«Des récits sincères d’un lecteur à son père spirituel» – lire en ligne gratuitement

The beginning of the pilgrimage and the search for ceaseless prayer

I am, by the grace of God, a Christian man, a great sinner in matters of this world, with the title of a drifter, a beggar, a wanderer lost in the wilderness. My abode is this: a bag of crackers on my back and the Holy Bible in my pocket; that is all. On the twenty-fourth Sunday after Troyitskoi Day, I came to church for lunch and prayed; the Apostle was reading from his letter to the Thessalonians, the beginning of chapter 273, in which it is said:  Pray without ceasing . This phrase made a special impression on my mind, and I began to think how one can pray incessantly when every person must also manage to earn a living for himself. I went into the Bible, and there I saw with my own eyes what I had heard – namely, that one must pray at all times, with prayer in one’s heart, , and put on prayerful hands in every place.

            What shall I do, I thought, how can I find someone to explain to me? I will go to the churches where good preachers are famous, perhaps I shall hear something that will be of interest to me. And so I set out. I heard many fine sermons on prayer. But all of them were about prayer in general; what prayer is; how it must be prayed; what the fruits of prayer are; and how to succeed in prayer no one spoke about. There were sermons on spiritual prayer and on unceasing prayer; but how to achieve this kind of prayer was not indicated. Listening to these sermons did not bring me the results I was hoping for. Why, having listened to them and not having learned how to pray unceasingly, did I stop listening to public sermons, and dared, with God’s help, to seek out an experienced and knowledgeable speaker who would explain to me about unceasing prayer, driven on by my inexhaustible thirst for knowledge?

            I wandered far and wide for a long time: I read the Bible, and asked whether there was no teacher of the spirit, or an experienced guide who knew his way among the mysteries of prayer? Sometimes, hearing this, I went no further, but ran to the village I had been told about; I got there, and went to see this landowner.

            He asked me, “What is your business?”

            I felt that you were a kind and intelligent man; therefore, I beg you, for the sake of God, tell me what is meant by the saying of the Apostle: “Continue praying.” And how can one continue praying? I need to know this, but I do not understand how to do it.

            The landowner paused, looked at me intently, and said, “Continuous inner prayer is the continuous aspiration of the human spirit to God. To succeed in this sweet practice, it is necessary to ask God more often to teach me how to continue praying. Pray more and more fervently, and prayer itself will reveal to you how this can be done continuously; you need your time for this.”

            Having said this, he ordered food for me, gave me a good road, and let me go. And he did not explain.

            I went again, thought a little, read a little, wondered a little, and could not understand what the landowner had told me; I wanted to understand very much, therefore I did not sleep at night. I walked two hundred versts and I found myself in a large gubernial town. There I saw a monastery. After stopping at the inn, I heard that the abbot there was good, kind, and extraordinary. So I went to him. He received me kindly, sat me down, and began to treat me to food and drink.

            Holy Father, – I said. 

            One year ago, when I was near lunch, I heard in the Apostle this commandment: Never stop praying . Not understanding this, I began to read the Bible. And there, too, in many places, I found the command of God to always pray, always, at any time, in any place, not only in non-sleeping hours: not only in the daytime, but even in dreams. I fall asleep and my soul watches . This greatly surprised me, and I could not understand how to carry it out and what methods to use; a strong desire and curiosity arose in me, and day and night my mind did not give up. And therefore I began to go to churches, listen to sermons on prayer; but no matter how many of them I listened to, I did not receive instructions on how to pray constantly; they all only talked about the preparation for prayer or its fruits, and the like, without teaching how to pray constantly and what such a prayer means. I often read the Bible and checked it with what I had heard; but in doing so, I did not find the desired knowledge. And so I remained confused and troubled.

            The Elder crossed himself and began to say: thanks to God, beloved brother, for this discovery of your unquenchable desire to know the inexhaustible inner prayer. Know this name of God and be at peace, certain that up to this point, you have been tested to see if your will is in accord with the voice of God, and that it was meant to understand that it is not by the wisdom of this world, nor by the curiosity of the external self that one can attain the heavenly light of the inexhaustible inner prayer, but, precisely the contrary; the simplicity of heart. And so it is not strange that you could not hear about the fundamental matter of prayer, and understand the science of how to achieve its inexhaustible action. Indeed, not many preach for prayer, and many writers have talked about it, but since their reasoning is mostly based on reason, not on active experience, they teach more about the necessity of prayer than about its essence. One well-reflects on the necessity of prayer; another – on its power and its beneficence; a third on the means to perfect prayer, that is, on the fact that for prayer it is necessary to make an effort, to pay attention, to have warmth in the heart, to have purity of thought, to make peace with one’s enemies, to be humble, to grieve, etc. What is prayer? And how can one learn to pray? Of all of these, though not the first and not the most necessary issues, detailed explanations can rarely be found in the preachers of our time; therefore, their reasoning is more complex and requires a mysterious approach, not merely scholastic erudition. And what a shame that the vulgar inertial wisdom leads us to measure God by the standard of manhood. Many people reflect on the matter of prayer completely wrongly, thinking that preparatory means and feats create prayer, rather than prayer giving rise to feats and all virtues. In this case, they incorrectly take the fruit or the consequence of prayer as the means and methods for it, and this reduces the power of prayer. This is quite unpleasant to the Holy Scriptures: for the Apostle Paul gives instructions on prayer in the following words: I pray, then, first of all, to create prayers. In these words, the first instruction on prayer given by the Apostle is that he sets the matter of prayer first of all: I beg, then, first of all, to create prayers. Many good deeds are required of a Christian, but the matter of prayer should be first of all because without it none of the other good deeds can take place. It is impossible to find the way to the Lord without prayer, to comprehend the truth, to break the flesh with its passions and desires, to be enlightened in the heart by the light of Christ, and to be saved without prior, frequent prayer. I say frequent, because both the perfection and the correctness of prayer are beyond our ability, as the Apostle Paul says: we pray under the cross, as is fitting, not knowing how. Therefore, only frequency, constancy is left to our ability as a means to achieve the purity of prayer that is the mother of any spiritual good. Draw close to your mother, and she will give you children, says St. Isaac the Syrophoenician, learn to attain the first prayer and you will easily perform all the virtues. And this is obscurely understood by those who are little acquainted with practice and little familiar with the esoteric teachings of the holy fathers.

            During this conversation, we have approached almost to the very desert. In order not to miss this wise old man, and rather to obtain my desire, I hastened to say to him: “Do me the grace, honest father, and explain to me what is meant by continuous interior prayer, and how to learn to do it: I can see that you know this in detail and with experience.”

            The old man accepted this my request with love and called me to himself: “Come, now, to me, and I will give you the book of the Holy Fathers, from which you can clearly and in detail understand and learn the art of praying with the help of God. We entered the cell, and the old man began to say the following: “Continual interior Jesus prayer is when there is a constant, never-ending call to the divine name of Jesus Christ with lips, mind, and heart, with a constant awareness of His presence and a request for His mercy, in every occupation on any occupation. It is manifested in the following words: ‘Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!’

            Do you now understand what a continuous prayer is?– I certainly do, Father! For God’s sake, teach me how to achieve it!– I exclaimed with joy.

Reading Dobrotolubiye and spiritual progress

We will read about how to pray in this book. This book is called Dobrotolubiye. It contains a complete and detailed doctrine of continuous interior prayer, given by twenty-nine holy fathers, and is so noble and useful that it is considered the chief and foremost guide in contemplative spiritual life, and, as the blessed Nichophoros states, it “without travail and toil leads to salvation”.

            – Is it more profound and more holy than the Bible?– I asked.

– No, it is not more profound and more holy than the Bible, but contains the enlightened interpretations of what is mysterious in the Bible, and is not intelligible to our shortsighted mind. I give you an example: the sun is the greatest, brightest and most wonderful light; but you cannot look at it with an unsharpened natural eye. A certain artificial glass is necessary, however millions of times smaller and dimmer than the sun, through which you could observe this beautiful king of lights, be dazzled, and take in its brilliant rays. Thus the Holy Scripture is a dazzling sun, and Dobrotolubiye is the glass needed to observe it.

Now listen – I will read how to learn uninterrupted inner prayer. – The elder opened the book The Loving-Goodness of Love, found the instruc­tion of St. Simeon the New Theologian, and began: “Sit down without a word, in solitude, bend your head, close your eyes; breathe more quietly, watch inwardly with the imagination, take your thoughts from your head to your heart. When breathing, say: ”Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Turn away thoughts, have patient patience, and repeat this exercise more often.

Then the elder explained all this to me, gave me an example, and we read more from The Loving-Goodness of Love of St. Gregory of Sinai, and from Saint Calistus and Ignatius. All that was read in The Loving-Goodness of Love was explained to me by the elder, and he also spoke to me about it. I listened intently, eagerly absorbing, and trying to memorize as much as possible. So we sat up all night and, without sleeping, went to the morning service.

          The elder, dismissing me, blessed me and said that while learning prayer I should go to him with sincere confession and revelation, for without the guidance of an instructor it is inconvenient and unsuccessful to take up the work of inner prayer on one’s own. 

          Standing in church, I felt a burning determination to learn inner continual prayer and asked God to help me. Then I thought how I could go to the elder for counsel or an inspiration with a confession, since the inn on the guest house would not let me stay more than three days and there were no apartments near the desert? At last I heard that a verst is about four kilometers. I went there to look for lodgings, and to my good luck God showed me a convenience. I found work on a farm there for the whole summer to guard the garden, so that I could live there all by myself. Praise be to God! – I found a place of rest. And so I began to live and study, according to the method shown me, inner prayer and to visit the elder. 

          I began to work diligently on my own in the solitude of the farm to learn uninterrupted prayer, exactly as the elder had explained to me. At first it seemed to be going well. Then I felt a great burden, boredom, fatigue, and a sleepiness overcoming me, and various thoughts came to me like a cloud. With sorrow I went to the elder and told him of my situation. He received me lovingly and began to say:  “Dear brother, this is a battle against you from the dark world, and nothing is more difficult for us than a prayer from the heart, so it tries in every possible way to hinder you and keep you from learning prayer. But the enemy acts not by his own will but by God’s predestination and divine permission, as much as is needed for us. It is evident that you need to be tested in your humility; therefore it is too early to approach the higher inner entrance with such unprecedented zeal, so as not to fall into spiritual greed.”

Here I will read to you about this instance of practice from The Ladder of Descent from the Cross (“Dobrotolyubivzy”). The elder found the teaching of St. Nicophoros the monk, and began to read: “If after working a little, you cannot enter into the heart of the world in the manner as you have been instructed, do as I am telling you and, through the help of God, you will find what you seek. You know that the power of the ‘word’ is in every person’s throat. If you wish, let it give, and always let it say this: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!’” This is what the elders teach in this instance, said the elder. Therefore, you are to take upon yourself with trust the command to do the Lord Jesus’ prayer as much as possible, even three thousand times a day. Stand or sit, walk or lie, never cease saying: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me’ – not aloud and not hurriedly; do it faithfully, and exactly as many as are prescribed for a day – do not add and do not take away by yourself. God will help you through this to achieve lasting spiritual action.

            For ten days without seeing me, the old man came to visit me himself; I explained to him my condition. He listened, and said: “Now that you have become accustomed to prayer, be attentive, persevere, and strengthen this habit; do not tolerate a waste of time; and, with God’s help, resolve to perform twelve thousand prayers a day without wasting your efforts. Observe solitude, get up early and go to bed late, and visit me every two weeks for advice.”

            I began to do as the old man had instructed me, and on the first day I could barely finish my twelve-thousand rule late at night. On the second day, I did it easily and with pleasure. At first, I felt fatigue from continuous prayer or a kind of stiffness of the tongue and teeth, but it was pleasant. Then there was a slight pain in the area of my mouth, and then a slight pain in the thumb of my left hand, which I used to rub my lips, gave a pleasant sensation. This all seemed to encourage and compel me to perform more prayer. And so for five days I faithfully performed twelve thousand prayers and, alongside the habit, I gained pleasure and enjoyment.

            One morning, as if some prayer had awakened me. I began to recite the morning prayers, but my speech was not smooth and all my desire was spontaneously to perform the Lord’s Prayer. And when I began it, it became easy and pleasant, and my tongue and mouth seemed to speak it of themselves, without my forcing them! I spent the whole day in joy and seemed to be detached from everything else, as if I were on another earth and easily finished the twelve thousand prayers in the early evening. I wanted to pray more, but I did not dare to do so after the instructions of the old man. Thus, on other days, I continued to call on the name of Jesus Christ with ease and yearning for Him.

            Then he went to the elder for advice and told him about it in detail. He listened and began to talk: thank God, that holiness and prayer have come to you naturally. This is a natural thing, which comes from frequent practice and asceticism, like a machine that has been set in motion by a push or a lever for the main wheel, which has been operating on its own for a long time; and to keep it moving, it is necessary to lubricate and push this wheel. Do you see, what wonderful abilities the merciful God has given even to the sensual nature of man, which can be experienced outside of grace and in an unrefined sensual state, and in a sinful soul, as you yourself have already experienced? And how wonderfully, how wonderfully and deliciously it is, when the Lord chooses to reveal the gift of spontaneous spiritual prayer and to purify the soul from passions! This state is not portrayed, and the revelation of this prayerful secret is a foretaste of the sweetness of the heavenly earth. This is what God-loving hearts longing for the Lord will find pleasing in their simplicity! Now I allow you to do prayer as often as you like, to devote your time to prayer as much as possible, and to call on the Lord Jesus Christ without hesitation, with humility surrendering yourself to the will of God and expecting help from Him: I believe that He will not leave you and will guide your path.

            Having accepted this instruction, I spent the whole summer in incessant oral prayer to Jesus, and I was very at peace. In my dreams I often dreamed that I was creating prayer. And on the day when I happened to meet someone, everyone seemed to me to be connected with me, as if they were relatives, even though I didn’t talk with them. My thoughts completely stopped, and I didn’t think about anything except prayer, and my heart began to feel warmth and some pleasure on its own. When I happened to go to church, the long empty service seemed short, and it was no longer tiring for the forces as before. My separate cell appeared to me as a wonderful temple, and I didn’t know how to thank God that He had sent such a savior and a mentor to this wicked sinner.

The death of the elder and the beginning of an independent path

            But I did not benefit from the advice of my beloved and wise elder for long. At the end of the summer, he died. I left him with tears, thanking him for his filial teaching to this sinful sinner, and begged him for the blessing of the chotki that he always used in his prayers. So I was left alone. In the end, the summer passed, and the city was cleared. I had nowhere to live. The man counted me off, gave me two benches for duty, and loaded a bag of bread for the road, and I began to wander about again, but not in the same way as before, in need; the calling of the name of Jesus Christ cheered me on the way, and all men became kinder to me, it seemed to me that everyone loved me.

Here is what happened. One day I began to think about where I should spend the money I earned by keeping the city and what I would use it for. That’s it! Shut up! The old man is no longer here, there is no one to teach me; I will buy Dobrotolyubie, and I will learn from it to pray inwardly. I crossed myself and went off praying. I reached a provincial town and began to ask for Dobrotolyubie in vain; I found it in one place, but they were asking for three ruble coins, and I only had two; I bargained, bargained, but the merchant did not give in even a little; at last he said: “Go to this church and ask the church elder; he has some old book, perhaps he will give it to you for two ruble coins.” I went and indeed bought Dobrotolyubie for two ruble coins, all tattered and old; I was disappointed. I somehow fixed it, covered it with a cloth and put it in my bag along with my Bible.

Now that’s how I walk, unceasingly making the Jesus prayer that is dear to me and sweeter than anything in the world. I sometimes walk seventy or more versts a day and do not feel as if I am walking; I only feel as if I am saying my prayer. When strong cold saps me, I begin to say the prayer urgently, and I soon get warm. If hunger begins to overcome me, I invoke the name of Jesus Christ more often and forget that I would like to eat. When I fall ill, there is a nape of pain in my back and legs; I listen to the prayer and no longer feel pain. When someone offends me, I just remember how I am being comforted by the Jesus prayer; all at once the offence and anger disappear and I forget everything. My condition is like that of a lunatic; I have no worries, nothing occupies me, I do not look at anything amusing, and I am alone in solitude; but I am used to one thing, and I want to constantly say my prayer, and when I do it, I have great fun. God knows what is happening to me. Of course, this is all sensual or, as the late elder used to say, natural and artificial by habit; but I dare not yet begin to study and assimilate the spiritual prayer within my heart, for my unworthiness and stupidity. I am waiting for the hour of God’s will, hoping for the prayers of my late elder. So, although I have not yet attained continuous self-perpetuating spiritual prayer in my heart, thank God, I now clearly understand what the expression in the Apostle means:

An Account by Another

Travels in Siberia and the Story of the Captain

I travelled for a long time in various places, accompanied by the Jesus prayer which comforted and encouraged me in all places, in all meetings and situations. Finally, I felt that it would be better to stop somewhere, both for the sake of convenient retirement and for studying Dobrotolubye, which, albeit slowly, I had read, resting on my nights or during the day’s rest; nevertheless, there was a strong desire constantly to immerse oneself in it and draw from it the true instruction for the salvation of the soul through heart prayer. However, as, in accordance with this desire, I could not find a job anywhere, nor could I engage in any labor, because of my inability to use my left hand since early childhood; and since I was unable to have a permanent shelter, I went to the Siberia of St. Innocent of Irkutsk with the intention that I would walk freely through the forests and steppes of Siberia, and it would be more convenient for me to engage in prayer and reading. So I walked, and without ceasing I performed an oral prayer. Finally, after a short time, I felt that the prayer itself had somehow begun to pass into my heart, that is, the heart, with its usual beating, had begun to speak int he inside, as it were, its prayerful words for each beat, for example: 1) Lord, 2) Jesus, 3) Christ, and so on. I stopped saying prayers out loud, and began to listen with diligence as my heart spoke; remembering what the late elder had explained to me, how pleasant it was. Then I began to feel a subtle pain in my heart, and in my thoughts a love for Jesus Christ such as it seemed that if I saw Him, I would throw myself at His feet, and not let go of them, sweetly caressing them to tears, yet with thanks to Him for the consolation of His name, so kind.

Since the sins of my evil soul or lack of spiritual life or better instruction and experience, temptations began to appear toward the end of the summer. Namely: I was on a large road, dusk fell, and two men, resembling soldiers’ heads, approached me; they demanded money. When I said that I had no coins, they did not believe me and shouted insolently: “You are lying! Travelers earn a lot of money!” One of them said: “What’s the point in talking to him anymore,” and hit me with a stick on the head so that I fell unconscious. I do not know how long I lay unconscious; but when I awoke, I saw that I was lying near the forest by the road, completely groggy, and my bag was gone; only the ropes that it was tied to were cut. Thank God that they did not take my passport, which was inside my old hat, in case I needed it for quick identification. I got up and cried bitterly, not so much from the headache as from the fact that they took away my books, the Bible, and The Love of Kindness, which were in the bag. I did not stop mourning and crying both day and night. Where is now my Bible, which I read to myself as a child and always carried with me? Where is my Love of Kindness, from which I gained both instruction and consolation? I have been deprived, poor wretch, of both the first and the last treasure of my life, without having a chance to enjoy it. It is better for me to die than to live without this spiritual nourishment! I will never be able to reacquire it!

            For two days I could hardly raise my legs, overwhelmed by this grief; and on the third, completely exhausted, I fell among the bushes and fell asleep. In a dream, I saw myself placate my sorrow in the cell of my old teacher. The old man, comforting me, began to say: this is a lesson for you in unselfishness concerning earthly things, in order to walk more easily towards heaven. This has been allowed to you for the sake of not having fallen, but for the sake of a spiritual lust. God wants Christians to completely refrain from their own will, their desires, and every craving towards them, and to completely surrender themselves to His Divine Will. He sets up all events for the sake of man’s benefit and salvation. Everyone wants to be saved. Therefore, have patience and believe that God will create temptation and abundance. And you will soon rejoice much more than you now mourn. With these words, I woke up, felt a strengthening of my strength, and in my soul there was as if a dawn and a calming. May the will of God be done, I said, replied to the sign of the cross, stood up and went. Prayer again began to work in my heart as before, and I walked quietly for three days.

      Suddenly, the column of wagons led by the convoy turned to the side. I compared myself with them and saw the two people who had robbed me, and since they were walking at the edge of the others, I fell at their feet and asked them insistently where my books were? At first they ignored me, but then one of them began to speak: if you give us something, we will tell you where your books are. Give us the whole thing. I vowed to give it to them, to give it to them for Christ’s sake, if necessary, even in the whole world. Here, if you want, you can take my passport as security. They said that my books were being taken along with other stolen goods. How can I get them? Ask the captain who is leading us. I ran to the captain and explained everything in detail. By the way, he asked me: do you know how to read the Bible? Not only can I read everything, I answered, but I can also write: you will see on the Bible the name and the name that it is mine; and on my passport there is also the same name and surname. The captain began to say: These are fugitive soldiers, thieves, who lived in a dugout and robbed many people. They were caught yesterday by a clever digger, whom they wanted to rob for some money. Maybe I’ll give you your books when they are here; but come with us to bed; it’s not far, four versts, and there they won’t stop the column and the train for you. I gladly followed the captain’s horse, and talked to him. I saw that he was a good and honest man, and not a young one. He asked me who I was, where I was going, and why. I told him the truth, and so we reached the rest-pit house. He found my books, gave them to me, and said: where are you going at night now, stay with me in the hall. I stayed there.

          After receiving the books, I was so happy that I did not know how to thank God; I pressed the books to my chest and held them until my arms turned hard. Tears flowed from my eyes from joy, and my heart was pounding with delight!

          The captain, looking at me, asked: Is it evident that you love to read the Bible. I could not answer him anything out of joy, but only cried. He continued: I myself, brother, conscientiously read the Gospel every day. At the same time, he unbuttoned his uniform and took out a small Bible of Kiev printing, all covered in silver. Sit down, I will tell you what led me to it. Here, give us something to eat for dinner!

