovna, a native of Brest, wound up in Kursk, where her family fled during the First World War, and they met there. I remember the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the raids—everything is still right before my eyes. Young Olga with her father Mikhail and her brother Alexei, a future priest, 1951 Young Olga with her father Mikhail and her brother Alexei, a future priest, 1951 My father was a man of the nineteenth century, you could say. He was always at church: He sang, he led the choir; they knew him in Kursk. The family also did everything appointed by the Church typikon. When we began to grow up a little, everyone, from small to big, went to church. So we had an old-fashioned upbringing; that is, we weren’t allowed to cut our hair, to go to the movies, to dance. And if my father found out from an acquaintance that I broke his rules, he would summon me and ask: “Did you dance in school?” and after an affirmative answer he would ask why I did it. “Look, Herod’s daughter danced beautifully, and how did that end? She received the head of St. John the Forerunner as a reward. You’re not going to do that anymore, are you?” I answered all of his questions: “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.” Until I would forget… When we moved to my mother’s relatives’ place in Belarus (during the Second World War), I went with some of my peers to the movies; I was nine then (they were showing a lot of war films then), and there was only one showing, in the evening. Children are children. We left the theater in a crowd, we dispersed, each to his own place, and then I remembered my father’s order and began to think about what would happen, what my father would say, ai yai yai… I was walking home along the street past the cemetery—I wasn’t afraid, then I looked at the window in our house—the light was on, and I was afraid… Papa opened the door: “What, you were at the movies? Come over here…” and he took off his belt. Then Mama intervened and began to calm him down and persuade him saying: “It’s late, the neighbors will hear, they’ll get angry. We’ll sort it out tomorrow.” Papa sat me down next to him, he spoke to me, but did not hit me—he just frightened me. As soon as I learned how to read, I was given the duty of reading the lives of the saints for the whole family. My friends would invite me out, but Papa would say: “Read this, and then this.” Sweat was pouring off me, but I read. And Papa kept saying: “It’s nothing, your friends will wait. Finish reading, then go.” That’s how he raised me. We didn’t go to school on the big feasts; everyone knew we were a family of believers. And regarding the authorities, we got away with it. Of course, we never missed Liturgy. After the service, my father always asked which Gospel was read. You know how children behave at church: They stand for a little then they run around the church. But if I couldn’t retell what happened in the festal Gospel reading, I didn’t get any candy after lunch, unlike my younger brother and sister. To my resentful “And for me?” he would answer that I hadn’t been at church since I couldn’t tell him the Gospel… The next time I would stand in church and listen attentively. I would go home and retell the reading. My father would nod approvingly, saying: “Well done, I see you were at the service. And what did Batiushka say in his homily?” But I didn’t remember. “Tell me next time, then you’ll get some candy.” Next time I would listen to the homily, not getting distracted, and my father would say: “I didn’t see (he was on the kliros and could see everything!) you go up to the cross.” “Oi, merciful mother…” I sighed. I had to stand from start to finish and then to listen to the thanksgiving prayers after Communion too… That’s the kind of Church upbringing we had… —It wasn’t a burden for you? There were no protests? —No, no. Papa instilled a love of reading in me, thanks to which I began to love the printed word in general. First I reread the school literature, then I got interested in the classics: Pushkin, Saltikov-Schedrin, Lermontov, Nekrasov. I remember one time we lived far from church—more than four miles in one direction. I was fourteen to fifteen then. I was getting ready for Matins and Papa gave me some money to buy myself something tasty. After the service I ran to the bookstore and instead of gingerbread I bought some books. I read so much that Mama began to lament: “You read every kind of nonsense; you used to read the lives of the saints to us”—so I had to do it in secret from my mother. And one day I thought—my father had so many books on his shelves, I’ll try to start with the Bible. I read the Old Testament, then the New. Since not everything was clear, I decided to open St. John Chrysostom’s interpretations of the Gospel. I started to read it, and, oh my God, how different it was from fiction—an entirely new world was opened to me! “To live like everyone else, or only with God?...” —How old were you when this happened? —I was sixteen then… —And what about your first infatuations, feelings for young men? —Somehow it turned out that my friends, most of whom were older, were invited out, but I wasn’t satisfied by association with them. It didn’t interest me—I wanted something else, something greater; I was drawn to knowledge. History piqued my interest and I wanted to know a lot in general. I experienced some fluctuation when I was fifteen: to live like everyone else or only with God?... And the latter prevailed. And the more I became enlightened, the more I was drawn to another life, farther from the worldly hustle and bustle. But my parents were uneasy: “Why are you always sitting at home with books? Your friends invite you out, we give you money—go to the movies.” 