Holy prayer is a bridge connecting the two banks of one great river of God, prayer is a golden thread stretching from earth to Heaven. This is a ray that pierces the darkness and rushes into the Kingdom of Light. This is fire that burns the thorns of passions, and oil that heals by the mercy of the Merciful Creator. Such “prayer, which comes from a pure heart and rises above the powers of angels” (according to the words of St. Isaac the Syrian), was found and performed year after year throughout his life by Archimandrite Job (Kundrya). Those who hungered and thirsted for the truth of God from all over Russia sought to come to him in the village of Malaya Uholka, located at the top of the Carpathian Mountains, like an oasis.

Father Job (Ivan Georgievich Kundrya) was born on May 18, 1902 in the village of Iza (Khust district of the Transcarpathian region) into a pious family of Rusyns1, who have kept the Orthodox faith since ancient times. From 1772 – on the basis of an agreement between three monarchies2 – until 1919, Transcarpathian Russia3 was part of Austria-Hungary. The authorities persecuted the local population for their decisive refusal of the union. Believers gathered for prayer at night, secretly, in private homes. Orthodox Christians were deprived of all rights, monasteries were destroyed, priests were exterminated. It happened that monks and nuns were buried alive in the ground. Fleeing from persecution, many went into the forests, leading an ascetic life in solitude. To be baptized in the Orthodox Church in those years meant signing one’s death warrant. Priests and monks hid their rank from others.

One of these servants of God was hidden by Georgiy Kundrya. His six-year-old son Ivan and his friend carried food to the monk persecuted for his faith. In reverence for the monk, the boys once asked permission to kiss the cross on his chest and in response they heard: “If you kiss him, then be a monk. If you decide to become monks, then kiss the cross.” The children, who were timid at first, did not think long: when they came the next time, they venerated the cross. Six years later, in 1914, twelve-year-old Ivan Kundrya finally made his choice and was tonsured into a mantle with the name Job.

From 1914 to 1925, the young monk tried several times to get into one of the monasteries of Athos, and each time he failed. It turned out that first we had to go to Athens, then to Thessalonica. They announced that those who wanted to stay on Mount Athos needed to make a monetary contribution, and they named a huge amount. He returned to Transcarpathia, graduated from the school of winegrowers, worked on the land from dark to dark for several years, without spending a single penny on himself. Having collected the necessary money, having passed all the cordons and barriers, Fr. reappeared. Job on Athos – and again there was a refusal.

In 1925, he went to the Holy Mountain once again, with like-minded fellow travelers. In Thessalonica, the Greek authorities did not let travelers through, but the Archimandrite of St. Panteleimon Monastery, Fr. Misail blessed them for the feat of opening a monastery in Transcarpathia. Along with the blessing, he presented them with a particle of the relics of the holy great martyr. Demetrius of Thessalonica. Upon their return, they sold their property, bought the Gorodilovo tract in the Khust region and founded a small monastery there in the name of the Holy Trinity. Fr. spent a lot of time (from 1925 to 1939) and effort. Job to open a monastery in Gorodilov. Together with the novices, he built a temple, cells, utility rooms, planted a vineyard and vegetable gardens.

In those years, Transcarpathia was part of Czechoslovakia and there was no obvious persecution of Orthodoxy. Bloody and terrible times came in 1938-1939, when Transcarpathia was captured by the Hungarian fascists. In 1939, Fr. Job was arrested and sent to prison in the city of Stanislav (now Ivano-Frankivsk), from which he was released in 1940. At this time, tens of thousands of Rusyns moved through the Carpathian passes to the east, to their Russian brothers. He went with the people, with his flock and Fr. Job4, although he understood that neither the Hitlerite West nor the Stalinist East would spare the Orthodox Rusyns walking with the icon of the Savior. Hitler announced that the Reich had sent forty thousand saboteurs and spies to the Russians through the Carpathians, and Stalin gave the order to send refugees to the Arctic. So oh. Job, after a long and painful transfer, ended up in the Vorkuta camps, where he remained until 1942.