            We sat down at the table, and the captain began to tell us: “From a young age I served in the army, not in a garrison; I knew service and loved being in command, as a good lieutenant. But I was young then, my friends were also young; I accidentally became a drinker, so much so that an addiction arose; when I was sober, I was a good officer, but when I was drunk, I would spend six weeks in bed. They endured me for a long time, and finally, because of my boss’s rudeness, lightly expressed, they transferred me to the soldiers for three years, with a posting to the garrison; and if I did not correct myself and did not stop drinking, they threatened me with the harshest punishment. In this unfortunate state, no matter how much I tried to resist, and no matter how much I sought treatment, I could not give up my addiction, and that is why they wanted to move me to the detention units. Hearing this, I did not know what to do.

“Having heard this, I said to him: What use is your gospel, when no effort on my part, no medicinal remedies, could keep me? I said this because I had never read the Gospels. Do not say this, the monk said, I assure you, it will be of benefit. The next day the monk brought me this Gospel. I opened it, looked at it, read it, and said: I will not take it; there is nothing to understand here; and I am not used to reading the church seal. The monk continued to persuade me that there is a grace in the words of the Gospel; for it contains what God Himself said. There is no point in not understanding, but you must read diligently. One saint said: if you do not understand the Word of God, the devils understand what you are reading and tremble; for the passion for drunkenness inevitably arouses the devils. Behold, I will tell you one more thing: John Chrysostom says that even the shrine in which the Gospel is kept frightens the demons of impure spirits, and is prone to their treachery. I do not remember – I gave something to that monk, took the Gospel from him, and put it in a box with my other belongings and forgot about it. After some time, the time came for me to ask for forgiveness of my sins, and death came as a punishment; and I opened the box as quickly as I could to get money and run to the tavern. The first thing that came into my eyes was the Gospel, and I quickly remembered everything that the monk had told me, and opened it and began to read chapter one of Matthew first. When I had finished reading it, I understood nothing; and I remembered what the monk had said: there is no need to understand anything, just read diligently. Let me read the second chapter; as soon as I began, there was a knock at the barracks: to the beds. So I could not go out the gate; so I stayed.

Listen, ever since I was cured of my drinking habit, I made a vow to myself to read the Gospel every day, for the whole of the Gospel, for one day; regardless of any obstacles. And that is what I do now. If I have a lot of work to do and get very tired, I lie down in the evening and force my wife or son to read to me a whole Gospel, and that is how I carry out this rule, without wavering. To say thank you and in the glory of God, I have engraved this Gospel in pure silver, and I always wear it on my chest.

I listened with pleasure to these words from the captain, and said to him: I have seen the same example in my own village at the factory. There was a master who was very skilled in his craft, a good and dear master, but unfortunately he also drank. A God-fearing man advised him to say the 33 times Lord’s Prayer in honour of the Holy Trinity, in honour of Christ’s thirty-three years on earth. The master obeyed, began to do it, and soon gave up drinking. And what else? In three years he went to the monastery.

I asked the captain: Is it the Lord’s Prayer or the Gospel? – The same thing, I replied, that the Gospel is the Lord’s Prayer; for the Divine Name of Jesus Christ contains all the truths of the Gospel. The Holy Fathers say that the Lord’s Prayer is a reduction of the whole Gospel.

Finally, we prayed; the captain began to read the Gospel of St. Mark from the beginning, and I listened and prayed in my heart. At about two o’clock in the morning the captain finished the Gospel, and we went away. I got up early the next morning. Everyone was still asleep, and as soon as it became light, I rushed to my beloved Dobrotolubii. With what joy I opened it! As if I had seen my dear father who was far away, or as if I had met a friend who had risen from the dead. I leafed through it and thanked God that He had given it back to me. I immediately began to read Feolypte of Philadelphia, part two of Dobrotolubii. I was surprised by his teaching, in which he proposes doing three different things at the same time for one man: while sitting at the table, he says, give the body food, the ears reading, and the mind prayer. But the memory of the happy evening the previous night made this idea seem reasonable to me. And here I found out the secret that the mind and the heart are not the same thing.

When the captain got up, I went out to thank him for his hospitality and to say goodbye. He gave me a cup of tea, and we parted. So I went on my way, rejoicing.

      . After passing a versta, I remembered that I had promised the soldiers a fine, which I had unexpectedly now. Should I give it to them or not? One thought told me: they beat you and robbed you, and it is not right to use it for their own benefit, because they are in prison. Another thought imagined otherwise: remember that the Bible says: “If your enemy wants it, let him drown it.”

After walking a verst on a wide road, I decided to stop for some solitude and a convenient reading. I walked through the woods for a long time, and there were small villages here and there. Sometimes I stayed in the woods all day, carefully reading Dobrotolubivost; I gained a lot of strange knowledge from it. My heart burned with love for God, through the internal prayer that I endeavoured to learn, under the guidance and verification of Dobrotolubivost; and at the same time, I regretted that I could not find a shelter where I could study in peace. At the same time, I also read my Bible and felt that I had begun to understand it more clearly, not as I did before, when a lot seemed to be incomprehensible to me, and I often encountered surprise. The holy fathers rightly say that Dobrotolubivost is the key to unlocking the mysteries in the Holy Scripture. By working with this, I began to partly understand the hidden meaning of the Word of God; I began to see what a person’s inner secret is, what true prayer is, what worship of the Spirit is, what the kingdom is within us, what timid supplication of the Holy Spirit, what will be in me, what give me your heart, what is to be clothed in Christ, what is to rule the Spirit in our hearts: Father, and other things. As I began to pray with my heart, everything around me seemed to be in a wonderful state: trees, grass, birds, earth, air, light, everything seemed to tell me that they exist for man, and that they show God’s love for man, and that they all pray, they all sing the glory of God. And I understood from this that what is called “guidance of the words of creation” in Dobrotolubivost, and I saw a way in which to converse with God’s creatures.

Meeting with a forester in a desolate forest

I wandered about for a long time. I finally entered a secluded place where there was no village for three days. All my bread was finished, and I was very worried about starving to death. When I began to pray with my heart, my discouragement passed, and I put my trust in God’s providence; therefore I became cheerful and peaceful. As we walked along the road that lay near the huge forest, I saw a dog, which had run out of the forest; I called it, and it came near me to caress me. My spirits lifted, and I thought: “This is God’s grace! There must be a flock of sheep in that forest, and, of course, it is the shepherd’s dog, or perhaps the hunter is hunting there. Either way, at least I can beg for some bread, because I have not eaten anything for two days, or I can ask where there is a settlement nearby.”

Turning back, I saw that the dog was entering a small hole and barking. I followed it; after walking two hundred yards, I saw that the dog was going into a hole between the trees and began to bark.

An old man, skinny and pale, came out from the opening. He asked me how I had got here. I asked him why he was there. We had a nice conversation. The man invited me into his hut and told me that he was a forest guard. He had bought the forest for logging. He offered me bread and salt, and we began talking. I said to him: “Wonderful, that you can live so happily all by yourself, in such a way that I, on the contrary, wander from place to place and mingle among all sorts of people.”

If there is hunting, he said, perhaps you will be able to live here, nearby there is an old hut of a former ranger, though it has fallen down, but in summer it is still possible to live in it. You have a passport. We get bread from our village every week, and there is a stream that never dries up. I have been living here on one loaf of bread and a glass of water for ten years, and I have never had anything else. Yes, that is the idea; as soon as the summer workers have done their work, a couple of hundred workers arrive here, and the forest will be cut down, and then neither you nor I will have anywhere to live here,” he said.

After listening to all this, I was so pleased that I would have fallen to my knees in gratitude to God for this grace. I had been longing for what I received. Below, I am reading Good Worship to learn and achieve a constant prayer in my heart. The summer will be over in four months, so I can use the peace and quiet of this time to study and achieve unbroken prayer in my heart. So I gladly stayed in the house that was shown to me to live in. We talked more with this simple brother; he began to tell me about his life and his thoughts.

“I was, he said, the last person in my village, I had a craft, I dyed flax, and I dyed the blue dye, and I lived in prosperity, although not without sin: I deceived many people in trade, made vain promises; I fought with incense, got drunk, and fought. There was an old priest in our village who had an ancient, ancient book about a terrible judgment. He used to go to church, and read, and people gave him money for that; he went to me too. Sometimes he would give him ten kopecks, and even half a ruble. I used to listen while I was at work, and he would read about the torment we will suffer in hell, how the living will change, and the dead will rise again, how God will come to judge, how the angels will sound the trumpets, and what fire, what brimstone will be, and how sinners will be eaten. One day, when I was listening to this, I was afraid, I thought: I cannot escape the torment! I will try to save my soul, maybe my sins will be forgiven. I thought about it, and I threw my craft away, sold the house, and being alone, I went to the furriers so that the world would give me bread, clothes, and wax candles for supplication.

I have lived here for over ten years; I only eat once a day, and then a loaf with water; in the night, I get up at the first hours of the day and put earthly bows before the icons; when I pray, I light seven candles in front of the icons. During the day, when I go to the forest, I carry the chains in two pockets on my bare body. I do not lie to myself, I do not drink wine or beer, and I do not argue with anyone, I do not know any babes or girls.

At first, I liked living this way, but towards the end, obsessive thoughts attack me. God knows whether you can repent of your sins, and life is hard. And is what is written in the book true? Where does a person seem to be reborn? Another person has died a hundred years or more ago, and there is no more soil of him. And who knows whether there will be a hell or not? No one from that world has ever come; it seems that when a person dies, and he rots, he simply disappears without any trace. Perhaps the book was written by fools, and the leaders themselves, to scare us fools, so that we would live more modestly. So on earth you live in work and you do not enjoy anything, and there will be nothing in the other world. So what is the point? Isn’t it better to live more coolly and joyfully on earth? These thoughts torment me, he continued, and I am afraid that I will not start working at the old craft again!”

Listening to this, I felt sorry for him and thought to myself: People say that some scholars and intellectuals are freethinkers and believe in nothing, and that our brothers—simple peasants who plot disbelief! It seems that the evil one has been allowed access to all of them, and perhaps he attacks the simple more easily. We must do our best and fortify ourselves against the enemy of the soul with the Word of God. Therefore, in order to help and support this brother’s faith as much as possible, I took [“The Adoration of the Most Pure Virgin Mary”] out of my bag, found a chapter of St. Isaac, read it, and began to explain to him that abstinence from sins, fear of torment, is unsuccessful and fruitless, and it is impossible for the soul to be freed from imaginary sins or to be preserved from mental sins. All this is won by inner prayer, and not only by fear of burning torments, but also by the desire for the kingdom of heaven, if someone should make virtuous efforts, then the holy Fathers call this an occupation for hire. They say that fear of torment is a slave’s path, and desire for reward in the kingdom is the path of a hired hand. And God wants us to go to Him on the path of sonship, that is, to behave honestly with love and diligence for Him, and to enjoy the saving union with Him in the heart and soul.

            No matter how much you exhaust yourself, how many bodily labors and exercises you should endure; if you don’t always have God in your mind and constant Jesus Prayer in your heart, then you will never be at peace with your thoughts, and you will always be prone to sin, even in the slightest cases. Accept, brother, to continuously practice the Jesus Prayer; it is convenient and easy for you in this solitude; you will quickly see the benefit. Thoughts of ungodliness will not come to you, faith and love for Jesus Christ will be revealed to you; you will learn how the dead will be resurrected and how the terrible judgment will appear to you as it truly will be. And there will be such ease and joy in your heart from prayer that you will be surprised and no longer bored or tormented by your saving life.

            Then, as I could, I explained to him how to start and continue the unceasing Jesus Prayer and how the Word of God and the holy fathers teach about it. He apparently showed his agreement to this and became calm. After that, I, having parted from him, closed myself in the old cellar that had been shown to me.

Practice of Jesus Prayer in solitude

O my God! what a joy, peace, and delight I felt as soon as I had entered this cave, or, rather, tomb; it seemed to me a wonderful royal palace, full of all kinds of pleasures and diversions. I thanked God with tears of joy, and reasoned: “Now, in this peace and quiet, I must attentively take up my business and ask the Lord for enlightenment.” So I began, first of all, to read the Love of God , all in order, from beginning to end, with great attention. I read it in a short time, and saw the wisdom, holiness, and depth that it contained. But as it is written on a variety of subjects, and on various instructions by the Fathers, I could not understand everything and bring it all together, particularly about the inner prayer, in order to learn the method of continuous automatic prayer in the heart. This was what I wanted, according to the commandment of God through the Apostle: Desire the gifts of the Spirit . There is another one: Do not quench the Spirit . My mind is insufficient, and there is no one to explain it. I will begin to nag the Lord in prayer. Perhaps the Lord will enlighten me somehow. After that, I did nothing for a whole day but pray incessantly, without stopping for a moment; my thoughts calmed down, and I fell asleep: and in my sleep I saw that I was in the cell of my dear old father, and he was interpreting The Love of God , and he said: “This holy book is full of great wisdom. It is a secret treasure of understanding the inner mysteries of God. Not all the places are accessible to everyone; but in proportion to every person of understanding, it contains such teachings, for the wise – wise, for the simple – simple. That is why you, the humble sinners, should read it not in the same order in which the books of the Holy Fathers are arranged one after another. There, this order is theological; but for an unlearned person who wants to learn from the Love of God the secret of interior prayer, she should read it in the following order:1) First, read the book of Nikyfora of monasticism (in two parts); then 2) read the book of Gregory Sinai entire, except for the short chapters; 3) Simeon the New Theologian about three images of prayer and the word about faith; and following this 4) the book of Callistus and Ignatius. These fathers contain a complete instruction and teaching on the inner prayer of the heart, comprehensible to everyone.

But if you want to see an even clearer instruction on prayer, then find at 4 AM the image of the prayer of St. Callistus of Constantinople. I, as if holding The Good That Cares in my hands, began to search for the instruction mentioned, but could not find it soon. The elder, turning several pages, said: Here it is! I will point it out to you, and lifting some coal from the ground, he underlined in the text of the book opposite the article found. Everything that the elder said, I listened carefully and tried to remember as clearly and in detail as possible.

I woke up, and as it was not yet dawn, I lay down and repeated in my memory everything I had seen in a dream and what the elder told me. In the end, I began to reflect: God knows whether the soul of the departed elder belongs to me, or whether my own thoughts are so arranged, because I often and a lot think about The Good That Cares and about the elder? With this surprise, I got up, it was already starting to light up. And what do I see on the stone that was instead of the table in my earthen hut, The Good That Cares, folded up in the very same place which the elder showed me, and underlined with coal, exactly as I had seen in a dream, even the coal itself was lying near the book. This surprised me, because I clearly remember that there were no books here since the evening; they were folded up in my head, and I also clearly know that there was no note on the indicated place before. This case assured me of the reality of the dream and of the holiness of my elder’s blessed memory. That is how I began to read The Good That Cares, in the same order that the elder showed me. I read once, read the same thing again, and this reading inflamed my passion and diligence in trying everything I had read out in practice. It became clear and clear to me what inner prayer means, what means to achieve it, and what comes from it, and how it pleases the soul and the heart, and how to recognize this pleasure, whether it is from God, whether it is from the essence, or from beauty.

So first of all, I started by finding my heart place, according to Saint Simeon the New Theologian. Closing my eyes, I looked with my intelligence, that is, with my imagination, in my heart, wishing to imagine what it is like in the left half of my chest, and I listened intently to its beating. So at first I spent half an hour doing this several times a day; at first I noticed nothing except darkness; soon after, the heart began to appear and to mean a movement therein; then, I began to breathe in and out the Jesus prayer, along with breathing, according to the instructions of Saint Gregory the Sinaitus, Callistos, and Ignatius, that is, I took air in and out and, with my mental vision in my heart, I imagined and said: Lord Jesus Christ, and, with the exhalation of air, I said: Have mercy. At first, I did this for an hour, and for two, then the more I did this, the more often I began to practice it, and, finally, I spent almost the whole day doing it. When I felt heaviness or laziness, or doubt, I immediately began to read in the Dobrotolubie the places that instruct about a heart-mind activity, and the hunt and diligence toward prayer began again. After three weeks, I began to feel pain in my heart, then a pleasant warmth in it, consolation and peace. This excited and encouraged me more and more, with diligence to practice prayer, so that all my thoughts were occupied with it, and I felt great joy. From this time on, I began to feel various moods in my heart and mind. Sometimes there was a boil of pleasure in my heart, in it there was such lightness, freedom, and contentment that I was completely changed and overwhelmed. Sometimes there was a fiery love for Jesus Christ and for all of God’s creation. Sometimes, sweet tears of gratitude to the Lord flowed spontaneously, for He had had mercy on me, the wretched sinner. Sometimes my former senseless concept was so realized that I easily understood and reflected upon what I had previously been unable to even imagine. Sometimes a sweet warmth of the heart flowed throughout my being and I touchingly felt the presence of God everywhere. Sometimes I experienced the greatest joy from the invocation of the name of Jesus Christ, and I understood what it means that He said: Let your kingdom come.

Months passed, and I spent these months alone in this prayerful occupation, enjoying the feelings mentioned, and I became so accustomed to heartfelt prayer that I practiced it continuously, and finally felt that prayer was now itself, without any motive on my part, being produced and uttered in my mind and heart, not in my mind; but even in my sleep it acted in the same way, and was not interrupted by anything, not even for a moment, whatever I might do. My soul thanked the Lord, and my heart was constantly in joy. The time had come to cut down the trees, and the people began to leave. Thanking the forester, I prayed, kissed the patch of earth on which God had granted me the unworthy privilege of His grace, put my bag containing my books on my back, and left. I wandered about for a long time, until I reached Irkutsk. Heartfelt, spontaneous prayer was a consolation and a pleasure along the whole way, at every encounter, it never ceased to delight me, even though in different degrees, wherever I was, whatever I was doing, whatever I was occupied with, it never hindered me or took anything away. If I was working, and prayer was in my heart by itself, then the work proceeded more rapidly; if I was listening carefully or reading, and prayer never ceased, and I felt both that and the other at the same time, as if I were divided or divided into two souls in the same body. My God, what a mysterious person!

      Звеличися діла Твої Господи: вся премудрості створив Ти! . There were many wonderful events and happenings on my way. If I were to tell all about them, I would never be able to finish in a day. But, for example: one winter evening, I was passing through a lonely forest on my way to spend the night in a village that was already two versts away. Suddenly, a great wolf sprang at me. I had a piece of wool in my hands (I always carried it with me). And what happened? The teeth ripped themselves out of my hands and somehow got stuck behind the wolf’s neck, and the animal ran away from me and, jumping over a hedgerow, got entangled in shrubs with its hind legs, with the teeth stuck in a dried tree trunk, and started to fight; but it was inconvenient for it to break free because the piece of wool had strangled its neck. I crossed myself with faith and went with the intention of saving the wolf. Moreover, I thought that if it broke the piece of wool and ran off with it, then my precious piece of wool would go missing. As soon as I approached and grasped the piece of wool, the wolf did break it and ran off without a trace. So I, having thanked God and remembering my blessed elder, arrived safely at the village; entered the village hostel and asked to spend the night. I entered a house. In the front room, two men were sitting at the table, one was a grandfather, and the other was a stout middle-aged man, who seemed not to be just any old man. I asked the man who was in their horse stable who these men were. He told me that the grandfather was the teacher of the people’s school, and the other man was a clerk at the land court: both of them were noblemen. I had been coming to collect taxes for them, twenty versts from here. After staying there for a while, I asked the old lady for a needle with a thread, went up to the candle, and began to mend my piece of wool. The clerk looked at me and said: “You certainly hit your knees hard, since you broke the piece of wool!” ‘It wasn’t I who broke it, it was the wolf …’ Did wolves pray? the clerk said, laughing. ‘I told them the whole story, and how precious these pieces were to me. The clerk laughed again and said: “In your case, miracles always happen! And what exactly is sacred in this story? Simply you threw it upon him, and the wolf was frightened and ran off; for both dogs and wolves are afraid of boulders, and it is not strange to get entangled in a forest; in the world, almost everything is miraculous, so why believe in miracles at all?” After hearing this, the teacher began arguing with the clerk: “Don’t be so sure, good man! You must not be familiar with the scientific view of things …” I saw that this old man had a special perception that went beyond simple observation. “How,” the clerk asked, “is it possible that the wolf could see with the naked eye under the sudden illumination of a candle and write with a piece of coal?” ‘Tell me,’ I said to the teacher, ‘and I’ll explain to you the nature of spirits.’ ‘What’s that?’ the clerk asked. ‘If spirits are embodied in the body of a living person, they take on a tangible body by borrowing from the air and material of light, and when they manifest themselves, they return to the medium from which they borrowed their body.’ ‘And since the air has resilience, compression and stretching strength, does that mean that the spirit clothed in it can take, act and write?’ the teacher asked. – ‘What is this book of yours? may I have a look at it!’ He snarled and opened the book of Simeon the New Theologian, and his words and speech: – ‘Ah! It must be a theological book. I’ve never seen it before … This book is almost entirely composed of the teachings of interior heart prayer to Jesus Christ; it is revealed in all its detail by twenty-nine holy fathers. – ‘I know interior prayer,’ the teacher said … I bowed down to him and asked him to tell me something about interior prayer. Now this is what the New Testament says: human beings and all creatures by nature submit to the will of God, and all naturally sigh and long and desire to enter into the freedom of God’s sons; and this mysterious sighing of creatures and innate longing of souls is interior prayer. There is nothing to learn, it is in everyone and everything! … But how can one find, discover, and feel it in the heart, perceive and accept it by one’s will, attain so that it acts, delights, enlightens and saves us? – I asked. ‘I don’t remember whether it is written somewhere in the theological treatises,’ the teacher replied. Here it is written … here it is written, I indicated … The teacher took up a pencil, wrote down the name of Dobrotolubiya, and said: ‘I will definitely copy this book from Tobolsk and study it.’ And so we parted.

I left with gratitude to God for the conversation with the teacher, and I prayed to the scribe that the Lord might arrange for him even once to read the Love of God, and lead him to salvation.