15-year-old Olga Mikhaleva 15-year-old Olga Mikhaleva —When did the thought of the monastery first arise? —I remember when I was still a girl, I would take my mama’s scarf, wrap it around my head, and see if they would take me for a nun; and I got frustrated because I didn’t look like one thanks to my rosy cheeks… I also liked to teach my classmates what I knew. We formed a group of ten to fifteen girls whom I instructed and to whom I explained what Great Lent is and taught them prayers. I had nearly memorized the lives of saints and loved to tell what kind of labors and sufferings the saints endured, what podvigs they undertook, and I called them to follow their example. “There’s nothing to eat, and so what?” I told them. “Let’s go to the river, we’ll dig up some roots and be full.” At that time, children ate everything edible that grew on the earth… Match-making. Thoughts on the monastic life I soon left my father’s house for good. This is how it happened: When I was seventeen, my father had an operation in Brest, and I couldn’t shake the thought of going to Kiev, where my father had walked to on foot in his youth, which he told me about many times. And in Kiev I saw the monastery… Returning home, Papa lamented that the doctor who did the operation was remarkable and could help many but had to stay home because of her young child, and they called her only in extreme cases: “Maybe you could work as a nanny for her?” I agreed, in hope of receiving a city residency permit. The farewell was hard, although it was only twenty-five miles from Brest. I walked along the road, crying the whole way as if something had broken within me. Thus ended my childhood, thus I entered into adult life… And so I arrived to the family’s house, I settled in, I babysat the child, helped with the housework, and I thought: With my passport and registration I could freely go to Kiev to find out about convents. But circumstances, or the enemy of my intentions put up all sorts of obstacles on the path to my goal. This is how it went: After the operation, my older brother took Papa to his place. My brother Alexei served as a village priest from 1950. Two words about him: He was a very zealous priest and did not agree to any of the compromises of the time. When he studied in Zhirovitsy, the seminary authorities ordered to hang a red flag on the cathedral. He refused. They punished him for insubordination but he remained firm in his opinion. Second episode: His young matushka wanted to have a radio at the parish. My brother would cut the radio wires and she would fix it. This happened several times until Matushka gave up the idea… I soon got a telegram from them—an invitation to the church feast. With such an event, you have to go. After all the festivities, the guests left, and we sat at the table—my brother’s family, Papa, and a seminarian Nikolai, my brother’s friend. My brother suddenly said: “Live with us for a year, Olya, and then we’ll have a wedding.” “A wedding? What wedding?” I asked. “Yours,” my brother answered. “What are you planning for me? I’m going to a monastery!” They didn’t attach any important to this, as I hadn’t shown any external signs of a desire for monasticism: I dressed in a secular way, I put curls in my hair, I wore high heels. “And what do we have here if not a monastery? You’ll be a matushka, and here’s the future batiushka Nikolai.” At her brother Alexei’s wedding. The last photo before leaving for Kiev At her brother Alexei’s wedding. The last photo before leaving for Kiev I kept thinking about the monastery all the time, endlessly asking Papa to go with me to Kiev, and he promised that as soon as we saved the money, we would definitely go. And then he got sick, had the operation, and it became clear that I had to go myself. After the talk of a possible marriage, I sharply turned around and said it was time for me to go home to Mama. She was home alone, and here we were staying and celebrating, and I had to honor her. And no matter how they tried to persuade me, no matter how much Papa asked me to stay at least two weeks for him, I was adamant and stood my ground like a wall. I said I was going to see Mama, but I was thinking only about Kiev. My brother and his wife were so offended that they didn’t even come to say goodbye. My poor father sobbed and hugged me, not wanting to let go for anything, as if he felt that we were saying goodbye forever, while I stood like a statue, not shedding a tear. Nikolai couldn’t resist, and said: “I didn’t think, Olga, that you had such a heart of stone; at least have pity upon your father.” I just glanced back, and Papa was bowing and waving his hat at me… I disappeared… A blessing for monasticism I arrived to my mother’s place in Kamenets. I didn’t tell her anything about meeting the seminarian or about their plans. Then I went to confession with Fr. Vladimir, who was good friends with my father, respected him, and knew me since I was six. I blurted out that I wanted to go to a monastery. He immediately said: “God bless you. Go to Kiev—there are three women’s monasteries there.” That was it—he didn’t name a monastery or advise me about which one to go to. It was clear that the Lord had revealed my intention to him. He wasn’t even interested in what my family thought of my intention, whether they agreed with my desire or discouraged me. There wasn’t another word. Inspired by the blessing of the priest, I went to my mother and said: “Mama, I’m going to Kiev.” “Go. You’ve been playing games with us for three years about this Kiev.” Mama reacted to my announcement without any extra sentimentality. “Mama, I want