In custody, he was re-convicted and sentenced to death. The sentence was not carried out. According to the stories of Fr. Job, sitting on death row, he intensely prayed to St. Nicholas: he asked the miracle worker for one thing – not to let him die without communion. Suddenly he was told that the execution would be replaced by being sent to the front. Transcarpathian refugees who did not die in the camps were sent to fight in 1942. They fought in the 1st Czechoslovak separate battalion (formed by agreement with the Soviet government by General Svoboda5 in 1942 on the territory of the Volga Military District in Buzuluk6. Together with this battalion, renamed the 1st Czechoslovak separate brigade in 1943, Father Job went through a difficult military journey to Prague. He was a sapper. At the end of the war, Second Lieutenant Kundry was sent to Moscow to guard the building of the Czechoslovak Embassy. In his free time, he went to the Filippov Church7 on Arbat, visited the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, where he met with Archbishop Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky), an acquaintance from the camp and prison.

Decades after the war, L. Svoboda did not forget to congratulate the warrior-monk on Victory Day. A portrait of the general with a dedicatory inscription stood near Fr. Job on the table next to a photograph of St. Luke.

After demobilization Fr. Job returned to his homeland, and in 1946, Bishop of Uzhgorod and Mukachevo8 Nestor (Sidoruk; † 1951) ordained him a hierodeacon, then a hieromonk. In the same 1946, Fr. Job received a blessing to restore the monastery in Gorodilov, burned by the Germans, and intended to devote all his strength to this matter. But during the Khrushchev persecutions, the newly restored monastery was closed. After that, Fr. served. Job in two other Orthodox monasteries, which were destroyed one after another: books were burned, churches were desecrated. For some time he cared for the flock of his native village of Iza, and in 1962 he moved to the parish of the village of Malaya Uholka, where he settled with his cell attendant Mikhail in a small house next to the church in the name of the Holy Great Martyr. Demetrius of Thessalonica. K o. Job was approached on any issue: how and where to build, what material to use, gardening and gardening matters. Although he was a winegrower by profession, a carpenter, a joiner, a reaper, and a Swiss sought his advice and guidance. When the pressure on the Church intensified, the warrior of Christ pinned a full series of orders and medals on his chest and went to Mukachevo to tame the party bureaucratic clique. For his many years of diligent work for the benefit of the Church of Christ, in 1966, on the day of Holy Easter, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy9 elevated Fr. Job to the rank of archimandrite.

By that time, his flock included not only the Rusyns of Malaya Uholka. The light kindled by the Lord at the top of the Carpathian Mountains reached all ends of the Russian land; The seeds of the faith of Christ, sown by the generous hand of the elder in human hearts, bore abundant fruit. Spiritual children traveled to him hundreds of thousands of miles away. There were especially many of them in Moscow: doctors and writers, teachers and engineers, geologists and artists. The prayer feat of Fr. lasted for a quarter of a century in Uholka. Job; Day after day he celebrated the full range of liturgical services, in any weather he walked around the parish scattered across the mountain passes, giving communion to the sick and dying, comforting the suffering. Archimandrite Job died on July 28, 1985 and was buried, according to his will, in the fence of the Church of the Holy Martyr. Demetrius10.

† † †

Some idea of ​​the Transcarpathian oasis of prayer is given by excerpts from letters from Schema nun Feofana to Olga Nikolaevna Vysheslavtseva11. M. Feofana did not date her letters. Most likely, they were sent in the late (19)70s. In her youth, Mother Feofan lived with her relatives in Poltava and turned to Bishop Feofan (Bistrov)12 for spiritual guidance. Olga Nikolaevna spoke to me about her with delight. They had a lot in common. Both Olgas (before monasticism), they met when they were already old, in Moscow, where Mother Feofan was passing through. All her life she worked as a doctor in St. Petersburg. When I retired, I went to Transcarpathia to live in a monastery (I think in Mukachevo). There she met Fr. Job. When he was transferred to parish 13, m. Feofana went with him, as she considered it necessary to monitor his fragile health as a doctor.

Olga Nikolaevna came to Ugolka to visit Fr. Job in 1967. I stayed in the hut of M. Feofana and her “sisters” – local residents who helped M. Feofan to cope with everyday work serving numerous pilgrims from Moscow and from more distant places. Later, in Olga Nikolaevna’s notebook, an entry about this time will appear: “Almost two months, June and July 1967, in Uholka. Earth and Heaven, Hill (where the temple stood where Father Job served) and under the hill. Revelation on Gorka and bitterness “below.” Everything is like a dream. 10/29/68.”