Meeting with a pious priest

And once again, in the spring, when I was in a village, I had to stay with a priest. He was a good and lonely man: I spent three days with him. After examining me at this time, he began to tell me: stay with me, I will pay you for it; I need a conscientious person; you saw that we are building a new stone church instead of the old wooden one. I can’t find a reliable person who would look after the workers and sit in the chapel to collect alms for the construction; but I see that you would be able to do this, and on your way you would have an easy life; you would sit alone in the chapel, praying to God, and there is a room for a watchman. However, I insisted on that only for the time being, until the church is completed. Although I refused at first, I eventually agreed to this on the priest’s insistent request. And so I stayed for the summer until autumn. That’s how I started living in the chapel. At first it was quiet and comfortable for me to practice prayer, even though many people came to the chapel, especially on festive days, some to pray, some to take a nap, while others took money from the collection plate. And as I sometimes read the Bible and the Love of God, some of those who came, seeing this, started a conversation with me, others asked me to read them something.

            After a while, I noticed that one peasant girl often went to the chapel and prayed to God for a long time. Listening to her murmuring, I found out that she was reading some strange prayers, and others were completely distorted. I asked: who taught her all this? She said that her mother, who was a church woman, and her father was a heresy-free and superstitious man. Being sorry for all this, I advised her to properly read the prayers according to the tradition of the holy church, and thus explained to her: Our Father and to Thee, O Virgin Mary, be praised. But, in the end, I said: do this more often and more frequently, and the Lord’s Prayer is more profitable than all prayers to God, and you will receive the salvation of your soul through it. The girl took my advice to heart and began to do so with simplicity. And what happened? Not long after she told me that she had become accustomed to the Lord’s Prayer, that she felt an inescapable urge, if it were possible, to engage in it constantly, and when she prayed, she felt pleasure, and after its completion, she also felt joy and a longing to pray again. I was delighted with this, and I advised her to continue praying in the name of Jesus Christ.

The time was approaching the end of summer; many of those who came to the chapel began to come to me not only for reading and advice, but also with various life sorrows, and even for identifying lost and missing things; apparently others considered me to be a sorceress. Finally, the girl mentioned earlier, in trouble, came for advice, as she was supposed to be married unvoluntarily to a man who was also from the Popovichi district, and they would marry in the village. What is this legal marriage? It is meaningless! I want to run away where my eyes look, she exclaimed, for they will find me again. Nowadays, you can’t hide without being seen; everywhere they will find you; but it is better to pray more diligently to God so that He will ruin your father’s intention and save your soul from sin and heresy. That will be safer than trying to run away.

            Then they were holy, said the priest. If the saints were afraid of harm from contact with people, what is there to do for a powerless sinner? Finally, I took leave of this kind priest, and he accompanied me with love on my way.

A story about a saved girl

            Ten versts on, I stopped to spend the night in a village. On this overnight stay, I saw a desperately sick man, and advised the old man nearby to have him sacramented with the sacred mysteries of Christ. They agreed, and by morning they sent for a priest from their parish village. I stayed to wait to venerate the holy gifts and pray for this great sacrament. I went out into the street, sat on the porch, and waited to meet the priest. Suddenly, unexpectedly, a girl came running out of the back yard to me.Later in the evening, the inspector, passing through the village, stopped at the polling station, and was told about what had happened. He ordered to gather a meeting, and had me brought to the court house. We entered, stood and waited. The inspector arrived already brave, sat at the table in a cassock and shouted: “Hey, Epifanes! After all, the girl, your daughter, did not bring anything bad from the yard?” Nothing, Father! With this rascal, no bad things have been discovered? No, Father! Well, just as we judge the case and decide: you and your daughter will deal with it yourself; and this young man will be examined and punished tomorrow, and we will order him not to show up here anymore.” That’s all! After saying this, the inspector got up from the table and went to bed; and I was again put in prison. Early in the morning, two men, the district commander and the captain, dragged me out and released me; and I went, thanking God that he had granted me to suffer for his name. This consoled me and warmed my heart even more with the continuous heartfelt prayer.Then he began to say: “Watch over your spirit and do not grieve! Remember what the Apostle said: ‘Greater is what is in you than in the world.’ Now you have learned experientially that no temptation is allowed to go beyond the strength of man; but ‘with temptation God works and brings about an immediate salvation’ (Jas 1:13). Hope in this divine help strengthened and guided the zeal and diligence of the holy prayer-meditators, who not only lived their lives in unceasing prayer, but with love also taught and made known this to others, in due season and at the right time. This is what St Gregory of Nyssa says: ‘It is not only we ourselves who are commanded by God to pray without ceasing, in the name of Christ, but we must also teach and make known this to other monks, to all in general, to men and women, children, the wise and the simple, and cultivate diligence in all.’ In the same way, the Monk Callistus of Antiliquida says: ‘Neither the rational action about God (that is, interior prayer) nor contemplative knowledge and the ways of increasing the soul’s frailty should be confined to one’s own mind, but recorded, brought to light and expounded, in order to serve the common good. And the Word of God also tells us that we should ‘help one another, for a wall stands firm and tall’ (Js 10:24). Only in this way should we flee from pride and take care so that the seed of divine teaching may not go to waste. Sleep overtook me, and when I awoke, I felt great joy in my heart and strength in my soul, and went further on my journey.’

To spend this day in peace, without any hindrance to spiritual joy, I asked the church watchman to stay with me in the booth until tomorrow. All day long I was in ineffable joy and heartfelt sweetness; I lay on the straw in this unheated watchtower, as if I were resting on the bosom of Abraham: prayer was of great effect. Love of Jesus Christ and of the Blessed Mother was like sweet waves floating around in my heart and as if it were immersing my soul in exhilarating delight. Towards evening I suddenly felt a great numbness in my feet, and I remembered that they were wet. Not bothering over this I began to listen to my heart with prayer and ceased to feel the pain. In the morning I wanted to get up, but I saw that I could not even move my feet, they had gone numb just like dead weights. The watchman was barely able to drag me off the straw. So I stayed there lying motionless for two days. On the third day the watchman began to force me out of the booth, saying, if you die here, come with you. As soon as I shakily dragged myself forward on my hands, I lay down on the church porch.

So I lay there for two more days. The people who passed by me, paid no attention to either me or my requests.

Finally, one fellow came up to me, sat down and started talking. By the way, he said, “What do you have to give? I will cure you.” It was exactly the same for me; I know this cure. I have nothing to give you. There are only some biscuits and books in my bag. Well, then, can you give me at least one summer if I cure you? I do not have anything to do; you see that I can control only one hand, and the other one is almost dry. What can you do then? Nothing except that I can read and write. And by the way, teaching a boy to write, my son, he knows little about reading, but I want him to write. But the masters demand a great price, 20 rubles for training. I agreed, and they dragged me away and put me in this man’s backyard in an old empty shed.

To sum up, after a week of treatment, “the legs were as strong as before. I thanked God for this and thought to myself, ‘How wise God is in his creatures! Dry bones that are rotten give off such power, colour, smell and effects on living bodies, as if they communicate life to dead bodies. This is the guarantee of the future resurrection of bodies. Oh, if I could show this to the land owner who was doubting the general resurrection!’”Don’t forget, Father, about this holy book. It wasn’t written by ordinary Greek monks, but by ancient great and holy men whom your Church honors, somehow Anthony the Great, Makarios the Great, Mark the Ascetic, John the Golden-mouthed, and others. And in India and Bukhara, too, the monks had learned this way of interior prayer, yet had distorted and falsified it, as my elder told me. In Dobrotolubie, all the commandments concerning heart prayer were taken from the Word of God, from the Holy Bible, in which the same Jesus Christ, who commanded the prayer, “Our Father,” also prescribed uninterrupted heart prayer, saying, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and keep watch and pray and be in Me, and I will be in you.” The Holy Fathers, referring to the testimony of King David of the Psalter, “Taste and see how good the Lord is,” interpret it in this way, that as Christians, we must seek and reach for sweets in prayer and constantly seek pleasure therein, and not just read the “Our Father” once a day. I will now read you how these Saints condemn those who make no effort to gain and study sweet heart prayer. They write that such sinners are guilty of: 1) making the Divine Scriptures contradictory, 2) of not conceiving of the highest and most perfect state of the soul, but of being satisfied with outward virtues, and lusting for truth, they cannot have sweetness of soul, and are thus deprived of the bliss and joy of the Lord’s virtues, and often fall into pride or perdition, thereby departing from the spiritual path. Now, you say, this is something too lofty for us profane people to seek! Here, I will read you something simpler, about how good people in profane life were taught constant prayer. I found a word by St. Simeon the New Theologian in Dobrotolubie, and I began to read.

            During the night, in thin snow, I heard the voice of my old man, but saw no one; the voice told me: “Here is your master who has healed you, and what are you doing to help the mistress? God has commanded us to have compassion on our neighbour. With all my heart, I would help her, but I do not know how. Here is what you must do: from the beginning of her life, she has been disgusted by tree oil, and cannot even stand the smell of it without feeling ill; therefore, give her a spoonful of tree oil to drink, and her condition will become worse, her bone will pop out, and the wound in her throat, which was scratched by the bone, will be covered with oil, and she will recover. So how can I give her the oil when she is disgusted by it? She will not drink it, even if she is forced to. When I woke up, I immediately went to the master and told him this in detail. He said that now he would make the oil help her. Her throat is hoarse and swollen now. Still, we will try; although the oil is harmless, it will not make any difference. He poured some tree oil into a cup, and we gave her a sip to swallow. Immediately, she vomited violently, and soon her bone came out with blood; she felt better and fell asleep.

            In the morning, I went to visit her and saw that she was sitting quietly for a cup of tea, along with her husband, and they were surprised at the cure, and what is more, as I had been told in a dream, she did not like tree oil, because no one, except them both, knew this. A doctor came, and the mistress told her what had happened to her, and I told her what the husband had done to heal my legs. The doctor listened and said: “Neither one nor the other case is strange; in both cases, nature’s own power acted, but for the record, I will write it down in a special book.” He took a pencil and wrote in a special book.

            After this, news soon spread all over the countryside that I was a soothsayer, a doctor, and a healer; people from all sides kept coming to me with their various affairs and cases, bringing me gifts and began to respect and beg me. For a week, I looked at this, and for fear of falling into vanity and causing harm from dispersion, I left secretly that night.

            And I went back along my isolated path, and felt such lightness, as if a mountain had fallen from my shoulders. Prayer comforted me more and more, so that sometimes my heart boiled with boundless love for Jesus Christ, and from this sweet boiling, like tender streams, poured down over all my joints. The remembrance of Jesus Christ became so engraved in my mind that when I reflected on the Gospel events, I felt like I was seeing them before my eyes, my heart became moved to tears, and sometimes I felt joy that I cannot express. Sometimes for days I did not enter into the midst of human settlements, and I felt like I was the only one on earth, a poor sinner before a merciful and merciful God. Such solitude comforted me, and my prayer was all the more pleasant than anyone’s.

            Finally I reached Irkutsk. Bending before the holy relics of St. Innocent, I began to think to myself: where should I go now? And I did not want to stay in this city for long, because it is crowded. I wandered through the streets; and there I met a merchant who invited me to his house. We went into his large house. He asked me who I was, and I told him my story. After listening, he began to say: “Why don’t you go to old Jerusalem? There is a shrine like no other.” “I would be happy to go there,” I answered, “but I have no money to go the long way there; I can walk to the sea, but I have no money to pay for crossing it; I need a lot of money.” “Do you want,” said the merchant, “I will provide you with a means; here last year I sent one of our elderly councilmen there. I fell down at his feet, and he began to say: “Listen, I will give you a letter to my son in Odessa. He lives there and has trading relations with Constantinople; he has ships, and he will gladly take you to Constantinople, and there he will order his servants to hire you a place on the ship to Jerusalem, and will pay the money. It’s not very expensive after all.” Hearing this, I was overjoyed, thanked this benefactor of mine many times for his kindness, and thanked God even more, that He shows Me such paternal Love and care for Me, the wretched sinner who does no good to himself or to others, and who devours another’s bread by laziness. And so I stayed in this benefactor’s house for three days. He wrote me on his promise a letter to his son about me; and here I go now to Odessa, with the intention of reaching the holy city of Jerusalem: but I do not know, whether the Lord will admit me to worship His Life-giving Throne.

Story Three

            Before leaving Irkutsk, I went to see the spiritual father with whom I had been holding conversations, and I said to him: Here I am on the way to Jerusalem; I went to say goodbye and to thank him for his Christian love towards me, the unworthy traveler. He said to me: May God bless your journey. But what do you say to me about yourself, who you are, and where you come from? I have heard a great deal from you about your travels; it would be interesting to know about your origin and your life before your wanderings.

            All right, I said, with pleasure I will tell you this too. It is not a long story.

Biography of the traveler and his former lay life

            I was born in a village in the Orlov region. After my father and mother, there were only two of us, me and my older brother. He was ten years old, and I was two years old – the third. So my grandfather took us in to take care of them; he was an elderly wealthy and honest man, who kept a roadside inn on the great road, and by his good will many travelers stayed at his house. We began to live with him; my brother was lively, and he ran around the village, and I mostly walked around with my grandfather. On holidays we went to church with him, and at home he often read the Bible, the same one that I have. My brother grew up and degenerated; he got used to drinking. I was already seven years old; once I was lying with my brother on the stove, and he pushed me off it, and injured my left hand. Since then, my hand has been paralyzed – it has all dried up.

            My grandfather, seeing that I would not be able to do farm work, began to teach me letters, and as we had no letters, he taught me to read from the Bible, in a way: by pointing out letters, he would make me spell words and notice letters. I don’t even understand how, following him, I learned to read over time. And finally, when my grandfather started to have difficulty seeing, he often made me read the Bible, while he listened and corrected me. We often had a land clerk visit us, who wrote beautifully, and I would watch him and enjoy how he wrote. That’s how I learned to write. My grandfather was pleased with this and taught me as follows: now God has opened the letters to you, you will be a man, and therefore thank God for this and pray more often. So we went to all the services at church, and at home we often prayed; they would make me read: “Have mercy on me, O God,” and my grandfather and grandmother would make the sign of the cross or kneel down. Finally, when I was seventeen years old, my grandmother died. My grandfather began to say to me: “Well, we don’t have a hostess in the house, and what is the point of without a grandma? Your older brother has messed up, and I want to marry you off.” I was embarrassed, imagining my disability, but my grandfather insisted, and I was married to a young, beautiful maiden who was twenty years old. A year passed, and my grandfather became very ill at the end of his life. He called me and began to say goodbye and said: “Well, you have a house and all the inheritance, live in a righteous manner, do not deceive anyone, and most of all, pray to God. Do not look for anything but God, go to church, read the Bible, and remember us with the old lady.” Here you have one thousand rubles, treasure them, do not spend them in vain, but do not hoard them either, give to the beggars and the churches of God.”

We remained naked and barefoot, poor, miserably in debt for a small house, and we began to live in filth. My wife was a skilled needlewoman: weaving, spinning, sewing, she took work from people, and she worked day and night, and fed me. I could not even tie a belt with my stump. She would either knit or spin, and I would sit by her side, read the Bible, and she listened, and sometimes she would cry. When I asked her: What are you crying about? Thank God, we are alive. And she would answer me: It is so touching to me that the Bible is so beautifully written. We also observed the old man’s command, often fasted, read the Akathist to the Mother of God in the morning, and laid a thousand bows to her at night (each kiss), so that we would not be tempted. So we lived peacefully for two years. But what is strange is that although we had no knowledge of inner prayer that takes place in the heart, and we had never heard of it, we simply prayed in words, and our long outward, meaningless prayers were not difficult. Apparently, a teacher told me the truth, that there is a secret prayer within a person that he himself does not know how it happens on its own in the soul, and it inspires someone to pray, who knows and can do it in a particular way.

      After two years of our life, my wife suddenly fell seriously ill with a high fever and, having received communion, died on the ninth day. I was left alone, I could not do anything; I had to go out into the world, but it was embarrassing to beg for alms; besides, the sadness for my wife descended on me so that I did not know where to go. As I would enter my little hut, and see my wife’s clothes or a scarf, I would cry and fall down in grief. Therefore, I could not stay at home any longer, and I sold my house for twenty rubles, and gave all my clothes and my wife’s clothes to the poor. They gave me a permanent discharge passport in accordance with my number, and I immediately took my beloved Bible and set out wherever my eyes look. Having gone out, I thought, where should I go now? I will first go to Kiev, worship the saints, and ask them for help in my sorrow. When I decided on this, it became easier for me, and I reached Kiev with joy. From then on, it is already thirteen years that I have been travelling endlessly from place to place, visiting many churches and monasteries, and now I wander more and more in the steppes and fields. I do not know whether the Lord will graciously allow me to reach the Holy Jerusalem. Maybe there will be time when His will says it is so, to be buried there, in the sinful old bones.
How old are you since your birth? – Thirty-three years.
The Christian age!
Part Four of the Account

      But to cling to God is a great good, to hope in the Lord for the salvation of my soul.
1 Tim 4:16

               A just Russian proverb says: Man assumes, and God disposes, and I replied, Let us go three little more days, until my spiritual father comes. I thought that I was going on my way to the holy threshold of Jerusalem, and here it turned out otherwise; an unexpected event left me there for three days. And I did not wait to come to you, to inform you of this and to take counsel on the matter, which happened so unexpectedly.

Now here are some random incidents that happen on the path of life! And all thanks to God and His holy providence, He directs our thoughts and intentions, as is written:  What we desire and what our God desires. After hearing this, my spiritual father said: I am delighted, dear brother, that the Lord has unexpectedly arranged to see you again soon. And since you are now free, I am happy to keep you here longer, and you can tell me more about your edifying encounters on your long journey. I have listened to all your previous accounts with pleasure and attention. I am happy to do so, I replied and began to speak.< p> While traveling through my Tobolsk province, I had to pass through a small provincial town. I had very little bread left, so I went into a house to ask for some for the road. The owner said to me: “Thank God you came at the right time. My wife has just taken the bread out of the oven. Here, take this warm rug and pray to God for us.” I thanked them and began to put the bread in my bag, and the mistress, seeing this, said: “What a thin sack, all worn out! I’ll give you a new, strong one.” Gratefully, I went on. On the way out, at a small shop, I asked for some salt and the shopkeeper put some into a small bag for me. I was glad at heart and thanked God that He shows me such good people. Here, I thought, I’ll have no worries about food for a week and will be able to sleep and be satisfied. Bless my soul, Lord!

< p class = “wp-block-paragraph”> A few versts away from this town, I saw a small village with not much fieldland and a small, but well-decorated wooden church. As I passed by, I wished to pay homage to the House of God and went into the church. I prayed. Near the church, on the muddy ground, two small children of five or six years were playing. I thought that they were the children of the priest, even though they were very well dressed. So, after praying, I went on. I had not walked ten paces from the church when I heard a shout from behind me: “Beggar! Beggar! Leave that.” That was what the little children shouted and ran towards me; they grabbed my hand: “Come, let’s go to our mother; she loves beggars.” I am not a beggar, I told them, but a traveler. And where’s your bag? “It’s my travel bread.” “No, we must go; our mother will give you money for the road.” Where is your mother then, I asked. “Near the church, behind this gate.”

< p class = “wp-block-paragraph”> They led me to a beautiful garden, in the middle of which I saw a large manor house; we entered the pavilions, which were beautifully clean and decorated! And a lady came out to meet us. “Please, please!” I replied, “God has sent you here to us! Sit down, darling! Take off my bag and place it on the table, and sit down on that comfortable chair; don’t you want to eat? Or maybe tea? And do you have any needs? I thank you all the time, I answered, I have a whole sack of provisions, I don’t drink tea at home, but I have no habit of it, your striving and kind hospitality is more valuable to me than food; I will pray to God to bless you for such an evangelical hospitality.” As I spoke, I felt a strong emotion to go back inside. Prayer began to burn in my heart, and I needed peace and silence to give space to the incipient flame of prayer, to hide from people the outward signs of prayer, such as tears, sighing, and unusual movements of the face and lips.

Then I waited for the gentleman. I told him briefly about my journey and that I was going to Irkutsk. By the way, the lady said, you will definitely go through Tobolsk, and I have a relative there, my mother, who is a nun in a nuns’ monastery; now she is a penitent. We will give you a letter, and she will receive you. Many people come to her for spiritual advice; besides, by the way, take her the book by John of Kronstadt that we have copied for her from Moscow, at her request. How will all this go? Finally, it was time for lunch, and we sat down at the table. Four ladies came and began to eat with us. After the first course, one of the barins got up, bowed to the icon, then bowed to us, went out and brought another course and sat down again; then another lady went out for the third course. Seeing this, I began to say to the mistress: “Maatimo, I dare to ask if these ladies are your relatives or what?” Yes, they are my sisters: this is the cook, this is the head maid’s wife, this is the doorkeeper, and this is my maidservant, and they are all married; in my whole house there is not a single girl. Hearing and seeing this, I was even more surprised, thanked God for pointing me out such godly people, and felt a strong effect of prayer in my heart; therefore, in order to withdraw as quickly as possible and not disturb prayer, I stood up from the table and said to the mistress: “You must rest after lunch, and I, as is my habit, will go for a walk in the garden.” “No, I cannot rest,” the lady replied; “and I will go with you into the garden, and you will tell me something instructive.” If you go by yourself, the children will not leave you alone for a moment; they love beggars, the brothers of Christ, and travelers.