to enter a monastery.” And then it started: “What’s with you? God be with you! You won’t be able, you won’t endure, you don’t know how difficult it is there.” I presented my main argument: “Fr. Vladimir blessed me!” Mama was stupefied; then she went to the icons, threw her hands up and moaned: “Lord, if Thy blessing is upon her, then I bless her too.” Then she turned to me and said: “And if there is no blessing, stay there, pray, and come back. And please, when you arrive in Kiev, let us know immediately; give us your address where you’ll be staying, where to find you.” Having received this good word, I ran to the girls singing in the church and told them about my trip and asked them to sew a covering on my suitcase. “You’ve gone crazy. What do you mean, which monastery? Did your mother give you permission? It’s better to consult with your brother,” and the like. But I didn’t hear anyone anymore. The Lord had called me… In Kiev: first impressions and first temptations —So, there wasn’t a drop of doubt that you were doing the right thing? —I had no doubts. I got on the train, crossed myself, and we left. Of course, some fear of the unknown crept into my soul, and at the same time there was a great desire for life changes… I arrived to the Kiev Station, I dropped my bags at the checkroom, but where to go, I didn’t know… I didn’t even know the name of a single monastery and I was scared to ask—maybe they’d suddenly take me somewhere. I crossed myself: “Lord, bless!” and I started off. The road went down, and I went down; the road went to the right, and I went to the right; the road went up and I went up. I only prayed: “Lord, send me someone who will not deceive me and tell me where to go.” I saw a beggar sitting there and I went up to him with a question about what monasteries there were in Kiev. He named only one for me—Florovsky. And he didn’t just answer me, but through him the Lord showed me where to be. But I didn’t immediately wind up at Florovsky. I had to pass through several trials first. Passers-by, who came upon me along the way, didn’t know anything about Florovsky Monastery and showed me the way to Holy Protection Monastery. Thus, I reached Holy Protection Monastery on foot from the station by evening. I sat on a bench quietly, as if without any worries. I rested. Then I asked one nun about staying for the night. She showed me to the pilgrims’ house. Among the pilgrims was a young girl named Nina who sang on the kliros. I shared my plans for the future with her. “You what?” she exclaimed. “Did your mother bless it?” She again exclaimed at my affirmative answer: “How happy you are! My mama says no way. I’ve been singing in church here for three years already. I’m a soprano.” Holy Protection Monastery today Holy Protection Monastery today Since she was older than me and already knew the structure of the monastery; she led me to the dean. I told my story, who I am, where I was from, and, looking at my passport, she shook her head and explained that it was forbidden to take girls younger than twenty into the monastery. She advised me to get a job and live in the world until I was twenty! I was upset and went out on the porch. I stood there crying, but I understood there was no road back. Suddenly a nun came out wearing a white apostolnik[3] with a cross and asked why I was crying. I explained that I wanted to enter a monastery. It turns out she was the sister of Patriarch Alexei I (Simansky), Euphrosynia, and it was her name’s day that day. She brought out a large prosphora, gave it to me, hugged me, and said: “Don’t cry, you will live in a monastery.” Next, out came the Abbess of Florovsky Convent, Flavia (Tischenko). She had come to congratulate Euphrosynia and one of the nuns said to me: “That’s who you need to ask!” The Holy Protection sisters really loved Abbess Flavia, who had grown up in a monastery since she was three. Mother Euphrosynia comforted me a little—it meant my path to the monastery wasn’t closed. But without any result, I went to find a job. They took me to a construction site—no one would take me at the school as a janitor, and they refused to take teachers of my age either. And I had to register somewhere. Then by chance a woman in a store began to complain that she had to stand in line while no one was at home watching her child. The housekeeper she had for three years quit and went to a monastery. I was with my new friend Nina. Nina turned to the woman, pointed at me, and we got acquainted. The next day it turned out that her husband had already hired another housekeeper. Another temptation! I returned to Holy Protection with nothing. The abbess beckoned me and showed me a telegram: “Come quickly. Father and brother.” Mother demanded an explanation—had I run away from home, and if so, then I had to immediately leave the monastery. Well, what could I do? —You didn’t have any desire to go back home? —Come on! Go home?! One of the nuns, the guestmaster Manefa, realizing I had nowhere to go, advised me not to walk past the abbess’ room, so as not to catch her eye. After a while, the sisters of Florovsky Monastery came to my benefactress, and Manefa asked them to take me to the monastery. We went there, I sat down on a bench, and I already decided I wasn’t going anywhere else! Liturgy began, after which the nuns go to their cells. Florovsky Monastery was idiorhythmic (not cenobitic) and you had to live there “at your own expense.” I also found out that the experienced nuns would take a novice for themselves and answer for them. News about me quickly spread around the monastery; after the service I was surrounded by nuns, both old and young, and they started thinking about