Finding out details and asking Olga Nikolaevna always seemed awkward to me; I only listened to what she herself said, and later read the letters sent to her by M. Feofana. Usually they were replete with medical advice on what and how to take in different cases, thanks for the parcels and requests to find some medicine. But sometimes something else suddenly broke through – high, truly interesting, which is what I prescribed for myself. These meager passages, although they do not give a complete picture of life in the Transcarpathian Uholka, quite visibly convey the feeling of a spiritual atmosphere, full of extraordinary tension and strength, in which the transformation of the Christian soul takes place and our salvation is accomplished.

1. “The deeper I plunge into the fear and joy of the liturgical mystery, the more clearly I perceive the sound of praise to the Creator diffused in nature. Sometimes it seems to me that the whole Ugolyka – forests, mountains, sky – is a huge temple where Bach’s music sounds all the time. Of course, these are moments, but then you can live with them all day, and everything is colored and comprehended in a completely different way.”

2. “There is sorrow and bewilderment everywhere, but the reason is one: people in their lives, thoughts, feelings have gone so far from God, from the eternal truths – the foundations of the normal life of society. And I want to make everyone feel the abyss and hopelessness of such an existence. But this is not the most difficult thing. It is more difficult to convince a person who approaches God with complete confidence that the Divine exists only to protect his interests here on earth, and that everything can be bought with his own money and someone else’s prayer, leaving his heart completely aloof from the Lord. It’s conversations and meetings like these that make me completely exhausted.”

3. “In our home, too, there is a spirit of worldly vanity, and this is the worst of all.”

4. “What a consolation to stand on the Hill and in the deepest moments, when Father Archimandrite proclaims: “Holy is the Lord our God,” to feel how the soul is filled with joy, triumph, tenderness from the consciousness of the holiness and greatness of the Lord! I…so love everything that glorifies the name of the Lord! For me, in every phrase there is praise and lamentation about my insignificance, and tenderness, and joy.”

5. “He (Fr. Job) is deeply condescending and kind as a priest, and in life’s communication he is very secretive, very deeply concealing his spiritual wealth. But there are moments when he reveals himself, and then it becomes downright scary from the depth and height of his spirit. This happens very, very rarely. After that, with all sorts of, sometimes strange, actions and words, he wants to make you forget everything he saw. In general, in everyday life it is a very peculiar, sometimes difficult character. I often say: “Of course, you, father archim[andrite], are an earthly angel, but God forbid that the heavenly Angels have your character.” He invariably answers: “And you, mother, are making it all up.” I am deeply confident that the Lord gave him the right to be above our standards and requirements. If it were not for this faith, sometimes it would be very difficult. Serving him is a great happiness, but very difficult. And all protests fade and fall silent before the obvious power of his prayer.”

6. “…I am always surprised when people approach the priesthood only from the point of view of their desire to “serve God” in the very broad sense of this phrase and completely forget that this service requires both special knowledge and skills. Why is it that a person without special knowledge is not appointed captain of even a river steamer, but the [mission] of a captain [on] such a deep, wonderful river as church service (the depth of church charter, traditions, sacraments, spiritual leadership), without knowledge, can be taken on by a person only because he wants to serve God. Of course, great difficulties may arise.”

7. “…Whoever has not been to the service of the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts by Father Archimandrite does not know the power of his prayerful bestowal. I was once given great, terrible joy during this service, and as long as I live, it will be repeated at this moment.”

8. “Yesterday we unexpectedly had a big church celebration. A choir came to us from a neighboring village, so simple and rustic, but they sang so prayerfully; They sang especially touchingly and touchingly: “He rejoices in You…”14 – this is one of my favorite chants.”

9. “…Never was the power of God’s grace expressed so clearly on him (Fr. Job) as in these days (on Holy Week). Almost without food, completely without sleep or rest, he confessed to hundreds, walked through the mountains at night to confess those who could not do it during the day, walked staggering, and when the service began, he became inspired and seemed rejuvenated and strong. All the time I had a feeling of a chill (not a coldness of soul, but a chill of awe before the miracle of the power of the Holy Spirit taking place!).”

10. “I live as if in two: I react to all needs and do something, but in my soul all the time there is a choir of voices of praise to the Cross and Suffering.”

11. “Children’s souls need the spirit of family.”