            There was nothing to be done, and we left. Entering the garden to make it easier for me to keep silent and not speak, I bowed to the lady at her feet and said: “Please, mother, in the name of God, tell me, how long have you been living this godly life and how have you attained this virtue? I think I will tell you everything. Here you see my great-granddaughter of St. Joasaph, whose relics are resting in Belgorod. We had a large house in the city, the wing of which was rented by a poor nobleman. Finally, he died, and his wife became pregnant, gave birth, and died after childbirth. The newborn was left a poor orphan; my mother took him to raise, and a year later I was born. We grew up together, and we studied with the same teachers and tutors, and we used to feel like brothers and sisters. After some time my father died, and our mother, having left city life, moved to this village with us. When we came of age, my mother married off her foster son to me, handed over to us this village, and built herself a cell, and then entered a monastery. Having given us her parental blessing, she made us a will that we should live in Christ-like manner, pray diligently to God, and strive above all to fulfil the main precept of God: love for our neighbour. Thus, we have been living here alone for ten years, trying to fulfil our mother’s will as much as possible: leading our children in simplicity and humility, feeding and assisting the Christian beggars, the brothers of the Lord, in simplicity and humility. This is how we are living here now, alone, for more than ten years, trying as much as possible to fulfil the will of our mother. We also have a beggar who now has more than ten sick and disabled people living with her; perhaps we will visit them tomorrow.

        Did you not have, I asked him, any writer on prayer? I love to read about prayer. There is a new book on prayer, written by a priest from St. Petersburg. The baron brought interpretations of the Lord’s Prayer:  Our Father, and we read it with pleasure. After a while, the lady came to us, brought tea, and the children pulled out a whole cake, all silver, like dry pies, which I had never eaten. The gentleman took my book, gave it to the lady, and said: “Let’s have her read it, she reads beautifully, while we eat.” The lady began to read, and we began to listen. While listening to the reading, I listened to the prayer taking place inside my heart; the more the reading progressed, the more the prayer developed, and it pleased me. Suddenly I saw someone quickly pass before my eyes, as if in the air, as if my late grandfather. I jumped, but to hide it, I said, “Sorry, I was a little dozing.” There I felt as if the grandfather’s spirit had penetrated my spirit or had turned on a light in my mind, and I felt a kind of light in my understanding and a lot of thoughts about prayer. As soon as I made the sign of the cross and tried to banish these thoughts, the lady read the whole book, and the gentleman asked, “Did you like this work?” I answered, “It’s very pleasing to me, and the Lord’s Prayer  Our Father is superior and precious to all the prayers that we Christians have; because it is written by the Lord Jesus Christ, and the interpretation you’ve read is very good, but it’s mostly focused on Christian activity, whereas I’ve read in the holy fathers a contemplative, mysterious interpretation of it.”

            У яких же ти це читав? Par exemple, dans le «Sofrades» de Maximus Spécialiste et dans la «Dobrotoljubij» de Pierre Damascen. Je voudrais, tu ne peux pas te rappeler, mais dis-nous ! Merci. Début de la prière : ‘Отче наш, що ти на небесах’ Par ailleurs, dans la copie lue, il s’explique que ces mots doivent s’interpréter comme un évocation de l’amour fraternel envers les autres, comme des enfants d’un seul Père. Ce bref commentaire est juste, mais les saints Pères le décrivent en un sens encore plus fort. Ils disent que dans ce mot, on doit avoir l’habitude de se tourner vers le Ciel, vers le Père céleste et de se souvenir de notre obligation d’agir en Sa présence à tout instant et de nous dresser devant Dieu. Les mots : нехай святиться ім’я Твоє’ sont expliqués dans le livre avec soin, afin que l’on ne prononce le Nom de Dieu sans aucun respect, prés de Dieu, ou dans une mauvaise empreinte, c’est-à-dire, on doit prononcer saintement le Nom de Dieu et il n’est pas question de l’utiliser comme une perte de temps ; les exégètes clés considèrent que c’est un direct requête pour la prière intime, c’est-à-dire, que le plus saint Nom de Dieu devra être imprimé à l’intérieur du cœur et par la prière, il sanctifiera et sanctifiera toutes les façons, les sentiments et les forces de l’âme. Les mots : нехай прийде царство Твоє’sont expliqués par les exégètes, comme suit : que le Royaume de Dieu pénètre dans nos cœurs, il procure au calme et à la joie spirituelle. Dans le livre, on dit que les mots : хліб наш насущний дай нам сьогодні’ devraient être interprétés comme une demande d’aide, de nourriture nécessaire à la vie physique, pas de faim, mais seulement des choses nécessaires et une aide suffisante aux autres. Maximus Specialis, sous le nom de pain concret, entend la nourriture de l’âme avec le pain du ciel, c’est-à-dire : la Parole de Dieu et ainsi, l’union de l’âme avec Dieu, son discernement de Dieu et sa prière incessante dans le cœur.

Oh, how great a cause this is, and how difficult it is for the people of the world to reach interior prayer, exclaimed the gentleman; though the Lord helps to send it out without delay. Do not think so, Father. If it were impossible and painfully difficult, then God would not have commanded it to all. His power is also in weakness; and the experienced holy fathers offer ways to make the path to interior prayer easier. Of course, for the hermits of the world they indicate special and higher means, but also for the laity they prescribe convenient and guiding means to reach interior prayer. Nowhere have I read about this in detail, said the gentleman. Please, please, I will read you from the book “The Blessed Love” . I brought my “The Blessed Love”, found Peter Damaskinus’s article in Volume 3 on sheet 48, and began to read the following: 8216;we must learn to invoke the name of God more than breathing, at all times and places and in everything. The Apostle says: “Pray continuously, that is, he teaches us to have things in mind, whether we do something or not, there must be the Creator of things in mind: this is the reason for the praise and glorification of God, and so you are constantly praying, and your soul will always rejoice.” And now please see how this way of continuous prayer is convenient, easy, and accessible to anyone who has any human feelings.” The people liked it very much. The gentleman hugged me with enthusiasm, thanked me, looked at my “The Blessed Love” , and said: I will definitely buy a book like this; I will get it soon from St. Petersburg; and for remembrance, I will copy this article that you read, tell me. And here he quickly copied it perfectly. Then he exclaimed: My God! I actually have an icon of St. Damaskin (it was probably an icon of St. John Damaskin). He took the frame, put the written sheet under the glass, and hung it under the icon, saying: Here, the living word of God’s saint will often remind me, to carry out this life-saving advice in his activity.”

            After their servants had gone to their rooms, the three of us were left alone in the room. The lady brought me a white shirt and stockings; I bowed at her feet, saying: “I will not take my mother’s stockings; I have never sewn them, we are used to walking in hose.” She ran back again and brought her old blue coat, a thin yellow cloth, and cut it into two pieces of clothing, and the master, saying: “Oh, this poor fellow’s stockings are almost torn up; he has something new to wear,” brought his large boots, which he used to wear on top of his boots, and then said to me: “Go into that room.” I went, changed my clothes, and went back to them. They seated me on a chair, and began to put on my stockings, the master began to wrap my feet in the hose, and the lady began to put on my boots. At first I did not want to, but they ordered me to sit still and said: “Sit and be silent; Christ washed the feet of his disciples.” I had no choice, and I began to cry, and they cried with me.

The story of conversion and the life of a landowner

Forgive me, dear brother, I asked you not out of mere curiosity, but out of kindness and Christian sympathy for you, and also because two years ago I saw an example that gave rise to my question to you. Well, you see, a beggar with a soldier’s pension card came to us, old and old, so poor that he was almost naked and barefoot, spoke little and so simply that he seemed to be a steppe man. We took him to the poorhouse; after a few days he became seriously ill, so we took him to this arbour, comforted him and began to go to him and his wife herself to look after him. Finally, he was probably approaching death; we prepared him, summoning our priest to confess him, to anoint and to consecrate him. The day before his death he got up, asked me for a sheet of paper and a pen, asked that the doors be locked and that no one be admitted while he wrote a will to his son, whom he asked to be sent after his death to St. Petersbourg at the address. I was surprised to see him writing not only in a beautiful, highly educated handwriting, but also his work was wonderful, correct and very tender. Tomorrow I will read you his will; I have a copy of it.

            In such a painful state, I realized my wrongdoings, repented, gave confession, freed everyone who was serving me, vowed to inflict on myself all kinds of labors for the rest of my life and hide in a wretched form, so that for my wrongdoings I would be the last servant of the lowest class of people. As soon as I firmly resolved on this, the visions that had troubled me suddenly ceased. I felt such relief and joy over being reconciled with God that I could not express it fully. Here I also experienced firsthand what heaven is like and how the kingdom of God is revealed within our hearts. Soon I recovered, fulfilled my intentions and, with a retired soldier’s passport, secretly left my homeland. And now it has been 15 years since I have been wandering all over Siberia. Sometimes I take hired work from peasants, while sometimes I earn my living by the name of Christ. Oh! And with all this tribulation, what happiness, peace of conscience, and contentment I have eaten! This can only be experienced by one who, by God’s mercy, has been transferred from the painful torment of hell to the heavenly kingdom. Having told this, he handed me his will to be sent to his son, and the next day he died. But here is a list of his will, now in my bag, enclosed in my Bible. If you wish, I will now read it to you. Please be so kind.

            I opened it and read: In the name of God, the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, eternal of glory and holiness.

            Dear son!

            For fifteen years you have not seen your father, but he is known to us in obscurity, occasionally letting you know of him and nurturing paternal love for you, which obliges me to send these last lines to you as a lesson in life.

            You know how I suffered for my neglect and unconcerned life; but you do not know how I have been in bliss during my unknown wanderings, enjoying the fruits of repentance.

            I die peacefully in the goodness of my father and also in your benefactor, for the benefactors pitched on the father should reach his son. Give his gratitude, as much as you can.

            Leaving you my fatherly blessing, I implore you to remember God, to keep your conscience, to be careful, kind and prudent, to treat your subordinates as kindly and lovingly as possible, not to despise beggars and strangers, bearing in mind that the dying father even in his own poverty and misery of soul suffered. 

Calling upon you the grace of God, I closed my eyes in the hope of eternal life, with the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Your father. 

So we lay down and talked. That’s how I asked my father: I think, grandfather, you have no trouble and no worries with the atheist? After all, many of our brother travelers are wandering from day to day or are idle, as I have seen. There were few such cases, more and more true travelers are trapped, he replied. So we cling to and keep such fools with us to live. They, after living among our good beggars, the brothers of Christ, often correct themselves and become humble and gentle people. Quite recently there was an example of this. One local town smith became so dissipated that everyone was driving him out with sticks from the gates of his town, and no one even gave him a piece of bread. He was miserable, violent, and a thief. In this state of malnutrition, he came to us; he asked for bread and wine, to which he was an extraordinary hunter. We kindly accepted him, and we said: live with us; we will give you as much wine as you want, but only under the condition that you, having drunk, immediately go to bed, and if you at least slightly misbehave and make a noise, then not only will we feed you and never accept you, but I myself will treat you as an outcast or a peasant.

Accepting this, he stayed with us. For a week or more he really drank a lot as he liked; but always on condition of his promise and of his attachment to wine (in order not to lose it!), he would go to sleep, or go out into the garden, lie there and be silent. When he had sobered up, the beggar brothers admonished him and gave him advice to abstain, though at first steadily. Thus, he gradually began to drink less and, in the end, after three months, became a sober person and is now employed somewhere, and no longer eats other people’s bread in the town. Here he came to me on the third day with thanksgiving. What wisdom, guided by the love of a prudent man, has been done! thought I and exclaimed: Blessed be God who reveals his kindness in the fence of his holiness!

After these conversations, we with the father, after an hour or one and a half, heard the morning blessing before dawn, gathered together and entered the church. By then, my wife and her children were already here. We attended the morning service; and right after it, the Divine Liturgy began. My father and I, and one of the boys, stood at the altar, and my wife and the girl-pansy, near the altar window, to see the lifting of the sacred gifts. My God! What reconciled their faces, so that I could cry where I looked.

When the service of the Lord was finished, the priest, the servants, and all the beggars went together to the dinner table, and there were about forty beggars; there were crippled people, those with illnesses, and boys. All sat down. What a silence and stillness! Taking courage, I quietly said to the gentleman: in monasteries, lives of saints are read at the meal; why not do the same for you, and you have a collection of books. The gentleman, turning to his wife, said: indeed, Masha, let us introduce such an order. This would be an insult. I will read in the first meal, then you, and then the priest, and then the brothers, in turn, whoever knows how. The priest, after eating, began to say: I love to listen, but the humble servant does not have the time to read. As soon as you come home, you do not know how to return to all the chores and worries; there is something to do, and something else to do; there are plenty of boys, and the cattle are in a commotion all day long, there is no time for reading or teaching. Having heard this, I shuddered, and the lady, sitting next to me, taking me by the hand, began to say: the priest is speaking out of modesty, he always humiliates himself, and he is the kindest and most godly person; he has been a widower for 20 years and has raised an entire family of grandchildren, and on top of that, he often serves. With these words, Mykyti Styfata’s words from the Life of Dobrolyub came to mind: a person’s inner state of soul is measured by the nature of things, that is, who one is, that is how one perceives others; and he goes on to say: He who has attained genuine prayer and love, has no sense of right and wrong; he does not distinguish the righteous from the sinner, but loves everyone equally and does not condemn, just as God does; the sun shines and rains on both the righteous and the unrighteous.

            I felt a prayerful smoothness, there was a strong need for prayerful outpourings, and isolation and silence had no longer been possible for several days. I felt like there was some flood rising in my heart, which wanted to break loose and flow out in all its members. But the longer I held it back, the stronger my heart pained, that kind of comfort that requires silent adoration and filling with prayer. This is when I realized why the true creators of prayer, who made it through their own efforts, hid from people and hid themselves in oblivion, and I understood why Saint Isaac the Syrian called the most uplifting and spiritually beneficial conversation, but excessive, “sermons”. Just like St. Ephrem Sirin says: “good speech is silver, and silence is pure gold.” In thinking about all this, I went to the poor man’s house. Everyone took a rest after lunch. I climbed up to the attic, calmed down, rested, and prayed. When the monks got up, I found a blind man and took him outside the yard. We sat alone and started talking.

Conversation with an elderly blind man and his prayer path

            Tell me, for the benefit of your soul, do you pray the Our Father fervently? I have been doing so continually. What sensations do you feel from this? It is only that I can’t be without prayer, day or night. How did God open this activity to you? Tell me, dear brother, in detail. You see, I am an artisan in this forge, I have been working at the faience factory, going to other provinces and villages, and sewing peasant clothes.

            I had to live for a long time in a man’s household in a village in order to work his family. On a solemn day, I brought three books to the church and asked: who among you reads? No one answered me. These books belonged to our uncle: he was an erudite man. I took one book and opened it at any page I wanted. And it appears I read the following words: prayer is unceasing and to call upon God always, whether someone is talking, sitting, walking, doing, eating or doing anything else, in any place and at all times alike.

After reading this, I began to think that it was very convenient for me, and I began to pray silently with my sewing, and I liked it. Those who lived with me in the hut noticed this and began to laugh at me; are you a sorcerer or a conjurer, who is constantly whispering? What are you saying? To hide this, I stopped moving my lips and began to pray in one language only. Finally, I got so used to praying that it was the language itself that pronounced it day and night, and I liked it.We set off together with the blind man, and made slow progress, walking ten or twelve versts a day, and otherwise stayed in secluded places and read “Love of God”. I read to him everything I knew about heart prayer, according to the method given to me by my late Elder, that is, beginning with the book by St. Nikon the Great, Gregory Sinai, and continuing on. With what a thirst and attention he listened to all this, and how much he enjoyed it! Then he began asking me such questions about prayer that I did not have enough mind to answer them. After reading what is needed from “The Love of God”, he earnestly asked me to show him how to find the heart by reason, how to put the divine name of Jesus Christ into it, and how to pray in the heart with pleasure. I began to tell him: here you see nothing, but you can imagine and imagine with your mind what you saw before, that is, a person, or something, or a part of your body, for example, a hand or a leg, you can imagine it as vividly as though you were looking at it, and you can direct your eyes on it, even though you are blind? I can, replied the blind man. So imagine your heart, look at it with your eyes as though you were looking at it through your chest, and as quickly as possible imagine it, and listen carefully with your ears as it beats and strikes once after another. When you have got used to this, begin to associate the words of prayer with each beat of the heart, as you look at it. Thus, with the first beat say or think “Lord”, with the second “Jesus”, with the third “Christ”, with the fourth “have mercy”, and with the fifth “me”, and repeat this many times. This is convenient for you, because the beginning and preparation for heart prayer is already in you. Once you get used to this, begin to insert and withdraw the entire prayer of Jesus into the heart together with the breathing, as the Fathers teach, that is, when you inhale, say, “Imagine: Lord Jesus Christ,” and when you exhale, “Have mercy on me”! Engage in this more often and more, and you will soon feel a subtle and pleasant pain in the heart, then there will be warmth and softening in it. Indeed, with God’s help, you will achieve the inner prayer of the heart, which is an enjoyment. But at the same time, be very careful not to imagine in your mind, and of any kind. Do not accept any imaginings; for the Holy Fathers strictly recommend, during inner prayer, to keep your mind unseeing, so as not to fall into delusion.The blind man, after listening carefully to all this, began diligently to practise the method shown, and at night, when we stopped for a rest, he mainly spent a long time doing this. After a few days he began to feel a strong warmth and an indescribable pleasure in his heart, and besides this he had an intense desire to constantly practise this prayer, which revealed love for Jesus Christ to him. At times he started to see a light, although he did not notice any objects or things inside; sometimes it seemed to him, as he entered his heart, that as if a strong flame of a burning candle was lighting up within his heart and, bursting out through his throat, illuminated it; and he was able to see even distant things with that flame, as happened once.

          “I told him: Love Jesus Christ and thank Him; but beware of accepting visions as direct revelations of grace; for this can often happen, and of course it happens in the order of things. The human soul is relatively not bound by place or matter. It can see both in the darkness and very far away, as if what is happening near by. We simply do not give strength and freedom to this spiritual ability and suppress it either by the fetters of our body or by the complexity of our thoughts and scattered thoughts. And when we concentrate on ourselves, we distract ourselves from everything around us and refine ourselves in this skill, then the soul does its job and works to the utmost, this is a natural matter. I heard from my deceased elder that even non-prayerful people are capable of this, whether they are pious or pious, in a dark room they can see light, as if it comes out of all things, distinguish objects, feel their double and penetrate into the thoughts of others. And when we pray from the heart, it comes directly from the grace of God, it is so pleasant that no words can be spoken, and no earthly thing can be applied to it, and nothing can be compared to it; everything sensual is low in comparison with the sweet sensations of grace in the heart. My blind man listened to this with diligence, and became even more humble; his prayer in the heart developed more and more and delighted him. I rejoiced in this from the heart and thanked God that He had granted me to see such a blessed servant of His.

It seems that I had enjoyed these feelings excessively, or perhaps it was the indulgence of the Divine Will, but after a while I felt some tremor and fear in my heart. Would there be some evil or misfortune again, similar to that of the girl whom I had taught the Jesus Prayer in the chapel. Thoughts filled my mind like a cloud, and I recalled the words of St. John of Kappadocia, who says that one who often teaches gives himself over to disgrace and suffers misfortunes and temptations for the sake of those who have received spiritual benefit from him. Having overcome these thoughts, I intensified the prayer by which I banished them completely, and I felt encouraged and said to myself: Let God’s will be done! I am ready to endure whatever misfortunes the Lord Jesus Christ may send me for my iniquity and pride.

            I sat there and thought that she would not calm down soon, and I said to her, ‘Where, mother, shall I sleep? I am tired of being on the road.’ I placed the bedding for you, father, and, having pushed the bench against the window in the front of the kitchen, I spread the mattresses and placed the bolster. I lay down and closed my eyes as if I were sleeping. The cook was still in a fit of rage; at last she went back, put out the fire, and came near me. Suddenly, the whole window that was in the front corner, the frame, the panes, and the fragments of the frame, burst into a loud crackle, the whole house shook, and there was a terrible moan, a cry, and a rattle outside the window. Grandma jumped in terror to the middle of the room and fell to the floor. I got up panic-stricken, thinking that the ground was buckling under me. There was an old man lying in the house, bleeding all over, so that his face was not visible. That frightened me even more. It was the postmaster who had just ridden here to change horses. The young man who drove him had failed to turn correctly at the gate, and hitting the window with the wheel of his cart, the carriage tipped over, and the postmaster, falling, seriously hurt his head by hitting the sharp post placed at the turn of the gate. The postmaster asked for water to wash the wound and a glass of wine to pour it on. He washed the wound with the wine, and drank the glass full, and shouted: ‘Horses!’ I stood beside him, saying, ‘How do you feel, father, riding with such pain?’ ‘Once I was sick,’ he replied, and galloped off. The old men dragged the old woman to the furnace in a corner without feeling anything, covered her with a sheet, and said, ‘This is what happened to her from fright; she will recover.’ And the stableman had sobered up and went to the stables again.

            I remained alone.

            Soon the old woman got up and began to wander about the room like a mad woman, leaving the house. I, after praying, felt some relief, and, in front of the lamp, I fell asleep a bit.

            In the morning, after saying good-bye to the stableman, I set out, went along for a while and sent my prayer with faith, hope, and gratitude to the Father of Graces and to all the consolation that had delivered me from near danger.

            Six years after this event, while passing by a convent of nuns, I went into the church to pray. The abbotess, a remarkable woman, took me to her after dinner and bade me have tea. Suddenly, unexpected guests arrived; she went out to meet them, and left me with the nuns who serve her. The humble nun who was serving tea aroused my curiosity by asking: Have you been here in the convent for long, my mother? For fifteen years, she replied; I was brought here by my aunt, who was mad, and here God was merciful to her. The abbotess left me for some time in my cell, where she became my nun, beginning with teaching me how to pray. How long has it been since you have become insane? I asked. I was employed at such a station, and at night, while I was sleeping, the horses kicked down the window, and in my fright I went mad. For a year my relatives took me to holy places, and yesterday only have I been cured. As I listened to this, my soul rejoiced, and I praised God, doing all things to the glory of He who builds.

            There were many different events, I told my father. You cannot first tell one and then another in three days. What else do I have to tell you about?