whom to assign me to. That’s how it was then. One of them offered me to go with her. She lived with her niece. They re-dressed me more modestly, and took me to meet the abbess. Having learned that I was from western Belarus, she was very angry and started thundering and lecturing me: “The state spent money on your education and instead of going to work, you came to a monastery at seventeen!” It’s like I was doused with cold water, it was so unexpected. The sisters who were there calmed me down, telling me that wasn’t the abbess but the treasurer Antonia. As I later learned, she was very frightened of the phrase “western Belarus.” The abbess turned out to be a completely different person, received me kindly, asked about everything, and said she would think about it until morning. I went to see her after Liturgy, and she sighed and said: “You’ll be in the monastery. But you have to wait at least a year. Go find a job.” Then Mother explained to me why she said that—the abbess couldn’t go against the will of the treasurer. So I waited an entire year. I worked as a nanny-housekeeper in a family from a long line of doctors. My little pupil Tanya is now an experienced cardiologist and often comes to help me, since I have a bad heart… That’s how God arranged it. —And how did you work as a housekeeper, Mother? Was it hard? —Tired isn’t the word for it. My responsibilities included going to the market for groceries, cooking all the food, doing the laundry (there was no washing machine or hot water), tidying up, taking their child out to play, and buffing the floor. Of course, I never did so much work at home. Sometimes I would sit in the tub, wringing out the linens by hand—my hands were small and weak—and I would cry. But I was ready to endure everything for the sake of the monastery. —Did your parents reconcile with your life choice? —Well, they are spiritual people after all. My father himself once wanted to become a monk. Once he wrote to me in a letter that he always feels my soul and when he goes to the kliros, he prays to my patron (our church had a full-length icon of Princess Olga) that she would help me in everything. Once he even had a vision: Princess Olga smiled at him and walked past him to the Mother of God to entreat her for me. Interestingly, after this vision that my father told me about, I received my residency permit. Three years later my father died. We didn’t see one another… The last temptation before entering the monastery I worked for a year. My mistress’s brother, an officer, came from Moscow. The entire family went on vacation to Crimea and the daughter and I went to the dacha near Kiev. So, for an entire month I went to church with three-year-old Tanyusha, took her to Communion—throwing her onto my shoulder—and after Liturgy we would go to Mother at Florovsky and drink tea. Later, when her parents had already returned from vacation, she asked me: “Do you remember, we went to church and Batiushka gave me some honey, and do you remember, we drank tea with Mother?” It turns out Tanyusha remembered everything. I was afraid she’d tell her parents and they’d punish me. But the child didn’t blab once; the Lord showed her the way. After all, her father was a factory director and had three orders; her mother and grandmother were doctors and there could have been great trouble for them at work if they knew I took their daughter to church. And they would have fired me since I hadn’t asked permission for it. And just then they told me at the monastery that they’d already added me to the list for a permit and I could move there for permanent residency. Florovsky Monastery’s St. Nicholas Church Florovsky Monastery’s St. Nicholas Church I went to my mistress, Alla Efimovna, and told her that this and that happened, and I was leaving her. Clasping her hands, she cried out: “How can you leave?! You’re already one of us, a member of the family! We planned to send Tanechka to kindergarten and you to study; you’re one of us, and my brother Zhenya likes you. We thought you would get married.” But I did not lose courage and answered: “My dears, I came to Kiev not for work and not to get married. I came to enter a monastery.” She began to cry. Then her mother stood up for me, reminding her that she has no rights over me, because I have my own parents who are the only ones who can give permission or prevent it. So, that temptation passed… In Florovsky In 1955, I received permanent residency in Florovsky Monastery and was a novice until I was forty-eight. There were many young people here at that time and we had a different format: After thirty they would put the riassa on us, and after our tonsure—the mantia, and they would give us a new name. The years imperceptibly passed—difficult, but happy, joyous. After all, there is no greater joy than to be in a monastery! Of course, having entered the monastery, I grieved for my parents; I received news and wept that they were so helpless and had no one to help them; and here you couldn’t please Mother, my mentor, with whom I lived in a cell; she would get angry. But my parents always supported me, never even suggesting that I come help. They understood it was God’s calling for me. Nun Elena (right) Nun Elena (right) —You were Olga and became Elena. Who were you named after in Baptism? —My mama told me how in infancy I suddenly began to die: My eyes rolled back in my head and I stopped breathing. Mama was home alone and was scared that I would die unbaptized, so she wrapped me up and ran out onto the street, where she saw a woman walking past and explained that I was dying and asked her to have me baptized quickly. She asked what to name me, and waving her