12. “There was such an incident on Sunday: I spent the night without sleep, waited for a call to [father] Archim[andrite], in the morning I had to lead matins (very difficult), I came home for a break in complete exhaustion and felt sorry for myself. M. says: “A woman came with a child and asked to see what was wrong with him.” I prayed: “I can’t, let him come after the liturgy,” so I could lie down for at least 30 minutes. After the liturgy, a woman came, and I went to her with a feeling of resistance (I’m 80 years old, I don’t work, let them go to the hospital). I saw a five-year-old girl, blue, dying, suffocating, with such exhausted little eyes, and I felt guilty for these hours of suffering and possible death. I don’t want to say, you will understand for yourself how my soul rushed to the Lord with a prayer for forgiveness and help. Thank God, He heard me. The child was saved (the trouble was that the next day was Victory Day and it was useless to send the child to the hospital). And these two days I clearly felt the hand of the Lord, guiding me to the right decision for the child. Now the girl, by the grace of God, is out of danger, and I, damned, inspired by the mercy of the Lord, lie prostrate before the greatness of His mercy. And I also realized how terribly I could be punished (by the death of a child) for feeling sorry for myself. Dying every day without any hesitation for others is our lot. Cross and death daily – and be the name of the Lord blessed.”

13. “Remember the historical words of Father Archimandrite: “Monasticism is simple and always simple everywhere”… and also: “After monasticism (i.e., after tonsure) you cannot live the same life,” that is, if not externally, then internally [it is necessary] to completely change your attitude towards the environment.”

14. “I do not like, do not recognize, do not respect any unauthorized innovations in our church life that are not sanctified and approved by those in power. Father Tavrion has a different opinion, and it is difficult for us to find a common language. That is why I am always so sorry and worried for the souls of young people who end up under such leaders. How often the breadth of denial of rituals (as our fashionable leaders of souls are accustomed to say) leads to complete confusion and, above all, destroys the first basis of the knowledge of God. Remember the apostle: “Everything is lawful for me, but not everything is beneficial”15. In my opinion, this primarily refers to the courage of thinking about what is immeasurably higher and deeper than grace-free human thinking.”

15. “…Joy from sorrow and thanksgiving for it is the only true communion between us sinners and the Lord. Once upon a time, in the days of distant youth, such an attitude towards grief was not yet clearly visible in my soul, and I tried to express this to one confessor (this was after the loss of Vladyka Feofan Bystrov), and he listened to me, and then said: “This cannot be accepted, this is some kind of spiritual sadism.” I remember how long I felt pain [from] such an answer and for a long time I did not start such conversations with anyone, but deep down in my soul I believed in the truth of my experiences.”

16. “…When I go up to Gorka at dawn and see the lights of the huts and people in them who do not understand at all what a great miracle is happening in the temple, I am overcome with anxiety. If something is revealed to me that many do not know, then I have the responsibility to be, as it were, their representative before the Lord. And this feeling sharpens the desire to pray for everyone. And so in many ways. I live in Ugolk with God’s blessing and the blessing of the elders. I live to protect as I was told. Protect not only for yourself, but for everyone who feels the spirit of Ugolya, for everyone who cherishes the “reserve of pure prayer” performed in the present and past. The center of today’s Uholka is the father of the archim[andrite] with its mystical connection with the great past of this place. The awareness of my responsibility gives me the strength, with God’s help, to endure a lot, endure, humble myself, and pray. For myself personally, I haven’t been waiting for what I wanted for a long time.”

17. “He (Archim. Job) is probably the only person on the entire globe who managed to preserve all his childish purity of feelings until seventy-five years of such a multifaceted life. You should have seen his face, so embarrassed and guilty, when he admitted to me that he was embarrassed to write to such “great people” (Moscow intellectuals) because he did not know Russian. I used all the strength of my conviction that I was right to prove that V.I. and you need his thoughts, and how they are expressed does not matter at all and will not diminish your deep trust in him.”

18. “Father [father] archim[andrite] became like himself (he was treated). All the time, nothing depressed us, those around him, more than the sudden change in his appearance. He was not used to complaining and until this year he had always been in control of his illnesses. We got used to it, but this year he passed, and it was so painful to watch his powerlessness and loss of energy. Now he is still energetic, serves everyone who comes and, of course, assures that he is completely healthy.”

19. “Father Archim[andrite], like a child, does not know how to take care of himself, and it is with great difficulty that we have to protect him from risky trips to a high mountain in the rain, etc.”