Meeting the Country Priest and a Devout Girl

            On a bright summer day I steered to a cemetery near the road — the place we consider as a cemetery, that is to say, a church and the priest’s houses. It was time for the noon service, and so I went there. Many people as well as I came to the altar — those who went all the way there, sat down on the grass, and when they caught sight of me in a hurry, they said, “Do not hurry, wait until the service begins; in this place, the service lasts a long time, for the priest is ill and weak; he is very small and skinny.” Indeed, the service did last for a long time; the priest was young, but frail and pale, his movements were slow, yet he preached piously and with great devotion during the noon service. He gave a very clear and beautiful sermon on how to acquire the love of God.

After lunch, the priest said to me: “After lunch, you can take a nap, and I will read the Word of God and prepare for tomorrow’s sermon.” So I went into the kitchen; there was no one, only an old woman sitting in a corner, coughing. I sat by the window, took my Dobrotolubye from my bag and began to read quietly about myself; finally, I listened to the old woman sitting in the corner, incessantly whispering the Lord Jesus Prayer; I was delighted to hear the most holy name of the Lord, which is often uttered, and I began to tell her: “How good it is, grandmother, that you are always praying!” “Yes, Father,” she replied, “at an old age, salvation is the only real joy for me, because the Lord’s Prayer has saved me from death and death.” How so? Please tell me for the glory of God and to glorify the gracious power of the Lord Jesus’ Prayer. I put Dobrotolubye back in my bag, sat closer to her, and she began to tell me:

I was a young and beautiful girl; my parents arranged a marriage for me: in order to have a wedding tomorrow, the groom was coming to us, and suddenly, taking no more than ten steps, he fell and died, never drawing a breath! I was so frightened by this that I completely abandoned marriage and decided to live in virginity and go to holy places to pray to God. But one feared to set out on the road, in case the bad people of my youth would scold me. Here, an old woman taught me to walk constantly, doing the Jesus Prayer wherever I went, and she assured me that with this prayer, no misfortune could happen to me on the road. I believed this and walked safely, even to remote holy places. My parents gave me money for this.

In my old age, I became ill, and here the priest of this place took care of me and fed me with kindness.  

With joy, listening to this, I did not know how to thank God for this day, which opened such instructive examples to me. Then, after asking the blessing of the good and pious priest, I went on my way, rejoicing.  

The Story of the Conversion of an Old Official of Kazan

But not so long ago, when I was passing through the Kazan Province, I had to learn how powerfully the prayer of Jesus Christ opens up clearly and vividly for those who practice it unconsciously, and how the frequency and length of prayer is the most reliable and short way to achieving good. I had to stay overnight in a Tatar settlement. I entered it, and I saw a cart and a Russian driver standing at the window of one of the houses; the horses were feeding near the cart. Exulting over this, I thought to ask for a night’s lodging at once, thinking that, at least, I was staying with Christians. I went up to the driver and asked him who was traveling? He replied that the gentleman was traveling from Kazan to the Crimea. While we were talking with the driver, the gentleman, removing his haircut, looked out from the cart, looked at me, and said: I am staying here too, but I have not gone into the house, because it is very bad in the Tatars, and I have ventured to stay in the cart for the night. Then the gentleman went out for a walk, the evening was nice, and we talked.  

So I lived alone for three years. The boy who served me was quick-witted and did all the chores, cleaned the room, stoked the fire, cooked my porridge, served the samovar. But at the same time he was an extremely lively and restless fellow, always running around, knocking, shouting, prattling, and that bothered me very much; and I, because of my illness and boredom, always loved to read spiritual books. I had a wonderful book by Gregory Palamas about the Jesus Prayer: I almost constantly read it, and did the prayer a little bit at a time. My boy disturbed me, and no threats or punishments could keep him from his antics. So I invented a device: I started to put him in a room on a bench, ordering him to say the Jesus Prayer constantly. At first he did not like this at all, and he avoided it as much as possible and often lapsed. In order to make him obey my order, I carried a knife with me. When he said the prayer, I would sit quietly and read a book or listen to him say it; but as soon as he stopped, I would show him the knife, and he would be frightened and return to the prayer again; and this calmed me down, because there was silence in my house. After some time, I noticed that I no longer needed the knife, and my boy became more eager and more diligent in obeying my order; later I saw a complete change in his lively character, he became calm and silent, and his household chores were completed more successfully. This gave me great consolation, and I began to give him more freedom. In the end, what happened? He got so used to praying that he almost always said the prayer without any of my compulsion, whenever he could, for any reason. When I asked him about it, he would answer that he invariably wanted to say the prayer. What do you feel at that time? Nothing, I only feel that I feel good when I say the prayer. But how do you feel? I don’t know how to say. It’s fun, isn’t it? Yes, it’s fun.After this, I began to say to the priest: “Wonderful, Father, the book of St. Gregory Palamas, which you wanted to read, I know. But it contains mostly discussion of the mental prayer to Jesus, while you should read a book called The Faithful Friend. You will find in it a complete and perfect science about how to attain the spiritual prayer to Jesus in mind and heart and to taste its sweetest fruit; at the same time, I showed him my The Faithful Friend. He, I noticed, accepted my advice with pleasure and promised to obtain such a book.”

            After I had finished these accounts, I said to my spiritual father: ‘Forgive me, for God’s sake, I have talked a great deal, and the Holy Fathers call an excessive, though spiritual, conversation, maranoslavia. I must visit my fellow pilgrim to the Holy City. Please pray to my sins that the Lord, in His infinite mercy, may guide my path to righteousness.’

            I wish you much grace, dear brother in the Lord, he replied, and the unfailing grace of God be with you, as the angel Raphael was with you!”

Three Keys to the Inner Prayer Treasury

Found in the spiritual treasures of the Holy Fathers

      I have hidden in my heart the Savior’s teachings

      The heart’s desire tries, by crafty devices, to captivate the reason

            Because each person has unique qualities, inclinations, and capabilities, achieving the same goal happens in different ways, through the leadership of certain elements. Also, achieving the goal of inner prayer conduct happens by many means, as we read in the observations of the Holy Fathers.

The first of these ways is common to both the success of prayer and to the success of the Christian life: unconditional obedience, as Simeon the Theologian says; works of beneficence and asceticism, as the church proclaims in its hymns: Deeds thou hast found, O inspired one, in visions of the east (Tropar of the holy Patriarch); Prayer on the outside for inner prayer: Lord, teach us to pray; special gracious influences, such as the following: Capso Kaliv’t once touched the icon of the Mother of God, after two years of prayer to her, suddenly felt a sweetness and warmth that fell into her heart; the young George, in a simple prayer, suddenly saw an inner light and adopted a streamlined automatic prayer, etc.

    If quantity leads to quality, then frequent, almost uninterrupted invocation of the name of Jesus Christ, even if it is scattered at first, can lead to attention and warmth of the heart. Since the human nature is able to acquire a known mood through frequent use and habit. In order to learn something well, one must do it much more often, as one spiritual writer said; and Saint Hyssiac says that frequency produces a habit, and turns to the nature (Ch. 7). This, as experience shows, is the case with regards to interior prayer, as follows: a person who wishes to achieve interior prayer resolves to invoke the Divine Name frequently, almost uninterruptedly, that is, to recite the Lord’s Prayer out loud: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner; sometimes by shortening it, that is, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”, as St Gregory of Sinai teaches. He adds that the shortened invocation is more convenient for a beginner, however, he does not reject either one or the other, advising only not to frequently change the prayer verbs, so that it is easier to get used to the invocation. And in order to be even more moved to incessantly create prayer, a disciple considers him or herself a rule, while watching how, over a certain period of time, a certain number of times to invoke, that is, so many hundreds or thousands of prayers over the watch to recite, without haste, but saying, constricting the speech and lips. After some time, the lips and speech of the adept acquire such a habit, and it becomes self-movable, that the name of God moves by itself, without voice. Further to this movement of speech, the mind will listen and gradually become purified from distraction, and come to attention to prayer. Finally, the gifts of the intellect may be followed by the poverty of the heart, as the Fathers say, that is, the intellect will return to the heart, and with the warmth of divine love, it will warm it, and the heart itself will move freely, without compulsion, with unspeakable pleasure of invoking the name of Jesus Christ, and pouring out with worship: “My heart is watching”. The fruitfulness of frequent reasoned invocation of the name of Jesus Christ was eloquently expressed by Saint Hyssiac: “Just as the rain that falls on the earth increases, it also nourishes the earth, so the earth of our hearts, invoked with joy by the name of Christ, produces and delights us, whenever it is invoked.”

            Although the method presented above, based on the experiments and observations of the Holy Fathers, is sufficient to guide the way to the desired goal of interior prayer, there are also higher methods, i.e. attention and the introduction of the intellect into the heart. This first method belongs primarily to those who have not yet been accustomed to attention and are not yet able to successfully work on the heart, or it can be an introduction and assumption of the following methods. However, according to the differences in properties and abilities, whoever finds which is more convenient, chooses it.

Second Key: Attention of the intellect in the heart

Attention is the keeping (preservation) of the mind, as St. Nikon the Monk put it, or attention is the gathering of the mind to itself, and deepening it in one particular object, while leaving all external thoughts and images. As it is necessary when engaged in prayer, this is confirmed by the Holy Fathers Callist and Ignatius, citing the words of Nil the Monk that attention, which seeks prayer, will inevitably attract it; for prayer imitates attention more than anything else, and it is worth contemplating (The Life of Godliness, part 2, chapter 24). This is also written by St. Isaac the Syrian: as the thoughts say, you are to listen diligently, your mind will eagerly seek Jesus (chapter 90); and also: the atmosphere of the heart is filled with joy and silence by the utmost attention (chapter 91), which is “as necessary for prayer as a lamp is for a lamp’s light” (chapter 102). Similarly, Nikon the Monk, based on his teachings on inner prayer, concludes that if it is not convenient to enter one’s heart, following his example, attention should be taken in every way during prayer, which, without a doubt, will open the inner door and develop inner prayer, as is confirmed by 1st St. Scripture that without attention it is impossible to unite oneself with God, saying: Abstain and know that I am God .

            Therefore, the one who wants to attain inner prayer by the help of attention must keep to seclusion as much as possible, avoid conversation with people, not perform the prayer quickly and not spend much at a time, but with some organization, deepen the mind in prayer verbs in such a way as when attentively reading a book, call upon grace, which he asks: sometimes, having created one prayer, remain silent for a while, as if waiting for God’s response, try to keep the attention both in distraction and always remember that you have chosen to be in constant prayer attention for the sake of the Lord, while purifying the mind from thoughts.

Third Key: Calm Breathing and Rhythmic Pulsation

            The third key is to enter into one’s self or one’s heart. Without spreading our reasoning on this, we will present an image and the teaching of the holy fathers on self-deepening and entering into one’s heart, in the ways they experienced, as faithful guides to true spiritual interior prayer. We will present the instructions of the holy fathers here in their own words, dividing them for convenience into three rows and arranging them in the following order:

The first row will be made up of saints who have left us a complete guidance on Jesus’ prayer, such as: 1) St. Simeon the New Theologian, 2) Gregory of Sinai, 3) Nikon the Monk, and 4) the hermits Callist and Ignatius of Ksanatopula.

            The second row will be the saints who have left us brief expressions about interior prayer, which are:

1) Instructions of Saint Symeon the New Theologian

Saint Symeon the New Theologian gives instructions on the way of entering the heart as depicted in the third form of prayer, in the 68th Word (page 163, in the Russian revision, second edition):

          The third form of prayer is truly marvelous and unfathomable, and for those who have not experienced it, it is not only inconvenient, but even seems incredible. And indeed, in our times, this form of prayer is encountered by few people, whereas they are destroyed by the tricks and cunning that the demons use to divert the mind to many and varied thoughts. For then the mind, being free from everything, has the comfort of scrutinizing the thoughts imposed by the demons, and with great facility, it can dispel them and, with a pure heart, make prayers to its God.

          Having then described the conditions for success in this form of prayer: the perfect obedience, and the observance of conscience in its purity, and in relation to God, and in relation to people, and in relation to things, and by doing all this as if you were before God, he goes on:

Thus acting, you will straighten out for yourself the true and unerring way to the third form of prayer, which is this: let your mind keep your heart in motion while you pray, and let it turn within incessantly, sending prayers to God from the depths of your heart. Herein is all that there is: work thus till you taste the Lord. When at last the mind there, within the heart, tastes and feels with the heart that the good Lord is there, it will no longer wish to depart from the inner place; then it will say, like St. Peter: It is good for us that we are here, and we will always be looking inwards to the heart and turning unceasingly there, driving away all the thoughts that the devil sows.

Three things must be observed above all else: concern for everything, even that which is blessed, and not only what is unblessed and trivial, or else everything becomes spiritless, the conscience must be pure in everything, so that it does not betray you in anything, and perfect impartiality in order that your mind should not drift to anything. Then sit in a particular and silent place alone, close the door, turn your mind away from any temporary and trivial thing, bow your head to your breast, and thus concentrate your attention within yourself (not in your head, but in your heart), turning your mind and your sensory eyes there and paying attention. There, having your mind, try to find it everywhere, and when you find it, then your mind is in that place fully. At first you will find there a darkness and hardness; but then, if you continue this practice of attention day and night without ceasing, you will obtain an uninterrupted joy. The mind, being detached in this way, will reach the place of the heart, and then you will immediately see there things that you have never seen or known before. From this moment, from whichever side any thought arises or appears, before it enters in and thinks, or imagines, the mind immediately drives it away and destroys it with the name of Jesus, that is, Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. From this time onward, the mind will begin to be angry with demons and to drive them away and destroy them. What more usually follows from this surrender, with God’s help, you will learn from experience, keeping your attention and holding Jesus, that is, His prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!

2) The instructions of St. Grigory the Sinaiite

Saint Gregory the Sinaiite expounds the teachings on inner prayer in the heart and on the method of acquiring the skill of doing so in three of his articles on silence and prayer, placed in Part 1 of the Bromotolubia, s. 112-19. Here is an abridged excerpt from them:

                       We ought to speak with the Lord in a divine manner through pure prayer in our hearts; but we, not understanding the greatness, honour and glory of the grace of the resurrection, and not caring to grow spiritually through the fulfilment of the precepts, and to rise to the state of intelligent contemplation, are negligent, and so fall into sensual habits and sink into the abyss of senselessness and darkness. Sometimes we do not even remember whether God exists or what we are to be, being children of God by grace, and we do not know what definition that born of the Spirit is meant to have. We believe, but we believe unfaithfully, and after our rebirth by the Spirit in Baptism, we do not cease to live carnal lives. If we sometimes begin to observe the precepts, repenting, then we observe them only externally, not spiritually, and we withdraw from spiritual life to such an extent that the manifestations of it that appear in others to us seem to be irregularities and mistakes. Thus until we die we remain spiritually dead, living and acting not for Christ, and not answering the definition that the one born of the Spirit should be spiritual.

            In the meantime, the faith we received in holy Baptism on Christ Jesus is not extinguished, but only buried, like a treasure in the earth. And prudence and gratitude demand that we take care to open it and bring it to light. How is this done?

            Two ways lead to this: first, this gift is opened through diligent fulfillment of the commandments, so that when we perform the commandments, this gift reveals its brightness and splendor; secondly, it comes into being and is revealed by the tireless calling of the Lord Jesus, or, what is the same, by the tireless memory of God. The first means is powerful; but the second is more powerful, so that the first receives its full power from it. Therefore, if we sincerely wish to reveal the hidden seed of grace within us, let us hasten to acquire this last heart exercise and have the single business of prayer in our hearts, not merely in appearance, until it warms our heart and inflames it with an indescribable love for the Lord.

            The effect of this prayer in the heart is twofold; sometimes the mind precedes, clinging to the Lord in the heart with unremitting remembrance, sometimes the action of the prayer, having itself been moved earlier by the fire of zeal, draws the mind into the heart and binds it to the calling of the Lord Jesus and to a devout stand before Him. In the former case, the effect of the prayer begins to be revealed by subduing the passions through the fulfillment of the commandments, by the warmth of the heart, as a result of the enhanced calling of the Lord Jesus; in the latter, the Spirit draws the mind into the heart and holds it there, restraining it from the usual wanderings. In both kinds of prayer, the mind is either active or contemplative: through action it overcomes the passions with God’s help, and through contemplation it sees God as far as human beings can see.

            Active, rational, heartfelt prayer is carried out as follows: sit down on a chair at a height of one foot, lower your mind from your head to your heart, and keep it there; and from there, call out rationally and heartily: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me!” While doing this, also control your breathing so as not to breathe rashly, because this may dispel thoughts. If you see that thoughts arise, do not go on with them, even if they are simple and good, not just frivolous and impure. By holding your mind in your heart and calling upon the Lord Jesus frequently and patiently, you will soon destroy such thoughts and strike them down by the invisible power of the Divine Name. The Holy Martyr says: “With the name of Jesus kill the armies; there is no other weapon stronger than this in heaven or on earth.”

When you take up this work of prayer, it is proper for you to read only such books as expound the teachings concerning interior life, sobriety, and prayer, namely, the Ladder of Descent into the Heart, the words of Isaac the Syrian, ascetic books by Maximus the Confessor, Symeon the New Theologian, Isaiah, Philo of the Sinai, and others. Leave books of another kind for another time, not because they are bad, but because it is unsuitable for you to take up them in this state of mind and aspiration: they may distract your mind from prayer. Read little, but read with depth and understanding.

Do not forsake either prayer. Some have very many prayers; others leave prayer completely, praying to the Lord with one reasonable prayer. You, however, should take a middle course: don’t load yourselves with many prayers, for from this there is discouragement, but neither should you forsake them, in case of weakness and neglect. If you notice that prayer works in you and does not cease to move within your heart, then do not forsake it nor take up the prayer book. This would mean going out from God and extending an external conversation to Him. Those who do not yet have the working of prayer should work up a great many prayers, and even without measure, in order incessantly to be in such a labour of prayers and various prayers, until, as they say, the heart is warmed by this painful labour of prayer and the working of prayer begins in it. And one who has once tasted this grace should practice a moderate number of prayers, and spend the greater part of time in rational prayer, as our fathers commanded. In times of inward laxity, it is necessary to read prayers, or to read the writings of the fathers. In times when there is extra wind, the sails are unnecessary: they are necessary when the wind dies down and the boat ceases to move.

‘If you store up tears in prayer,’ it is said, ‘you will not come to pride from the happiness which prayer normally affords. He who keeps such tears will avoid every harm’. The true charismatic prayer is in which, as the heat of the prayer of Jesus emerges, warmth is unleashed in the heart and fires arise from the passions, like an odd fire. It delights the soul with the light of the world, and comes not from the good or bad land, nor even from above, but bursts into the heart like a spring of water, from the animating Spirit. Weep on this only and return to it in your heart, with a mind undistracted ever. With it, do not be afraid anything. For He who says ‘Rejoice, Do not fear, He is with us’.

3) Instructions from Nykiforos the Monk

And Nikon the monk expresses himself on the entry into the heart in his article on sobriety and the preservation of the heart (Karpia, part 2, p. 36-43).

You who wish to receive the fire of the heavenly heart in your senses and to experience empirically what is the kingdom of heaven, come and I will tell you the science of the heavenly life, or rather the art that effortlessly and without toil brings its maker into the refuge of impartiality. Through the fall we have gone astray; let us return to ourselves, turning away from the external. Nourishment and kinship are not possible for us with God unless we first return to ourselves and enter within. Only inner life is truly Christian life. All the fathers testify to this.

For example, a brother asked Avva Agathon: what is more important, bodily work or heart-keeping? The elder answered: man is like a tree; bodily work is the foliage, and heart-keeping is the fruit. Since, according to Scripture, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire, it is evident that you must devote all your attention to the fruit, that is, to heart-keeping. Nevertheless, we need a foliage garment, that is, bodily work.

Saint Lysios says: Close the doors of the cell for the body, the doors of the mouth for the tongue, and the interior doors for evil spirits. Standing on a high level (that is, having fixed attention on the heart), observe if you are skillful which and in what number approach the father to enter the vineyard of your heart and harvest the grapes. Having spent awhile, the vigilant (that is, watching the heart), rising up to pray, then sits down again and courageously takes up the same work (that is, attention to the heart and prayer).

Saint Macarius the Elder teaches: the principal task of the ascetic is to enter into his heart, establish a struggle with Satan and resist his thoughts, struggle against him.

Saint Isaac the Syrian writes: It is necessary to enter into your inner treasury and you will find heavenly treasure there. The door to the heavenly kingdom is hidden within you, that is, in your heart. Therefore wash yourself from sin and gather yourself within your heart: there you will find the degrees by which to ascend the mountain.

Here is the phrase of Carpathius: many struggles and efforts are required in prayer if you want to find a state of undistracted thoughts; this is another heavenly heart, where Christ lives, as the Apostle says: Don’t you know that Christ lives in you.

Here are the words of St. Symeon the New Theologian: “Since the time when man was expelled from Paradise and departed from God, the devil, with his demons, has been given freedom day and night to roam invisibly over the imaginary force of each person. The only way to protect oneself from this mind is to be constantly mindful of God. Whoever is struck by the memory of God can hold back his wandering mind and his mental power.”

            Staying whole with such a trusting and joyful entrance into the heart and deserving of its attention, all the faces of virtues come to you: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, and more.

4) Advice from Calist and Ignatius Ksantopulius

            Calist and Ignatius Ksantopulius present their teachings on the interior refinement of the heart in a total of one hundred chapters contained in The Rule of the Benedictines (Part 2, pp. 56-131). Here is the main point for us:

            The beginning of life in God is zeal and every effort to live by the saving commandments of Christ; the end is the full manifestation of what has been placed in us by divine grace at baptism, or, as Saint Paul said, "put off the old man with his deeds and lusts, and clothe yourselves with the new man", in the Lord Jesus Christ.

            When we are baptized, Saint Zosimus says, our souls shine more than the sun, they are purified by the Holy Spirit. Like pure gold that lies in the sunlight and radiates the beams of that light, not by its own essence, but by being illuminated by the sun; so the soul that is purified in baptism takes beams of the glory of the Spirit and is itself glorious. But, alas! this glory, indescribable and terrible, is with us for only one or two days, and then we extinguish it with the storms of life’s cares and passionate pursuits.