hand, Mama said: “As you wish, maybe Olga.” I think she wasn’t thinking about a name at that point but was just worried about getting me baptized in time. When my father returned home, he asked Mama why she decided to name me Olga instead of Elena, since I was born on June 7, just before the commemoration day of the martyr Elena. But at my tonsure in 1984, they gave me the name of the mother of St. Constantine the Great—the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Queen Elena. And anyways, the Equal-to-the-Apostles St. Olga was Elena in Baptism. That is how Divine providence played out over me, a sinner. Khrushchev persecutions —So, Mother, you’ve been here for sixty-three years without leaving? —Not exactly. In 1963, under Khrushchev, the monastery wasn’t closed, but all the young women were tossed out like kittens. People in plain clothes came and began to threaten and interrogate us: How long have you been here, what tasks do you carry out, when did you start going to church?... To which I confidently replied that I started going to church in 1936 when my mother carried me in her womb: “She went, and I went with her, and you won’t get anything else out of me!” Then they went to the abbess and ordered that no one under thirty remain in the monastery. Our abbess, like the abbesses of other monasteries, was very worried about all of us, that we might be exiled somewhere. They got permission for all the young novices to be registered in in the city, so they made up a list and sent us to work: Some to the hospital, some to be guards—but we still went to the monastery and fulfilled our obediences. With her mother in Kiev during the Khrushchev persecutions, 1965 With her mother in Kiev during the Khrushchev persecutions, 1965 I had no one to be registered with, so they registered me to the yard. I didn’t manage to get a job because I got an ulcer from worrying. But the matter didn’t end there. The supervisory authorities wouldn’t leave us alone, but came for inspections. For example, they would come to our cells with the police at 5:00 in the morning or at 9:00 at night. Whoever they found they would expel. “Get out of here and don’t come back!” I found work all the same—first in a nursery, then I helped a laundrywoman, and I was also a coal heaver. I tried every labor for the Lord’s sake… I spent eighteen years that way, from 1962 to 1979… I also did obediences in the Metropolia from 1958 to 1962. We worked for hire, responsible for the chancery and for receiving guests, and we also served the vicars. None of us who had been evicted even thought we would ever return to the monastery. But the Lord looked upon our patience and returned us to the monastery. But we could only be registered at the monastery again when Metropolitan Theodosius (Dikun, † 2001) wrote a famous letter to Moscow in which he denounced the persecution of the Church of Christ. We were somehow registered back to the monastery through the Gorny Convent in Jerusalem, where they sent our personal affairs… When I entered the monastery, there were more than 200 sisters in Florovsky, many of whom had come there in tsarist times. With sisters of the monastery. Mother Elena is second from the left With sisters of the monastery. Mother Elena is second from the left —What was memorable for you about those nuns? —They were people from another world—in education, upbringing, culture, manners, behavior, speech. It was a completely different monastery. My first matushka, Eunice, was a Cossack from the Krasnodar region. I was seventeen and she was seventy. She was a unique person. In the monastery since she was sixteen, she could do any work: paint roofs, bake the artos. She was an altar server. Everyone respected her. Schemanun Eunice Schemanun Eunice And what rules we had! Go and buy some bread and knock on the neighboring cell: Maybe someone needs something brought to them; and obediences of all kinds—in the prosphora bakery, in the gardens, harvesting vegetables for the winter, and many others. I also sang on the kliros for many decades… And so, gradually, year after year passed my monastic life. And glory to God for all things! I managed to live until the 1,000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus’, when they began to reopen the churches, a spiritual revival began, and the chains of atheism broke. But the other nuns warned us: Don’t hurry to rejoice—there will come a time when heretics will begin to seize the churches. And we have lived to see these times. Today —Today, a new “church”—the OCU—was created in Ukraine, courtesy of the president… —What other “church” can there be? We have one Church—one, holy, and apostolic, headed on the territory of Russia by Patriarch Kirill and in Ukraine by Metropolitan Onuphry, and that’s it. The territory may be divided into states, but Rus’ is one, Orthodox from the time of its Baptism by the holy Prince Vladimir, and our Church cannot be divided. And may the Lord help our hierarchs to bear their heavy cross! In her cell In her cell —Mother, how should the simple believer relate to everything that is happening now? They’re taking churches and passing laws against the Church… —Nothing is fearful with God. We have to be with God. They may take churches away and evict people from monasteries. But no one can evict the faith from our souls. We have to strive for this—that our faith would be strong, that we might not lose it, that the Lord would be in our hearts. Then our Church will be strong. I think and I pray that these times of oppression will pass soon. For God is with us. Deacon Sergei Geruk spoke with Nun Elena (Mikhaleva) Translated by Jesse Dominick Pravoslavie.ru 7/26/2019