20. “In my almost thirty years of closeness with [father] Archim[andrite], I do not remember that his words were spoken in vain.”

21. “Our people sing (on holidays), and they sing in a very unique way, both in melody and accents. It’s always difficult for Russians. They pull out our joyful “Christ is Risen” as the most minor news.”

22. “…What a pity, how you have to cry about people who are so unhappy and so don’t want to know anything.”

23. “The words of my first abbess always ring in my mind, when on every holiday she removed [the sisters] from all mandatory rules and set the condition that not a single person should leave offended or dissatisfied.”

24. “The peculiarity of our host (Archim. Job) is that he always easily and cheerfully finds a way out of any situation.”

25. “The Lord sent me another joy: with all my weakness, sometimes people need me.”

26. “…I had a free minute, and I went into the forest. She stood near a pretty young oak tree. He was covered in leaves. And before my eyes, in an instant, with some kind of quiet ringing rustle, all its foliage fell off, and its bare branches stretched upward. I was struck by both this sound and the sight of the bare tree. Only someone like that, naked, can reach up…”

27. “I always consider that I have failed if, after grief, resentment or some failure, my joy and gratitude dim. “What I’m most afraid of is losing this state of mind.”

28. “Circumstances so happened that I alone had to read the entire reading of Vespers and Compline (the canons of Compline are my favorite). It started out like an automatic machine, and then the living grace of words, the memories of saints, communication with them filled me with such vigor, joy, strength, they renewed me like an “eagle”16. I went home with a soul filled with gratitude to the Lord.”

29. “The forefeasts begin, and wonderful stichera will begin. Let us try to be above flesh and distance and together absorb into our souls the holiness and freshness that these wonderful events brought into the dilapidated world. And now, even in our outback, the dilapidation of human society is strongly felt. And in my head I have the words of the Savior that when a person is born into the world, then there is great joy17. And in every such dilapidated creature there is this person, you just need to get to the bottom and wake him up…”

30. “We won’t put it off for a rainy day (we’re talking about money). We have the Lord for a rainy day. I instilled this in my sisters, with God’s help. That’s why we got involved in obtaining medicines and distributing them in all directions.”

31. “It is important to find a way into the soul of the grieving person, to assure him of the unchanging goodness of God, that any sorrow will bring joy and is a manifestation of God’s love. And the person somehow becomes stronger.”

32. “Thank God, now father archim[andrite] has become a little stronger and has begun to act as a hero. In the pouring rain, when the rivers turned into menacing torrents, I went to consecrate the throne on a Belarus tractor. The water almost overturned the tractor, two people fell into the water, but, thank God, father archim[andrite] survived. He arrived and, knowing that I was upset, walked around like a peacock, pretending that he was completely healthy. And only yesterday, having lost his voice, he became obedient. The wind blew through him, his eye and temple hurt.”

33. “So far, miracles are clearly happening to me. At home I see almost nothing, everything is like a fog. And on Gorka I read calmly, albeit with tension…”

34. “The voice of conscience sounds more and more strongly in me: we must use any methods to acquaint people with that wonderful church world that is hidden from them. And how we are obliged to return to people the wealth that was given to us by the Lord (the knowledge of Him and in all our Orthodox service to the Lord through the Church and in the Church). Once in my youth, Vladyka Feofan told me how important it is to breathe into every custom and ritual the prayerful impulse in which it first began. Then everything from the dead will become alive in the Spirit.”

35. “I am deeply confident that the daily celebration of the Eucharist will drive away despondency, cause a gracious influx of spiritual strength and everything will lead to the best. Father Archimandrite fully approved of my opinion. Remember, in the memories of Fr. Alexei Mechev18 there is a place when, during a period of discouragement and complete despondency, he turned to Fr. John of Kronstadt and Fr. John advised him to serve the liturgy daily, at least in a completely empty church. How this gradually strengthened the spirit of Fr. Alexey and led to the creation of a strong, friendly community.”

36. “Still, what a blessing it is to live among nature and feel its praise to the Almighty. Sometimes after the liturgy I go down from Gorka, and it seems to me that from there, from the gentle mountains and forest, there is a reverse wave of prayers from the liturgy. Each liturgy is a delay in the collapse of the world, a reflection of the dark force trying to devour the world.”