            In the divine chalices, that is, in the holy baptism, in the tunic we receive the perfect divine grace. If we then hide it under the cover of life’s cares and passions, we can revive it and purify it with repentance and the observance of divine commandments, and see its natural brilliance. This is up to each person’s faith and the ardor of effort to live by faith, especially with the blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ. St. Mark says: Christ, the perfect God, gave to those who were baptized the grace of the Holy Spirit, which requires no program from us; it opens up in us and is clearly manifested in the measure of observance until we reach the fulfillment of Christ in the measure of our age.

Then, since the beginning and the root of saving action is to live according to the commandments of the Lord, and the end and the fruit is to restore the perfect grace of the Spirit, which was granted to us at first through baptism, but is buried by our passions, and is once again revealed by the fulfillment of God’s commandments: it is fitting for us to proclaim this gift. Let us purify and become clearer. The mantle of the Lord, John, says that he who keeps the Lord’s commandments with the Lord is with the Lord. The Lord Himself speaks even more clearly about this, saying: If anyone keeps My commandments and obeys them, he loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will come to him and be with him; I will give eternal life to him. I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. .

            It is impossible for us to fulfill the saving commandments without the Lord Jesus Christ, as He Himself says: Without Me you can do nothing, and as the Apostle testifies, that there is no other salvation. He is our way, the truth, and the life. Therefore, our illustrious masters and teachers, with the living and holy Spirit, with wisdom teach us above all else to pray to the Lord and to ask Him for grace without hesitation, and to have and always bear His holy and most sweet name in our hearts, minds, and thoughts. For as when there is no such calling in us, all that is bad and corruptible flows into us, so in that time when it is in us, all that is against it is driven away, not a single good thing is lost, and nothing that we could not do is found, as the Lord Himself said: whoever is in Me and I in him, will produce.

Therefore, having realized our own weakness and placing all our hope in the Lord, loving the commandments with a willingness to more readily lay down our lives than to violate any of them, we will direct all our efforts to get used to and become established in this ceaseless calling of the Lord’s saving name, which is destructive of all evil and fruitful. To accomplish this work, the holy fathers pointed out a special exercise, calling it the art of arts. We present here the natural art of Nikifor Monachos, how to enter the heart by breathing, which greatly helps to control the thoughts.

            The rule is as follows: sit in a secluded place, gather your mind, and bring it into your heart by breathing, and stop there with attention, and say tirelessly: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!” Do this until this call is instilled in the heart and becomes continuous.

It must be known that if we teach our mind, together with the breath, to descend into the heart, we will also notice that, as it descends there, it becomes one and simple, holding only one memory and the invocation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Conversely, when it rises from there and turns toward external objects, it becomes divided into many thoughts and memories. To preserve this simplicity and separateness of the mind, the experienced fathers have enjoined that he who desires to acquire the habit of keeping the mind in the heart should sit in a silent and dark place, especially at the beginning of this good endeavor. For seeing external objects is naturally the cause of scattered thoughts; when the silent and dark cell conceals them from us, thought ceases to be distracted and is more easily gathered within itself, as Basil the Great says: “The mind, which is not distracted by sensations of the world, turns toward itself.” Watch carefully that the essence of this practice consists in a single-minded, heartfelt, pure, and not widely extended invocation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and not merely in this one descent to the heart through breathing and sitting in a silent and dark place. All this and the like were invented by the fathers, not for any other purpose than that in it they saw a means of gathering the thoughts and returning them to themselves from their habitual dispersion. From the habit of being collected and listening to oneself, there arises the habit of pure and unadulterated prayer with the mind in the heart.

            We must know that all such positions of the body are commanded, are defined by detailed rules, and are considered necessary until the pure and unspiritual prayer disappears from the heart. When, by the grace and favor of our Lord Jesus Christ, you have attained this, then leaving many and various deeds, you will be more united with the one Lord by a pure and unspiritual prayer of the heart, without the need for such adjustments.

            Therefore, if you wish to attain a Christian life by works, try to achieve the ability to pray to the Lord in your heart at any time and in any hour, and in every business, in a pure and not passionate manner, so that you can reach the perfection of a human being, measured by the age at which he is to live in accordance with Christ. Do not forget, however, that when a pure and unstained prayer comes to you at times, you must in no way shatter it with your prayer rules. Thus, Philimon says: either by night or by day, the Lord will enable you to feel pure and unspiritual prayer, and you must then abandon your rules and do your best to cling to the Lord God, and He will enlighten your heart in spiritual matters.

            When you have attained the unchanging presence of prayer in your heart, then, as Isaac the Syriac says, you have attained the end of all virtues and have become a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit; then prayer will not cease, whether you are sitting or walking, eating or drinking, or doing anything else; even in deep sleep the aroma of prayer will flow from the heart easily; if it becomes silent during sleep, but inside it will always be sacred and unceasing.

Second group of exhortations

1) Statements by Isaac the Syrian Presbyter

            1) Attention is a continuous absence of thought in the silence of the heart, in which it breathes incessantly, calling on Christ Jesus, the Son of God and God, and Him alone, always and constantly, and bravely resisting the enemies, and having the power to renounce sins (confess them).

            2) Sobriety is a firm steadfastness and stationing of the mind by the door of the heart; so that it sees the strangers’ thoughts coming, these thieves and robbers, hears what they say and do, these destroyers and demons, and draws a scheme around it, trying to entice the mind into dreams and tempt it. If we find this action difficult, it will clearly show us the art of resisting thoughts (chapter 6).

3) Images of temperance: the first is to look constantly towards the dream or the example; the second is to have a heart that is always silent and unvoiced by any thought and to pray; the third is to continually call upon the help of the Lord Jesus Christ in humility; the fourth is to have an unceasing remembrance of death; the fifth, the most effective of all, is to look continually towards heaven, accusing nothing of the earth (chapters 14-18). 4) For those who work within, it is necessary at all times to perform the following four deeds: humility, extreme attention, opposition to thoughts, and prayer. Humility means having in one’s heart, because the evil demons of pride are in one’s soul, the help of Christ at all times; for the Lord hates the proud. Attention means keeping one’s heart completely free from thoughts, even if those thoughts seem good. Opposition means opposing the lurking temptation as soon as the keen intelligence of the mind penetrates it, as the saying goes: “I answer evil with good, to whom therefore is my soul innocent?” Prayer means immediately turning to Christ with a deep groan after opposition. Then the person who practices will see how the enemy’s lying plans disperse like ashes blown by the wind, or vanish like smoke (chapter 20).8) The devil walks like a roaring lion, with his armies, calling out to devour those who are in the thick of things. May our hearts never cease from piety, sobriety, the remembrance of God, and prayer to our Lord Jesus Christ, our God. For there is no help in this life than that of Jesus Christ, the only Lord and God, who alone knows the wiles, devices, and deceits of demons (Chapter 39).13) The experienced David speaks to the Lord: “I will keep my kingdom untouched before you.” So the preservation of our inner and external kingdom, in which all virtues spring, depends on the assistance of the Lord who has given us the commandments and who, if we constantly invoke him, remits the useless distractions which most often consume inner sobriety, like water extinguishes fire. For this reason, do not neglect sleep out of negligence, and strike your enemies with the Name of Jesus. This is the sweetest Name and it will come to rest your breath; and then you will realize the usefulness of sobriety (Chapter 100).17) Here is the astonishing fruit for the mind from the silence in which sins, knocking first on the mind with only thoughts, can later become rough sins of the senses, all of which are excluded in our inner man by the virtue of temperance, which does not allow them to enter and enter, or to enter and enter and Jesus Christ (chapter 111).21) On the right of constant sobriety, useful and fruitful, it is immediately possible to recognize the delusive thoughts that are formed in the mind. The right to talk is to reveal and expose the thought of the enemy, which is about to enter our minds through the perception of a sensual object. The same thing that immediately extinguishes and disperses all hostile intentions, all words, all dreams, all idols and all pillars of wickedness, is the call of the Lord. And we see ourselves how greatly Jesus, our great God, strikes at them, and how he protects us, the humble, the poor and the worthless (chapter 153).2) Filoteya Syanaetsya

2) WORDS OF Filoteya of Sinai

            1) The Holy Spirit has a language that helps to calm and quiet the mind, so that it may unfold its thoughts and integrate: the idea of God, like a marigold or a precious stone, completely stilling the memory of God in the heart. It helps to leave aside everything, even our bodies, and spurn the earthly life in order to gain the one true God in the heart (Chapter 1).

            2) In the morning, one must courageously and continuously stand outside the door of the heart, with a strong remembrance of God and an unchanging Jesus Christ prayer in the heart, cutting them off with this thought: all the sinners on earth . . . by a faithful, persevering, and ardent remembrance of God (Chapter 2).

            3) Temperance is rightly called a path, because it leads to the kingdom, to what is within us, and to the future; it is also a sovereign Creator (the spiritual master), because it produces and smooths out spiritual habits and transforms passionate ones into indifferent ones. It is also like a window through which God looks on the mind (Chapter 3).

            4) Where there is humility, a remembrance of God with sobriety and thought, and a prayer frequently directed against enemies, there is the place of God or the spiritual sky where the hordes of demons are afraid to stand because God lives in that place (Chapter 4).

            5) The first gates to the spiritual Jerusalem are the thoughtful silence of the lips though the mind has not yet spoken, the second is moderate moderation in food, drink, and sleep, and the third is what purifies the mind and body, incessant remembrance and reflection on death (Chapter 6).

            6) A sweet remembrance of God, that is, Jesus Christ, in a passionate heart and a saving enmity to all that is evil, as a rule, dissolves all charms of thoughts, different suggestions, words, and dreams, shameful images, and, in short, all that is hostile to our souls. Jesus, when called, quickly puts all this to fire; for there is no salvation for us in anyone else but Christ Jesus. The Savior Himself said this:  “You can do nothing without Me” (Chapter 22).

   11: “Be careful not to be carried away by any records. Keep your mind in check and examine your thoughts. If any rebel spirit roars in your mind, block it and call immediately on the Lord Jesus Christ to grant you victory by putting an end to the enemy’s onset.” (cf. Philotheus “On Mental Examining” 10, 36:4-5)

  2) “First of all, guard your body. Just as the devil of body is called carnal, the devil of the soul is called soul. Infestation by the devil of the soul is more dangerous than the devil of the body, and not for a long time, but forever.” (Philip the Theologian, On Prayer 1:5)

  “Being vigilant, avoid all things that are of little value; and do not fall into the mental error of containing the soul in vain. Praise God at once, and, with a faithful heart, manifest filial devotion for Him, “your country (vocation) is to rejoice in the Lord” (Ps. 38:8). Then no place will remain for the devil.” (St. Gregory the Theologian, Odes to the Theotokos 5.3: PS 27:15)

  4) “Do not attend to the things that befall you. Do not say: “I have no hope, I have lost my hope. We must, therefore, weep and despair at the memory of the past. Let us be busy with how to fuel our fire for God. Let us not lose courage, but cheer up, keep to the mindful rules of repentance, and accept the victory of Christ as our possession.” (Philotheus “On Mental Examining” 10, 30:3-4)

  5) “This armory of God calls upon us to follow Christ, who showed himself to be a kind and gentle fisherman that could lift the heart of any person by the only grace. The Holy Spirit speaks through Saint John: ‘Whoever has this hope in him lives in him’ (1 Joh 3:22). It is not gold or silver, and not the attempt to secure a state of immortality by means of the possession of an invisibly holy state of mind, in which, as it were, the earth is transformed into an unobscured heavenly sky, that at this time is engaging the whole world in an endless battle of life and death. It is grace, and it must be concealed forever, like light that comes from the one who wishes to shed the most perfect light in his place.” (Philotheus “On Mental Examining” 10, 33:17-18).

  6) “Prayers are creatures of the human soul. So often, the voice of worship is entangled with the soul, the spirit of prayer is shaken up, and the ink of the soul is held back. For now, the voice of the Word of God is heard again, but still the voice of the human soul is confused with the voice of the Holy Spirit. In the flesh of the human spirit, the soul is held back.” (Philotheus “On Mental Examining” 10, 36:1).

  7) “Whatever year and whatever moment, we shall observe every moment of the keeping of the hearts from evil thoughts that darken the spiritual mirror, in which one must reflect and write on Jesus Christ alone, Who is the wisdom and power of God the Father. We shall constantly search for the kingdom of heaven within our hearts; and of course, we shall find in ourselves the hidden kernel, the gem, the leaven, and everything else, if we cleanse the eye of our understanding. For this reason, our Lord Jesus Christ said: “The kingdom of God is within you” (Lk 17:21), understanding through this divinity that dwells within the heart. (Prov 23:30)

  8) In the course of internal prayer, do this: Join prayer with fasting, and fasting will strengthen prayer, and prayer will strengthen fasting. Fasting, constantly watching over everything, sees how enemies seek to enter, and, by the strength of its own strength, it guards their entrance, while calling for help from the Lord Jesus Christ, so that He may drive these evil soldiers out. Attention to this is threatened by access in the form of contradiction; and Jesus, being addressed, dispels the demons from their dreams (Walking on Water 25)

  9) With extreme vigilance, keep your mind. As soon as you notice an enemy thought, immediately refute it, but at the same time, quickly call upon the Lord Jesus Christ for revenge. The most sweet Jesus, when you speak, says: “Behold, I am with you, to give you help.” But even after all these enemies are subdued by your prayer, continue to listen attentively to your mind. Here again, waves of thoughts, multiplying those of the past, rush upon you, so that the soul seems to be descending into an abyss and ready to perish. But Jesus, indignant at the disciples, again, as God, forbids the evil impulses of thoughts, and they die down. You, having found freedom from the onslaught of evil, for an hour or a moment, praise Him who saved you, and immerse yourself in thoughts about death (Walking on Water 26).

  10) With every heartful attention, in spiritual feeling, you will perform your path. Attention and prayer, being connected together every day, do something like the Fire-filled chariot of Illyria, raising to the heavenly height one who is connected to them. And what am I saying? In one who has settled in sobriety, the pure heart becomes a virtual heaven, with its sun, moon, and stars, is a home to the indescribable God through hidden vision and intellection (27).

3) Феоліпта митрополита Філадельфійського

1) The setting of the sun makes it night; and when Christ withdraws from the soul, then darkness of passions envelops it, and the wild beasts of the mind begin to torment it. The sensual sun has set, and the beasts hide in their dens. Christ illumines the mind that prays; and each world of that nature disappears, and the mind goes about its business, that is, to divine instruction until evening (Letter 45).

            8) Believe me and I tell you the truth: if in your every work you have as an indisputable companion the mother of all good – prayer – it will not go out until it shows you the extent of it, until it draws you inside it, and until it performs indescribable glory and rejoicing. It removes all obstacles, smooths the path to virtue, and makes it convenient for those who seek (Letter 48).

            9) Walking in thought, read the verbs of prayer, and talk to the Lord, constantly crying out and not lamenting; relentlessly praying, following the unceasingness of this widow who pleaded with the terrible judge. Then (it will mean that) you are walking in spirit, not listening to carnal desires, and not ceasing the continuity of prayer with worldly thoughts, but being the temple of God in which the invisible God is unceasingly praised. Thus, in thought, praying, you will eventually succeed in reaching the incessant meditation on God, in entering into the inaccessible mysteries of the mind, in seeing the invisible in secret contemplations, serving God alone to the one who is alone, in loving devotion that is understood to you alone (Letter 48).

4) Sayings of Varthenus the Great and John the Prophet

            1) By the invocation of the name of God the enemies are weakened. Knowing this, we will not cease to call God’s name for help. This is prayer, and the scriptures say: never cease to pray (Reply 422).

            2) Remember that God is the healer of hearts, he looks at the heart, and call Him in your heart. This is what is said in Scripture: close your doors and pray to your Father who secretly. Let us close our mouths and pray to Him in our hearts; for he who closes his mouth and calls God, or prays to Him in his heart, he fulfills the given commandment (Reply 427).

            3) Your heart’s work must consist in constantly praying to God. If you wish to succeed in this, begin here and seek with diligence, without hoping, and God will bless you with success (Reply 26).

            4) The constant invocation of the name of God is a medicine that kills not only passions but even their very action. Like a physician who works out a proper remedy or plastron for a suffering wound, and they take effect, while the patient himself does not know how it is done: so too does the name of God, when called upon, kill all passions, although we do not know how it is done (Reply 421).

            1) The ascetic Avva Filimon was said to have isolated himself in a cave near the monastery of Romeius, and given himself up to ascetic struggles. He recited to himself what is reported to have been the words of Arsenios the Great: “Filimon, is it enough for you?” His life in the cave was not easy. His task was to make rope and weave baskets, which he gave to the economy, and in exchange received some bread. He ate little, only bread with salt. He did not take care of his body, but, through waking vision, was in divine illumination, and, delighted by this unfathomable inner mystery, was in spiritual training. When he went to church on Saturdays and Sundays, he always went alone in deep interior contemplation, not allowing anyone to approach him so that his mind would not be distracted from his purpose. In the church, he stood in a corner and kneeling, he shed tears, without ceasing to lament and to ask for forgiveness for his sins, while recalling the hearts and images of the holy fathers, especially of Arsenios the Great, of whose footprints he tried to follow in every way possible.

2) Lorsque la tromperie s’épancha à Alexandrie et dans ses environs, il quitta la ville et alla dans la Lavra de Nicoroff. Récepteur de celui-ci, le bien-aimé Pavich lui donna son quartier isolé et lui préféra la solitude. Pendant un an, il ne lui parla plus qu’à l’occasion de lui donner le pain nécessaire. Fit le Christ Chrétien ; lorsque les deux hommes se parlèrent et qu’ils abordèrent un sujet lié au pratiquen, Filimon comprit que son Fils d’inspiration touchait le point même de tout le mouvement de la vie solitaire ; il comporta beaucoup de paroles grandes d’aspiration en ce sens, autant écrites qu’imprimes, afin de démontrer qu’il est impossible de faire grâce à Dieu sans cet absolu intime, que rien que le grand moment de solitude trouvant, et que la solitude fait pécher Môychéa, et que la péché engendre le chagrin, le chagrin crie la crainte, la crainte la humilité, la humilité nous oriente, nous inscrira dans le chemin de la perfection, là où, à la fin, nous trouverons l’amour, qui rend la force et nous rendra à l’image de Dieu tel qu’il est en lui-même.3) Philimon said to him: it is necessary for you, with the help of silence, completely to purify the mind and give it a ceaseless spiritual activity. Just as the eye, looking at the sensual, is amazed by the visible, so a pure mind, turning to thought, is captivated by the spiritually contemplated, so that it cannot be taken away from it. And the more it is exposed through silence to the passions and purified, the more it is pleasing and gratifying for the spirit of spiritual things. The mind is perfected when it has tasted the essence of being and has united with God. Then it, having the dignity of a king, no longer feels poverty and is not delighted by worldly desires, even if you offer it all the kingdoms. Therefore, if you wish to attain such virtues, run away from the world and with diligence strive along the way of the saints, leave worries about your outward appearance, dress simply and wear modest adornments. Keep your mind simple, your speech unpretentious, your footsteps unholy, your voice inept. Love to live in poverty and be neglected by everyone. Above all, care about the preservation of the mind and sobriety, be patient in all adversities and strive to keep the spiritual goods already acquired undamaged and immobile. Regard yourself carefully and do not accept any of the passions that secretly creep in. For although silence subdues the passions of the soul, if one allows them to break out and become more acute, they usually become even more furious, and those who tolerate this are more violently brought into sin. Likewise, bodily wounds that are rubbed and ripped are incurable. Perhaps a single word can remove the mind from the memory of God, when the demons are hungry for it, and the feelings agree with them. Great virtue and fear are to keep the soul. Therefore, it is necessary to completely withdraw from the world and, having detached the soul from all bodily feelings, to be homeless, homeless, propertyless, penniless, selfless, carefree, unaccompanied, ignorant of worldly affairs, humble, compassionate, pious, gentle, lenient, gentle, quiet, meek, and having print in the heart. For it is impossible to write on wax without erasing the letters already traced on it, as the Great Basil teaches us. Such was the image of saints who, completely withdrawing from all worldly customs and preserving an undisturbed heavenly inspiration in themselves, were illuminated by divine laws and radiated with pious works and words, having buried on earth the things that are materially treated by discipline, fear of God and love. For unceasing prayer and meditation on the divine scriptures open the wise eyes of the heart and behold the Ruler of powers, and there is great joy, and a divine desire, inexhaustible, bursts into the soul, while the flesh is preserved by the action of the Spirit, and man is made spiritual. This is what the creators of blissful silence and the thinnest ascetic life desire, who, having cast themselves out of all human pleasure, speak unceasingly to the one Lord of the heavens.4) Hearing this, the pious brother, stirred with godly love, left his place and, together with Filimon, reached the [[cenobium]] where the greatest among the fathers had trod the path of [[asceticism]]. They settled themselves in the Lavra of St John the Colymite, entrusting the maintenance of themselves to the [[economus]] of the Lavra, since they wished to remain in silence. They remained there by the grace of God in complete silence, meeting on Saturdays and Sundays for common services of worship, while on other days they remained in their own cells; and each one prayed and performed service in a special way.10) The brother went and, by the grace of God, after his father’s prayers, he became calmer and enjoyed this instruction a little. But then this joy left him, and he could no longer perform this action and pray with a clear mind. That is why he went back to the elder and told him what had happened. The elder said to him: now you have recognized the path of silence and rational action and have tasted the sweetness that comes from it. Keep this always in your heart — whether you eat or drink, whether you talk to someone or are on the road, whether you are in your cell or standing, do not let your mind become idle, but train it to pray and study in prayers and psalms with a pure mind; even when fulfilling the most necessary needs, do not let your mind be idle, but train it to study and pray. Only in this way can you understand the depths of the divine Scripture and the hidden power in it, and make your mind constantly do its work, so that you carry out the apostolic command, which says: “Pray continuously.” Watch over your heart carefully and keep it from receiving vain thoughts or thoughts that are empty and frivolous; but always, whether you are asleep or awake, eating or drinking, talking or walking, let your heart secretly meditate, studying the psalms and praying: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!”11) A brother asked him: I have many vain thoughts when I sleep. The elder said to him: Do not be lazy or discouraged; but before you fall asleep, do a great deal of prayer in your heart and resist the thoughts and schemes of the devil, which want to lead you against your will. Let God accept you. As far as you are able, take care that you fall asleep with psalms on your lips and wise exhortation, and in no way let your mind accept the thoughts of others, but with what thoughts you prayed, it was those you inclined to incline to and fall asleep on, so that when they were in you and while they were in you and when you were alone. Say the holy symbol of the Orthodox faith before you fall asleep, for the orthodoxy about God is the source and safeguard of all good things.