oh quel burdel!

 

SAN AGUSTIN, LAS DAMAS DE LA NOCHE Y LA MINISTRA IGUALITARIA

Son las mareas de San Agustín, las más vivas del año. La mar está bella dicen los marineros de Cudillero.

Sopla una brisa fresca cierzo del norte, que “presta”, aunque sea peligroso bañarse por el empuje y poderío de la mar cantábrica.

"San Agustín nuestros males se lleve", canta una copla astur y yo leo al gran obispo de Tagaste, uno de los mayores padres de la Iglesia latina, el gran retórico, el que hizo de la teología y la moral católica vertida en gran prosa cristiana una belleza. Que los burdeles no echen el cierre, el señor obispo pedía.

En sus libros demuestra la consistencia y durabilidad de nuestra fe católica ─la SRI no es un Papa ni una época porque los obispos de Roma vienen y van pero la doctrina del Señor permanece indemne─ y el humanismo, conocía bien a los hombres.

En su juventud, adicto a las teoría maniquea de Ahriman y Ormuz, el bien y el mal que se alternan en la vida de los hombres, debió de pasarse en noches de vino y rosas allá por Hipona y se enamoró de una hermosísima mujer nubia de raza negra de la que tuvo un hijo, Adeodato, muerto en la adolescencia.

"¡Oh Suprema Belleza cuán tarde os conocí!", exclama el santo arrepentido.

Allí estuvieron las oraciones de su madre santa Mónica que determinaron su conversión.

El padre de la iglesia, pese a todo, continuó conservando su talante indulgente, nada gazmoño, frente a las debilidades de la condición humana: "Las meretrices son indispensables para el bien común y la tranquilidad de la republica".

Cuando he aquí que salta doña Irene Montero la ministra igualitaria suplicando a los gobernantes de las taifas que cierren las mancebías.

Hija mía de mi vida, tú quieres ponerle puertas al campo al tratar de acabar con el oficio más viejo del mundo.