37. “For eighteen years now (sixteen of them with me), every day one person has celebrated the Liturgy for everyone, and it is not done in any haste, but with a full daily liturgical cycle and preparation. Father Archimandrite also served for cases of bilateral pneumonia. I would like to write how last week we served together with Father Archim[andrite] at dawn in an empty church. Clouds of fog swirled around outside the window, and there was a feeling of complete detachment from everything earthly, as if we were on the threshold of the future.”

* * *

Notes

Rusyns is the German name for the Russian population of Western Russian lands captured by Austria-Hungary. They live on both sides of the Carpathians in Galicia, Bukovina, and Northern Hungary. At the beginning of the 20th century. there were 4 million Rusyns (Holy Rus’. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Russian Civilization. M.: Encyclopedia of Russian Civilization. 2000. P. 734). – Here and further notes. ed.

The first partition of Poland was secured by a special treaty signed in St. Petersburg on July 25, 1772 between Russia, Austria and Prussia.

Transcarpathian Rus’ is the historical name of one of the oldest parts of Russia, part of Little Russia. Since ancient times, the population of this Russian territory has been part of the East Slavic ethnic group. In the X-XI centuries. was part of Kievan Rus. From the 11th century occupied by Hungary, later by Austria and Austria-Hungary; in 1919 – Czechoslovakia. Returned to Russia in 1944. The center of Transcarpathian Rus’ is the city of Uzhgorod (Holy Rus’. pp. 272 ​​– 273).

From personal memories of Fr. Job knows the following: “…I decided to flee to Russia to our Russian Orthodox brothers… I prayed hard and crossed the border of the USSR… I came across a border detachment… I was taken to the NKVD interrogation prison. …I was tried by the NKVD troika. The trial lasted seven minutes. Sentence: 15 years for espionage, 5 additional years for religiosity, and another 5 years in exile. Total: 25 years” (V.N. Lyalin. In holy places. St. Petersburg: Satis. 2001. P. 83 – 84).

Svoboda Ludwig (11/25/1895 – 09/20/1979) – statesman, political and military leader of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (Czechoslovak Socialist Republic). After the occupation of Czechoslovakia by German troops in 1935, he moved to Poland, where he formed a Czechoslovak military unit, with which he moved to the Soviet Union in September 1939. In 1943, he headed the 1st Czechoslovak Separate Brigade, which fought against the Nazi invaders. From 1968 to 1975 – President of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

Buzuluk is a city in the Orenburg region.

Church of the Resurrection of the Word with the chapels of the Jerusalem Icon of the Mother of God and the Apostle. Philippa.

The Mukachevo diocese was established in 940 at the initiative of Patriarch Theophylact of Constantinople. Since 1491, the seat of the bishops of Mukachevo became the St. Nicholas Monastery (Mukachevo). Constantly pressed by the Uniates, the Mukachevo diocese was close to the Serbian Church, which fled from the Turkish yoke to the borders of Austria-Hungary, where it encountered the Austrian yoke, which was even more severe, for “the Turkish yoke killed the body, while the Austrian yoke encroached on the soul.” The modern Mukachevo diocese was annexed to the Russian Orthodox Church on October 22, 1945 after the resolution of the Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church on its transfer to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Alexy I (Simansky) – Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ from 02/04/1945 to 04/17/1970.

See [Archimandrite Job (Kundrya). Obituary] / Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. 1986. No. 3. P. 29.

Vysheslavtseva Olga Nikolaevna (03/04/1898 – 06/30/1995) – spiritual writer, in 1967 she was tonsured in Ugolka by Archimandrite. Job with the name Maria in honor of the saint Equal to the Apostles. Mary Magdalene (see collection: Three meetings / Compiled by Trofimov A.M.: Pilgrim, 1997. P. 185 – 476, 527 – 528).

Feofan (Bystrov), Archbishop of Poltava, New Recluse (12/31/1873 – 02/6/1940) – confessor of the Royal Family, theologian, devotee of faith and piety.

Temple in the name of the Holy Martyr. Demetrius of Thessalonica in the village. Malaya Uholka, Tyachiv district, Transcarpathian region.

At the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, instead of “It is worthy to eat,” “Every creature rejoices in You, O Gracious One,” is sung.

Wed. 1 Cor. 6, 12; 10, 23.

See Ps. 102.5: … your youth will be renewed like an eagle.

See In. 16, 21.

Father Alexey Mechev. Memories. Letters. Sermons. Paris. YMCA-PRESS. 1970. 389 p.