            Then he gave him the following advice: think about useless things that are in the soul, they are the sickness of an immaculate soul that has given itself over to carelessness. That is why, according to the Scriptures, we are obliged to exercise all possible diligence, to sing with reason without distraction, and to pray with a pure mind. Therefore, brother, God wants us to show him our diligence, first by deeds (ascesis and works of charity), then by love and constant prayer, and he will give us the way of salvation. Obviously, there is no other way that leads to heaven except for the perfect separation from all evil, the acquisition of all good, the perfect love of God, and the state of holiness and truth, so that when we have this, we will soon ascend to the heavenly kingdom. But while our soul delights in the contemplation of true good, it will no longer return to any of the passions that are aroused by sweet sinful pleasures; but by turning away from every corporeal delusion, it will receive the revelation of God with a clear and pure mind. Therefore, we need to exercise great self-control, do many bodily works, and purify our souls, and we must take God into our hearts, so that we can freely perform his divine commandments, and so that he himself may teach us to observe his laws, radiating his actions on us through the grace of the Spirit. By works and temptations we must purify the image in which we were created as rational beings capable of understanding and God-imitating, bearing feelings that are clean from every kind of impurity through the casting of them into the furnace of temptations, and being realized in royal dignity.

13) And after a little while he came again, and beginning a discourse, asked: “What shall I do, father? The service I perform at night oppresses me with sleep and does not allow me to pray with sobriety and deworm; and I want to take up my work when I sing.” The old man said: “If you can pray with sobriety, do not touch the needle; but when you feel a desire to work, you can move back gently from the thought and place it, and then touch the needle.” He asked again: “You, father, are not overwhelmed by sleep during your service?” The old man said: “It is not so easy; but when some kind of work comes, I move back slightly, but begin to read from the beginning of the Gospel of John, fixing the eye of the mind on God, and it immediately disappears. I do something similar with thoughts; especially when I meet one in fire with tears, it disappears. You cannot yet equip yourself against them; but keep strictly the instruction given by the holy fathers, as daily prayers, in some way—third, sixth, ninth and evening, and night services. And by all means, try not to do anything for the sake of man, and be careful not to sever yourself from God. Try to keep your mind undivided, listening attentively to inner thoughts. When you are in church with the intention of receiving the Holy Mysteries of Christ, do not leave it until you receive the perfect world. When standing in one place, do not leave it until just before Holy Communion. In your own mind, think that you are on heaven and are with the holy angels awaiting God, ready to receive Him into your heart; prepare yourself for this with fear and trembling, so that you may be worthy to be a communicant of the holy orders.”14) My brother who lived with me told me this: ‘Sitting beside me one day, I asked him, “Was you tempted by demonic plots while living in the desert?” He said, “Please forgive me, brother, if God allows the temptations of the devil to come upon you, the same temptations I endured, I do not believe that you would be able to bear their bitterness.” I am seventy years old, or even a few more, and I have endured many trials while living in various deserts in perfect silence. What I have experienced and endured from these demons is not worth telling to those who have not yet been tempted to silence. In such temptations, I have always done this: I placed all my hope in God, to whom I gave both vows of abstinence, and He soon saved me from all need. Why, brother, do I now do anything of my own accord? I simply endure the temptations that come against me, knowing that He cares for me. In doing so, I offer to Him only that I may continually pray. That helps me a great deal, and the hope that the more heavy the trials and misfortunes, the more abundant the crowns of the patient. For a righteous Judge balances them off against each other. Knowing this, brother, do not fall into despair. Having entered the midst of battle, you may fight, and fight, being encouraged by the fact that there are those who are fighting for us against the enemy of our race, and there are far more of them than the enemy’s host. How could one dare to oppose such a terrible opponent of our race, unless the sovereign rule of God’s Word were to enclose us, protect us, and cover us? How could human nature withstand his onslaught? For as Job says, ‘Who can open the doors of the covering of his body? Who will come to his destruction? Sparks of fire are coming out of his mouth, and flames from his nostrils. Smoke goes up from his nostrils like the smoke of a burning charcoal. His spirit is like fire, and his tongue is like a flaming charcoal. He has strength on his neck, and ruin passes by before him. His heart is as hard as stones, immovable like a lathe. He makes his darkness as a furnace of bronze, he sees the waters as a calm harbor, the abyss as a solitary hamlet, and the tempest as a fortress. All heights are seen by the king, for whom everything in the waters is subject.’ In this way, how can we resist this one? By this alone, the word of this tyrant has depicted him! Even so, victory over him is easily won by those who, as is proper, lead a solitary life because for lack of anything in themselves that he takes part in, they have broken off from the world; by their high virtues and because we have someone fighting for us. For who, tell me, by approaching the Lord and accepting His fear in the mind, has not brought the nature into being, and tempered herself by divine laws and works, and made her soul bright and capable of shining with divine perceptions and thoughts? The Holy One never allows her to be sinful, because she has God within her who inspires the mind to yearn for light eagerly. And the soul is thus continually influenced, and the spirit does not allow the passions to degenerate, but as a king does, breathing awful wrath and deliberation, he ruthlessly suppresses them. Such a one never turns back, but by the practice (of good deeds) and the influence of the hands to heaven, and by wise prayer, he attains victory in battle.’15) This is what another brother of his told about the other virtues of Abba Philimon: he could not hear a dead word, and if someone, forgetting, told something that did not concern the good of the soul, he did not pay any attention to it. Nor did he ask when I was going anywhere, “for what purpose are you going?” And when I returned, he did not say, “where have you been? or what and how did you do?” Once I went to Alexandria for a necessary purpose, and from there, for a church matter, I went to Tsargrada, without letting the servant of God know. Then, having spent some time there, visiting the pious brothers, I finally returned to him in the hermitage. When he saw me, the old man was delighted, and with the usual greeting, after making a prayer, he sat down. But he did not ask me anything at all, and was busy with his usual intelligent actions.19) After that, he related a story about a hermit, saying that he had already attained impartiality and received bread from an angel, but because of lack of concentration, he had lost this honour. For when the soul relaxes its distracted and concentrated attention, it is overcome by darkness, and then the soul cannot look upon the one God and quiver at His word. God draws near, says the Lord, and not God is far away. Is it not possible for a man to hide himself in secrecy, and for me not to find him? Is it not I who fill heaven and earth with bread? And he related many other stories similar to those of the sufferers. He mentioned the fall of Solomon, who, he said, acquired such wisdom, and while he was known by all, because he was like a morning star rising in the dawn and filled all with the light of wisdom, for the sake of a little favour, lost that glory. Therefore, it is terrible to be negligent; but one must constantly pray so that, by finding another purpose, God may not depart from us, but place another thing in our minds in its place. Only a pure heart, having become the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit, sees itself, as in a mirror, as God’s own being.> Therefore, let us all strive with all our strength for practical works, by which we ascend to chastity, which is a hypothetical purity, the fruit of which is the contemplation of the divine, a natural contemplation. For works are the ascent to contemplation, as the insightful and theological mind (of Gregory the Theologian) says.
For if we hate what we do, we will be without any magnanimity. For although one has achieved the highest degree of chastity, all the efforts of ascetic practice are necessary to restrain the unrestrained desires of the body, and to guard carefully the thoughts. And it is by this means that we can hardly win over the indwelling of Christ. For the more we increase our righteousness, the more we grow in spiritual maturity; and when the intellect is perfected, it is fully drawn to God, and enlightened by Divine light, and it is able to see the mysteries of things unfathomable. Then it truly knows where wisdom is, where strength, where the intellect that can know everything, where long life and life, where the light of the eyes and light itself. For while it is busy with the struggle against passions, it has no opportunity to enjoy this. For the good things and evils blind the mind; these, so that it does not see the good, and those, so that it does not see the vices. But when it finds peace from the clamour of these, and is capable of spiritual gifts, then, continually doing good by grace, it becomes entirely luminous, and is unable to turn away from the contemplation of spiritual things. Such is not attached to anything here, but rather has come from death into the womb.20. This and more was related by the brother who lived with Abba. But who would not be astonished at the great humility of this man? Having been ordained to the presbyterate long ago, and having thus closely touched the heavenly and mastered life and mind, he avoided Divine services as if they were a burden, so that during many years of his ascetic practice he went very seldom to the Holy Table (for Divine services). He never, however, partook of the Divine Sacraments even though he continually risked his life by mingling with sinners, inasmuch as in these he did not speak about worldly matters, but always spoke something helpful to all who wanted to talk with him. And when he wished to partake of the Divine Sacraments he would for a long time beseech God with prayers, hymns, and confessions. He was afraid of the voice of the priest, who intoned: “Holy holy.” For at that moment, he would say, the whole Church is filled with holy angels, and the Lord Himself is serving the Divine Litur-gy secretly, changing the bread and wine into His Body and Blood, and, through Holy Communion, enters our hearts. Why, he would add, should we without hesitation and purity, even if we might seem to be without body, walk into the Holy Communion of the Sacred Paschal Mysteries, so that we might become sharers in the illumination that comes from them. Many of the Holy Fathers have seen holy angels warning them (against all impurity): why then should we, who are also men, speak with other men?

21) And here is what the brother also said: whenever the elder had a need to sell his craft, in order to avoid any lie, whether by deception, or waste of words, or other kinds of sin, so as not to speak or bargain, he used to pretend to be a hermit; and whoever wanted to buy his craft, took it from him and paid for it as he wished. He worked small baskets; and he received them gratefully, without saying anything, this foolish man.

Finally, we offer a summary of the fathers’ teachings derived from this book.

Here is what the fathers told us as a way of praying and conditions for success in it:

the fraction, that is, the repeated repetition of the Jesus prayer.

attention, or immersion of the mind in Jesus Christ, with the expulsion of other thoughts.

change, that is, the utterance of the Jesus prayer, sometimes complete, sometimes abbreviated.

interruptibility, that is, to have sometimes prayer, sometimes the reading of psalms, sometimes sitting, sometimes standing with outstretched hands, sometimes the Jesus prayer and the afternoon reading of the Fathers.

walking before God, that is, to always feel the presence of God and to remember God in every action.

rejecting the world, when death is mentioned and the joy of prayer.

continuously invoking the name of Jesus Christ, at all times and times, if alone, then out loud, and in public only with the mind.

falling asleep on the bed with the Jesus prayer.

outer prayer for inner prayer.

Therefore, the soul who wishes to acquire inner prayer and longs for continuous union and the sweetest communion with Jesus Christ, come, consider and fulfill the instructions of the holy fathers in this way:

1) Sit or rather stand in a dark and silent corner in a prayerful position.

2) Before starting, kneel down several times and do not leave the members.

            3) In your imagination, find the place of the heart under the left breastbone and establish attention there.

            4) Move your mind from the head to the heart and say: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”, quietly, with the lips, or one mind, as you prefer, speak not hastily with reverent fear.

            5) Try to maintain attention as much as possible and do not take into account any thoughts, either bad or good.

            6) Have calm patience, remaining for a long time in oblivion of all.

            7) Keep a moderate modesty and humility as a force.

            8) Keep silence.

            9) After lunch, slowly read the Gospels and those fathers who reason about inner action and prayer.

            10) Sleep at least 5 or 6 hours a day.

            11) Sometimes, by external prayer, ask for the actions of the interior.

            12) Do not touch things that distract you.

            13) Often trust your experiences with the instructions of your parents.

            14) As often as possible, confess your blunders and weaknesses, and at least once a week, receive the Holy Communion and the Sacrament of Confession.

            15) As often as possible, visit the temple and take part in the Liturgy.

            16) Choose as much as possible a life of service for the good of others.

            17) Do not be disheartened because, as a rule, the first results of attention do not appear immediately; they come later.

            18) Do not be afraid of temptations, because God has not yet abandoned you. He gives you strength, if necessary, immediately, in a small amount, in order not to ruin you, but to make you stronger.

            19) Do not be arrogant about success, but be always humble. Do not worry about other people, but try to understand them, especially those who do not belong to the Orthodox Church.

            20) Arrange namely yourself a letter to ask for external prayer and a letter to thank them, and write, where necessary, yourself something of your own persuasion and value, whatever you can learn from those who are regular in their lives, and those who have the gift of counsel.

            ” Lord! go forth the firmness of my strength in my attitude of attention, “raised once the prophet David. Say it also, my soul: Lord, go forth the firmness of my resolve for the sake of attention. For you know what to desire and what to do; by your help and support, having purified the mind and the heart through attention, I prepare them for residence with you, the Three-faced God!

            21) Nevertheless respect yourself in your daily life, freeing yourself from animal desires as far as possible, so that in your life something is the refinement of your choice, and not the temptations of entire nature.

1. 22) Do not say, that it is all confined to experience, but say that it is fully and wisely directed to him who is the goal of the experience. This is serious, let us say with your matron,

                A year has passed since the last meeting with the Pilgrim, but, at last, a quiet knock on the door and a prayerful voice announced the arrival of this blessed fellow with heartfelt happiness that met him.

                – Come, dear brother! Let us thank the Lord together, who has blessed your path and return!

                – Glory and thanks to the Almighty Father for all that He does not arrange to His liking, always beneficial to us, pilgrims and strangers in the “foreign land”! Here I am, a sinner, having parted with you last year, once again, through God’s grace to be happy to see and hear your welcome greeting. And, of course, you are expecting me to give a detailed report about the holy city of God – Jerusalem, where my soul yearned and my intention was clear; but not always what we want comes true. Such was the case with me, and no wonder, because am I, a poor sinner, to be honored to tread on that consecrated land, where the divine feet of the Lord Jesus Christ were printed?

And here I was again. I woke up in the morning, as usual, at the same time; before going to bed, I had a dream, as I was accustomed to have every day, and in the morning I did the same. I remembered my path to Kyiv, and I returned to it, if you will, in the heart.

So, I left my house. I sought to go there, and, as I was going through the same place, I suddenly saw an onion surrounded by a high wall with hail, and the hail was covered with red spots, as if there were blood drops on it. I was astonished, because in that place, near the gardens, there was only dry soil; there was no onion. However, as I am accustomed to pay attention to dreams, and to silence my fang, I persisted in following the path that I had seen in the dream.

So, I went down the lane, and on a square, near to the gate of the city (which is on the shopping square), I saw a house, which at that time was under construction, and in the middle of the yard stood a man and a woman, who, without knowing me, shouted: “Who you are, and where are you from?” And I replied to them: “I am Vasyl from Kharkiv, and the place I come from is on the other side of the Kremenets river.”

When I said this to them, there was a sudden peace and a lightness in the room. The man and the woman were purified, and everything was cooled. Like a candle burning brightly in the room, I faced a man wearing a fur coat and a wig, and who could not be deceived. And the woman revealed to me the vision of her perception. And the woman gave me the bread from the bread-baking place, which, by the way, seemed to be such, that it was impossible to distinguish one bread from the other, and gave me money.

When I had breakfast and was out again, I went to the house of the man who spoke in the dream. When I came out, I did not go, but sat for a while. When I came to the place where I had breakfast, and went to eat, I found a man who looked exactly like the man who came out of the house, and who was wearing a fur coat. I immediately went to him, and there is no doubt that I am in Vinnitsa even now.

Finally, after having traveled 70 miles from Odessa, I encountered an amazing event: a large convoy of goods, about 30 wagons, was passing by, and I caught up with them. One of the front wagon-men, acting as a leader, was walking in front of his horse, and the others, gathered together, were walking from behind. We had to pass through a floodplain pond, whose ice, broken during springtime, was floating and dissolving in the water in a circle with a terrible noise. Suddenly, the young front wagon-man stopped his horse, and the entire convoy stopped with him. All the wagon-men approached him and saw that the pond was opening up. They asked him why he was undressing. And he replied that he was very keen to take a bath in the pond. Astonished, the wagon-men began to laugh at him, calling him mad, while the older one, the wagon-man’s brother, began to prevent him from doing so and shove him, telling him to keep driving. The young wagon-man defended himself and refused to listen. Some of the younger wagon-men, in jest, began to draw water from the ponds with buckets and splash the man who wanted to take a bath – some on his head, some on his shoulder, saying: “Here we buy you!” As soon as his body touched the water, he cried out, “Ah, how good!” and sat down on the ground, while they continued splashing him; then he soon lay down and died peacefully. Everyone was scared, not understanding what had happened. The elders were distressed and said that they should report this to the court, while the others said that such a death was written in the man’s fate.

            – I have nothing to say to you about this, dear brother, except that there are many wonderful and incomprehensible things in nature. I think that God has arranged this so that He may make more clear to man the government and plan of nature in its unnatural and sudden changes of its laws in particular cases… One time I myself witnessed such an event: not far from our village there is a very deep and ragged ditch, though not very wide; one does not dare to look at the dark bottom of it. A bridge has been built over it for pedestrians. A peasant from my parish, a family man of good repute, suddenly felt an irresistible desire to jump from this bridge into the deep water. For a whole week he struggled with this thought and urge; finally, he could no longer bear this strong impulse, he got up in the morning, hurried away, and threw himself into the ditch. Before long, hearing moans of pain, he was carried out of the ditch with broken legs. When asked about the reason for his fall, he replied that although he now feels great pain, his soul is at peace, that he has fulfilled his irresistible desire, which had been agitating him for a whole week, so that he was ready to sacrifice his life in order to carry out his desire. For more than a year he was treated at a city hospital; I visited him often and, seeing doctors near him, I wanted to hear from them, as you did, what the reason was for this event. The doctors agreed unanimously that it was a “razh”… When I asked them to explain to me from the point of view of science what this was and why it influenced people, I heard nothing from them except that this was a mystery of nature, not yet as yet solved by science… As for me, when I noticed that if at this mystery of nature a person came upon someone to whom he had an irresistible urge, he would not achieve his goal. Indeed, in our lives there are many encounters that cannot be clearly understood… 

While I was travelling for a few days and was rather tired, I arrived in a large trading town called “White Church.” As it was already evening, I began looking for somewhere to stay. Just as I was doing so, I met a man who looked like a traveller and was asking around the market place where the house of an ordinary citizen called Yeveurilev was located. Seeing me, he came over and said: “I can see you are a traveller too, so come with me; we will find the local resident whose surname is Yeveurilev. He is a good Christian, runs a large inn and likes to welcome travellers. Here is a note I have for him.” I readily agreed, and we soon found him. Although we did not find the house’s owner, his wife, a kind old woman, welcomed us warmly and led us up to a particular room on the attic to rest. We sat down and had a little rest; the owner came and invited us to dinner. After the meal, we talked about who we were, where we were from, and somehow it came to talking about the reason why he was called Yeveurilev. “I will tell you a wonderful story about this,” he replied, and began his tale. “As you can see, my father was a Jew, a native of the city of Shklov and was a mortal enemy of Christians. From an early age, he prepared to become a rabbi and diligently studied all the Jewish intrigues to refute Christianity. One day, on his way through a Christian cemetery, he happened to see a woman digging a grave and bending over the dead body. She was praying in the Hebrew language, and as she did not see him, he gently woke her up and asked, “What are you doing?” But she remained silent, and he went on, “Tell me about your beliefs and your strange prayers!” She did not answer, but pulled out a cross, lit candles in front of it, and started saying the Lord’s Prayer. Seeing this, he asked: “What is this? Do you not call Him by His name?” She answered, “My name is ye, and to me He is called Christ.” The man asked, “Who is Christ?” She replied, “The king of Jews.” He continued asking questions, and she answered him eagerly. Finally she said, “These Jews kill and prepare sacrifices for Him, and I am forced to do the same, for all my works are commissioned for Him, and I must perform them.” The man asked, “Who ordered it for Him?” She answered, “The devil, who argues with Him and invites Him to come here and sit with me.” The man could not resist, but asked, “Who is this devil?” “He’s the one who hurled you into hell,” she replied. The man could not understand the meaning of these words, but answered, “I serve my God and in Him I find my salvation. When I remain constant in His service, how will this devil ever be able to plunge me into hell?” She replied, “It is only through the Lord Christ that you will find this salvation, and not by yourself, but with His help.” The man stayed with her, prayed the Lord’s Prayer, and was given a new meaning for life. He went on to live there, got married to my mother, a good Christian, and lived a godly life in prosperity. I listened to this story with awe and deep emotion, and thought to myself: My God! How merciful the Lord Jesus Christ is and how great His love! By what various means He attracts sinners, and how wise He is in turning small incidents into guiding principles for great deeds! Who could ever imagine that a Jew’s quibble about a dead bone would lead him to finding the true Jesus Christ and to a godly life.After the evening meal, after thanking God and the host, we went to our room to rest. We were not yet tired, and we spoke with our companion. He told me that he was a merchant from Mogilev, had lived for two years in Bessarabia as a novice in one of the monasteries there, but only on a temporary passport, and was now going to his homeland to obtain a permanent exemption from the merchant community to become a monk. He praised the monasteries there, their statutes and regulations, and the strict life of many pious elders who live there, and assured us that the monasteries in Bessarabia are as far from the Russians as heaven is from earth. He convinced me to go there. At this time, as we were having these conversations, they brought another lodger to us, it was an under-officer who had been discharged from the army for a time and was going on a home leave. We saw that he was very tired of the journey. After praying together to God, we went to bed. Waking up early in the morning, we began to prepare for the journey. And as soon as we wanted to thank the host, we suddenly heard the matin bell. The merchant and I began to reflect: how can we leave, hearing the matin bell and without having been to the Church of God? It is better for us to wait for the morning service, to pray in the holy temple, and then our journey will be more pleasant. So we decided, and we called the under-officer with us. And he told us: “What kind of journey is this, and what profit for God that we will visit the Church? When we get home, let’s pray there! Go whenever you want, and I will not go. While you are in the morning service, I will go five versts ahead, and if you want to bring me home: pray for God to lead us!