Largo nos lo fiáis pero esta muchacha, que debe de ser partidaria del amor libre, hace un llamamiento a la santurronería oficiosa y mendaz del gobierno Sánchez.

Es como encargar a la raposa la guarda del gallinero.

Agustín ya "dijo aborrece el pecado pero sé compasivo con el pecador".

Nuestro Señor Jesús, liberando a la mujer publica de las garras del sanedrín: "Quien esté libre de pecado arroje la primera piedra", se mostró tolerante con la fragilidad de nuestra naturaleza.

No como estas hienas corrupias del FEM contumaz, tan dogmáticas, tan absolutistas, tan intransigentes, que renunciaron a las más sublime misión de la mujer transmisora de vida, son anticoncepcionistas y nos salieron machorras con horror al macho y oliendo a montuno.

Maria Magdalena, la ex prostituta es una de las mayores bienaventuradas del santoral.

Estas señoras no saben nada, no leyeron nada pese a ostentar títulos universitarios.

No han oído hablar del Arcipreste de Hita con su monserga aquella de "haber mantenencia y folgar con fembra placentera" ni a Quevedo que anuncia a un amigo por carta "en esta corte llegaron irlandesas".

Dicen que Cervantes murió siendo palanganero de una casa llana vallisoletana.

Tampoco a Galdós, muy putañero él, y frecuentador de los desmontes del Canalillo donde el barrio de Cuatro Caminos perdía su honesto nombre, ha leído esta coima, barragana del Coletas, que predica una falsa continencia que ella no practica, pues vive amancebada con el "vice".

Sólo les mueve el reconcomio y acaso cierto tribadismo u homosexualidad femenina, estigma que contrajeron en colegios de pago.

A la señora ministra le importa un bledo la suerte que puedan correr estas damas de la noche perdidas.

Uno de los títulos que se ha ganado esta democracia española fue precisamente ser el mayor burdel de Europa. Luces rojas en la carretera que a no pocos pecadores deslumbran.

Pobres mujeres engañadas, honorables meretrices, hijas mía de mi vida, tiradas en la cuneta, venidas desde todos los rincones de la tierra. Archívese. Todas al paro. La ministra lo dicta.

Se apagaron las relampagueantes y seductoras luces de neón que entonan cantos de sirena en la noche estrellada para los automovilistas, cuando se viaja de noche en conducción por las carreteras de Castilla.

Todas al paro y a comer el pan amargo del falso buenismo.

Dios las perdone. Pilunguis humilladas y ofendidas ¿adonde irán ahora a hacer la carrera estas pobres poligoneras?

Tampoco doña Irene Montero se ha dado una vuelta por las Redes.

Son el gran lupanar por ordenes del Gran Nostramo y de Hugh Hefner el inquietante fundador de Playboy y las conejitas que acaba de morir entre mujeres, podrido de dinero y de asco.

Billy Gates recogió la antorcha. Las consultas sobre temas sexuales ganan en Internet por mayoría. No niego sin embargo que Internet no tenga sus buenas cosas.

La ministra hete aquí se mete a mondonguera y quiere acabar decretalmente con el oficio más viejo del mundo.

Será contraproducente porque acabarán todas haciéndose putas por falta de trabajo.

Ellas no cobran veinte mil "pavos" al mes, como su señoría, ni viven en un "casoplón" a las afueras de Madrid custodiada por una compañía de veinte zaguanetes de la Guardia Civil.

Le recomiendo, ministra, que se dé un paseo por Internet y ponga una vela a Santa María Magdalena, la hetaira que enjugó con sus cabellos regados con sus lágrimas arrepentidas los pies del Salvador.

Pero claro usted no cree en ella. Usted es laica y feminista y tiene un aya para llevarle a sus niños a la guardería.

¡Pobres señoras trabajadoras del sexo en manos de quien han caído!

Sería mucho mejor que abandonasen ─hay que tener cuajo─ ese sucio empleo que las sustenta y encontrasen otro más digno.

Sería como pedir peras al olmo claro está. Es una utopía.

Que así está España como la mula de Wamba que no come ni caga ni jode ni bebe pero siempre anda... a trancas y barrancas.

Con la fiesta de san Agustín acaba el mes más hermoso del verano español. Olvidémonos de la pandemia y abramos las Confesiones del bendito obispo de Hipona. Es un consejo de este humilde periodista.