             — Et voici ce qui arriva! Comme je vous ai quitté et suis parti, je voulus aller dans une brasserie échanger mon lira en petits rais pour boire un peu de vin pour resserrer mes pas. J’irai donc, j’échauerai ma monnaie, et j’en irai, au galop. Indifférente tris vergs, je voulus comptabiliser mon argent et voir si j’avais bien payé au bar. Je m’asseyais d’un côté, saisais mon porte-feuille, contabilisais et tout était tout droit. Soudain je trouvais mon passeport, qui était là, sans lui. Je deviens mort d’épouvante, et enfin je comprenais : certainement que j’avais refoulé mon passeport quand j’ai payé au bar. Je dois m’enfuir à nouveau. Je m’enfonce, je m’enfonce, et je m’aperçois son malheur : il n’est pas là du tout ! J’ai une triste pourriture. En revenant, je demande au lui du bar : «Je n’ai pas vu cela». Une fois de plus, l’angoisse me serre le cœur. Je dois le chercher, il faudrait courir dans les endroits où je suis passé et marcher. Et bien ? Étonnement mon passeport me fut trouvé, intérieur dans sa pli, sous la poussière et les déchets, tout tâché par la boue. Favore ! Je me réjoui comme si une montagne s’était détachée de mes épaules ! Bien que pour l’entrave et la saleté, ils réducent les dents : mais cela n’a rien ; j’ai toutes les raisons de revenir ici, puis de repartir, bien que mes yeux en soient allumés. Évitez que je sois venu vous dire cela et en plus, dans ma fuite, je me suis enfoui tant dans l’herbe que je ne puis plus marcher et je sollicite donc de la salade pour atténuer cette plaie.

            – Отож і є, брате! За це, що ти не послухався і не пішов з нами помолитися, – почав говорити купець. – Ось ти хотів досягти далеко вперед нас, а навпроти повернувся до нас, та ще й окульгав. Я тобі казав, що не загадуй уперед, ото так і вийшло! А мало того, що не пішов до церкви, а ще говорив такі слова: “що за користь Богу, що ми молимося”. Це, брате, погано… Звичайно, Бог не потребує нашої грішної молитви, проте, за любовю Своєю до нас, любить, коли ми молимося. І не тільки священна молитва, яку Сам Дух Святий сприяє приносити і збуджує в нас, Йому приємна, бо Він цього від нас вимагає, заповідаючи: “Будьте в Мені й Аз у вас”, але цінно перед Ним навіть кожен, мабуть, малий справа, для Нього зроблений, кожен намір до спасіння, спонукання наше. За все це невичерпне милосердя Боже нагороджує щедро. Любов Божа віддає благодіяннями тисячі разів більше, ніж цього гідне діяння людське; якщо ти зробиш для Бога на незначний внесок, то Він віддасть тобі золотачі. Якщо ти тільки збираєшся виходити до Батька, то Він уже виходить до тебе назустріч. Ти коротким і сухим словом скажеш: “прийми мене! помилуй мене!” А Він уже обіймає шею твою і лобизує тебе. Ось яка любов Небесного Батька до нас недостойна! І з цієї лише любові Він радіє і про кожен і будь-який малий врятований рух наш. Тобі видається: яка слава з того Господа і для тебе користь, якщо ти трохи помолишся, а потім знову розважишся, або хоч і зробиш якусь незначну добру справу, наприклад прочитаєш якусь молитву, покладеш п’ять чи десять поклонів; зітхнеш від серця і покличеш ім’я Ісуса Христа, або помітиш якусь добру думку, або розташуєшся прочитати щось спасенне, або утримаєшся від їжі, або перенесеш малу образу в мовчанні… Все це видається тобі недостатнім до досконального твоего спасения и будто бесплодным. Ні! каждое из этих малых деянь не пропадает на ветер, будет учтеном всем видящим Оком Божим и получит сторичную награду не только в вечности, но и в этом же житьи. Это утверждает и св. Иоанн Златоуст. “Някое добро, говорит он, как бы и малое бы то ни было, не будет уничтожено Судией праведным. Если грехи расследоваться с такой подробностью, что ответим мы за слова, за побуждение и за мысль, то могут быть сколько угодно добрые дела, хотя бы они и малы, учтены с наибольшей подробностью и в.”

I will give you an example of my own experience from last year. In the Bessarabian monastery where I lived, there was an old monk of good life. One day he had a temptation, he was very much desiring dried fish. And since it was not possible to get it in the monastery at that time, he intended to go to the market and buy some. He struggled long with this thought, reasoning that a monk must be content with the common food of the brotherhood and must do everything possible to avoid luxuries, and that it was unseemly for a monk to walk around the market among the crowd of people. At last, the evil instigation gained the upper hand over his reasoning, and he, succumbing to his lust, dared to go for the fish. Coming out of the monastery and walking along the main street, he noticed that he did not have a satchel in his hand and began to reason: “How am I going to go as a warrior without a sword? This is indecent, and the common people, meeting me, will judge me and be tempted, seeing a monk without a satchel.” He wanted to return to get one, but, looking in his pockets, he found it there. He took it out, crossed himself, put his hand on it, and walked quietly. Approaching the market, he saw a horse standing near the stalls, with a huge basket of huge jars. Suddenly the horse, frightened by something, threw itself forward with all its might and spurred, hitting the stall-keeper and throwing him to the ground, though not killing him completely. Immediately after that, a few steps away from him, the basket overturned and the loads scattered in fragments. Rising quickly, he was naturally frightened, but at the same time surprised that God had saved his life, because if the load had fallen just a little earlier, he too would have been broken into pieces, as the load. Without thinking any further about it, he bought the fish, returned, ate, and, after praying, lay down to sleep… In a light sleep, there appeared before him an unknown but noble old man, who said: “Listen, I am the patron of this monastery and I want to enlighten you so that you can understand and remember the lesson that the struggle against sensual pleasures and laziness to exercise in self-understanding and self-sacrifice gave the enemy the opportunity to attack you and he had prepared for you this event, which burst before your eyes. If you had listened to the voice of my heart and expressed it truly, this would have saved you from death. Having said this, the old man who appeared, hurriedly left the cell, and the monk bowed to him at the feet and, with this, woke up, feeling not on a dungeon but prostrate near the doorstep.” He immediately told this vision for the spiritual benefit of many, including me.Indeed, God’s love for us, sinners, is boundless! Isn’t it strange that for such a small matter, for taking out a copper coin and putting it on his hand and calling the name of God once, a person is given life! And on the scales of human destiny, a brief moment of Jesus Christ’s invocation outweighed many hours of dissipation… True, we are here given for a small contribution – a piece of gold! Do you see, brother, how powerful is prayer, and how powerful is the name of Jesus Christ, which we invoke! St John of Karpafya says in the book ‘Charity’ that when we pray the Jesus prayer and say: ‘Miserable sinner, have mercy on me’, an invisible voice from God responds to each such request: ‘O child, I forgive you for a moment of your sins.’ When we pray, we are no different from the saints, the righteous and the martyrs, because, as St Zlatoust said, ‘prayer, even if uttered by us, full of sins, immediately purifies’ (speech 2). God’s great mercy for us, and yet we, who are sinners and careless, do not want to give even a minute to Him in thanksgiving and we exchange the most important prayer for the worries and troubles of life, forgetting God and our duty! That is why we often fall into misfortune and disasters, but this also points our attention to God and determines his loving providence.He took out a book from his pocket and began to read a wonderful story about a pious man named Agaponiak, who, from childhood, was accustomed by his pious parents to read daily, immediately before the icon of the Virgin, the prayer ‘Hail, Ful-bright Lady, Mary’ and other similar prayers. He did this daily. Later, reaching manhood, he began to live alone, was engrossed with cares and worldly affairs, and ever less often recited the said prayer, and finally ceased to do so altogether. One evening he accepted a traveler to spend the night with him. The traveler declared to him that he was a hermit from Pavia and that he had seen a vision showing him to go to Agaponiak and admonish him for abandoning the prayer to the Virgin. Agaponiak gave his reason for abandoning it as being that he had recited this prayer for so long a time and had gained no benefit from it. Then the hermit said to him, ‘Remember, blind and ungrateful one, how many times has this prayer helped you and delivered you from misfortunes? A companion of yours fell off a cart and broke a leg, but you suffered nothing. And if you remember that many good things have been set in the way of similar accidents in the past apart from your own sufferings, think well of it and remember that it is all because of the intervention of the Most Holy Virgin for the short prayer with which you used, daily, to raise your soul to union with God. For this prayer has protected you in many other forms of accidents. Now remember it more closely, continue with it in the future and do not abandon it, for it has been left by you.’
Then I walked for five days, enjoying the remembrance of the stories I had heard from the pious merchant from Bila Tserkva; then I was about to reach Kiev, when suddenly, for no reason, I felt a burden, a weakening, and gloomy thoughts; prayer came hard, some weakness overtook me. So, to rest, having seen a forest and a thicket by the side of the road, I went there, sat down behind a separate hut, and read “The Love of Goodness “ to strengthen my weakened soul and to calm my cowardice. Having found an uninhabited village, I began to read St. Kassian of Rome, in the fourth part of “The Love of Goodness” about eight thoughts. After reading for half an hour with joy, I suddenly saw a man standing motionless on all fours 50 yards away from me, in the depths of the forest. I was struck with delight, thinking that he was certainly praying to God, and I began to read again. After reading for an hour or more, I looked at this man again, and he remained motionless on all fours. This moved me very deeply, and I thought to myself: “What pious servants of God these are!” While I was thinking about this, the man suddenly fell to the ground and lay humbly. This surprised me and, as I could not see his face, because he was standing on all fours towards me, I became curious to go and see what kind of person this was. Approaching, I found him in a deep sleep. This was a peasant boy of 25 years old, with a clean face and noble appearance, but pale from weakness, wearing a peasant jacket, belted with a sanitary rope, and there was nothing else with him – no bag, not even a stick. Having heard the noise of my approach, he woke up and stood up. I asked him who he was. He told me that he was a state peasant from the Smolensk province, traveling from Kiev.

            – Well, you see, Pan , he said, since my childhood, when I was an orphan, I used to herd sheep in our village, and for ten years everything was flourishing. Finally, one day, when I was driving the cattle home, I didn’t realize that the best sheep was missing. And our village elder was an evil and inhuman man. When he came home in the evening and saw that he didn’t have his sheep, he came to me, began to scold me and threatened to beat me to death, break my arms and legs. Knowing that he was so evil, I went to look for his sheep in the places where the herd grazed during the day. I searched, searched, and searched on into the night, but nowhere could I find a trace of them. The night was so dark, because it was in the autumn. As I went deeper into the forest, and the forests in our province are impassable, suddenly a storm arose. It was as if the trees were all fighting! In the distance, wolves were howling, and I felt a great fear that my hair stood on end. The further I went, the worse it became, and I felt like fainting from fear and fear. That’s when I fell to my knees, crossed myself, and with all my might said: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” As soon as I said this, I suddenly felt light, as if there had been no suffering at all, and the fear vanished, and I felt so good in my heart as if I had flown to heaven … I was delighted by this, but I kept on saying this prayer without stopping. I don’t remember how long the storm lasted, and how the night passed, but I looked and it was already daylight, and I was standing on one spot on my knees. That’s when I stood up calmly, saw that I couldn’t find the sheep, and went home, but my heart was all right and I kept on saying the prayer. As soon as I arrived in the village, the elder, seeing that I had not brought the sheep, beat me to death; that’s when he dislocated my leg. So I lay almost immobile for six weeks after those beatings, only knowing that I was saying this prayer, and it comforted me. Then I recovered a little and started to walk around the world; but as it seemed boring to constantly bump into people among the people, and there was a lot of sin, I went wandering around holy places and forests. That’s how I have been wandering for a year now.

            As I listened to this, I was cheerful in my soul because the Lord had allowed me to see such a gracious person, and I asked him, “ So are you often engaged in this prayer now?”

            – Well, it can’t be bad now, Pan , he answered, when I think back to how good I felt in the forest, as if someone were pushing me on my knees, and I want to pray … I don’t know if my sinful prayer is acceptable, because while I am praying, I sometimes feel great joy, and I don’t know why, lightness, relief, depression; but at the same time I always want to pray to death.

The following day, with God’s help, I arrived in Kyiv. My first and main desire was to talk, to confess and to receive the Holy Communion in this blessed city, and therefore I settled near the holy martyrs so that it would be more convenient to walk to the Church of God. I was welcomed into the house of a kind old Cossack, who lived alone, so I could rest and be silent there. During the week I had to prepare for confession, it occurred to me that I should confess as thoroughly as possible. I began to recall and list all my sins in every detail, so as not to forget them; I began to write everything I remembered, down to the smallest details, and completed a large sheet. I could see that 7 verst outside Kyiv, in Kytyevska Purtai (Kyiv Deserts), there was a spiritual leader who had a ascetic lifestyle and was very wise and prudent – anyone who did not spend time with him would become spiritually mature and return with a salvific instruction and a lightness to his soul. This was very comforting to me, and I immediately went to see him. After chatting and discussing things, I handed him my sheet for examination. After reading this, he said to me, “Dear friend, you have written a lot of nothing. Listen carefully: 1) you should not mention in your confession the sins you have previously repented of and were forgiven, and did not repeat, otherwise you will distrust the power of the Sacrament of Confession; 3) the Holy Fathers forbid confessing the sins with all the details, but in general, you should confess them in order not to arouse temptation in yourself or in the spiritual father by discussing them; you have read everything, but did not mention the most serious sins, and did not realize and record that you do not love God, hate your neighbor, do not believe in the word of God, and are full of pride and ambition in all your sins. All the depths of evil are contained in them, and all the twigs of our fall create evil.

            – Je regrette, mon ami, que tu n’aies pas compris ce que je te dis. Afin de te faire mieux comprendre, je t’offre le document qui m’aide personnellement à m’avouer. Lisez-le attentivement, et vous y trouverez les arguments irréfutables de ce que je viens de vous dire.

2) I have no love for my neighbor. For, not only will I not lay down my life for the sake of my neighbor (according to the Gospel), but I will not even sacrifice my honor, well-being, and peace for his benefit. If I loved him according to the Gospel command, as I love myself, then his suffering would affect me, and his prosperity would arouse in me enthusiasm. But, on the contrary, I listen to sad stories about my neighbor with more interest, I am indifferent, or, even more wickedly, I feel as though I take pleasure in him and I do not cover up my brother’s evil deeds with love, but rather, with disapproval, I divulge them. His prosperity, honor, and happiness do not excite in me the same happy feelings as my own, but rather, as though they are entirely foreign, they arouse in me a kind of envy or disdain.3) I do not believe in anything religious. I do not believe in immortality or the Gospel. If I were firmly convinced and certainly believed that there is life after death with retribution for earthly deeds, I would constantly think about it; the very thought of immortality would horrify me, and I would spend this life as a stranger who is preparing to enter his homeland. On the contrary, I do not even think about eternity and consider the end of this life as the limit of my existence. A secret thought dwells in me: who knows what will be after death? If I say that I believe in immortality, then I say this only with reason, and my heart is far from having firm conviction in it, as my actions and constant concern for the improvement of carnal life openly testify. If the Holy Gospel, as the Word of God, were truly accepted into my heart, I would constantly study it, enjoy it, and with deep reverence even look upon it. Wisdom, goodness and love, which it contains, would lead me to wonder, I would enjoy the teachings of the Law of God day and night, eat it like daily food, and be moved heartily to fulfill its rules. Nothing earthly would greatly distract me from this. On the contrary, if I occasionally read or hear the Word of God, it is either out of necessity, or out of curiosity, and without being in deep attention, I feel dryness, barrenness and, as if regular reading, I leave it without any result and am readily ready to replace it with more reading on worldly subjects.

            After the priest had read this sentence to me during the confession, I was horrified and thought to myself: “My God, what terrible sins are hidden in me, and I have not noticed them!”” Therefore, the desire to purify them led me to ask for guidance from this great spiritual father, and to find a way to remedy them, in some way, by knowing the causes of all misfortunes. He began to explain them to me.

            – Do you see, dear brother, the cause of hatred of God is unbelief, the cause of unbelief is unconviction, and the cause of unconviction is neglect of the true and lucid knowledge, neglect of spiritual education. In a word, it is impossible to love without believing, and impossible to believe without being convinced. And to be convinced, it is necessary to acquire full and thorough knowledge of the object in question; it is necessary, by means of reflection, the study of the word of God and tested observations, to arouse in the soul a thirst and desire or, as others put it, an “astonishment” that makes a constant desire to know things better and better, to penetrate more deeply into the properties of the object.

            One spiritual writer reflects on this as follows: “Love,” he says, “of course develops by knowledge, and the more depth and breadth there is in knowledge, the more love there is, and the more convenient it is for the soul to be inclined to the divine love, by studying intimately and thoroughly the most perfect and infinite person of God.”

            Now you see that the cause of the sins you have recounted is laziness to think about spiritual subjects, which stifles the very feeling of need. If you wish to know the means to overcome this evil, then make every effort to enlighten your soul, to achieve it by diligent study of the word of God, the teaching of the holy fathers, reflections and spiritual counsel or conversation with wise men about Christ. Ah, dear brother, how many evils we encounter from the fact that we are lazy to enlighten our soul with the word of truth, not to study the law of the Lord day and night and not to pray for this diligently and perseveringly! And from this, our inner person is dull, cold, and exhausted, without the strength to walk vigilantly on the path of truth to salvation. Therefore, to use these means, let us venture, dear one, as often as possible to fill our minds with reflections on heavenly subjects, and the love that flows from above into our hearts will develop and kindle in us. Let us also pray as often as we can, for prayer is the most important way and the strongest means for our renewal and success. Let us pray as the Holy Church teaches: “Lord, enable me now to love You as often as that very sin leads me to love You!”

            After listening to all this, I asked this holy father to confess me and grant me the holy sacraments. So, in the morning, having received the sacrament, I wished to return to Kiev with this blessed exhortation, but this good father of mine, intending to go to the Lavra for some days, left me for the time being in his hermit cell so that I could freely engage in prayer in this silence. And indeed, all these days I spent as if in heaven: through the prayers of my spiritual father, I, unworthy though I was, enjoyed perfect tranquility. Prayer flowed so easily and calmly from my heart that at this time, it seems, I forgot everything and myself, thinking only of Jesus Christ alone!

            Finally, the spiritual father returned, and I asked him for instruction and advice as to where I should continue my wanderings. He blessed me as follows: “Go to Pochaiv, say your prayers at the Holy Stole of the Most Pure Mother of God, and She will lead your feet in the path of peace.” Thus, having accepted his advice with faith, I set out for Pochaiv three days later.

            I was not without weariness on the 200 kilometers of road, because the road passed through taverns and Jewish hamlets, and there were hardly any Christian homes to be found. In one hamlet, I saw a Russian Christian travel inn and, delighted by it, went inside to spend the night and ask for some bread for the road, for my crackers were coming to an end. Here I saw the master – an old man, probably wealthy, and heard that he was from my province of Orlov. When I entered the parlour, his first question was: “What faith are you of?”

            I answered that I was of the Orthodox Christian faith.

            – What a orthodoxy! – he said with a smile, “In your province, you have orthodoxy only on the tongue, but in practice you have a heretical belief. I know your faith! One learned priest seduced me and introduced me to the spoils, and I came to your church, so that, after staying there for half a year, I returned again. service to the Lord is just a bit of nonsense and everything with passes and incomprehension; and the singing in the villages is no better than in taverns; about the service to the Lord? It is just a sin! Come, don’t be shy, where you go: to a temple or to a market!

            Listening to this, I understood that this old man was an Old Believer; but as he was speaking the truth, I could not argue with him and convert him, but I thought to myself that it is impossible to convert Old Believers to the true Church until the liturgy is corrected at home and provides an example especially for the clergy. The Old Believer knows nothing of the inner life, he relies on externalities, and in us we pay no attention to them.

So I wanted to leave from there and went out into the yard, when I suddenly saw a man in a special compartment reading a book. He beckoned me and asked who I was. I told him. He began to say: “Listen, my dear, would you agree to help me, a sick man, for a week until I recover by God’s help? Refuse, God’s servant!”            – Si vous le souhaitez, dit-il, je vous raconterai encore (et il parla comme un savant, car il dit avoir étudié à l’Académie d’Athènes) des modalités de la prière de Jésus.

            Now listen: one and the same is prayer; Orthodox Christians share the same faith; the common idea that this most important and highest of all prayers contains two objects — the Lord Jesus and His mercy — is known to everyone alike. Why is it that not everyone expresses it in the same tone, that is, in pronunciation? Why is it that not in one and the same, but at certain specific places the soul is particularly touched and expressed in a particularly elevated and tense tone? Perhaps many would say that this is due to skill, or to the example taken from others, or to a concept corresponding to each one’s particular view, or, finally, that it is easier and more convenient for each one to pronounce according to his own capacity to utter the word… I consider this quite differently. It is my wish to seek out here something higher than this, something that is not only known by those who do not understand but even by those who pray themselves — is there not a secret movement of the Holy Spirit here, which “complains through silent sighs” to those who do not know what and how to pray? And if everyone prays in the name of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, according to the revelation of the Apostle, then the secretly-acting Descended Spirit, “grant your prayer to him who prays,” along with this can also give each one, against his will, the gift of grace: to one, a reverential fear of God; to another, love; to another, firmness. And so he who has received the gift prays with special feeling and praises the Lord of the universe in his prayer, speaking “Lord,” in which he refers to the greatness and power of the Creator of the world. He who has received the mysterious gift of love deepens in his heart, is especially carried away and enthused by the exclamation �Jesus Christ,� similar to the way an old man could not hear the name �Jesus� with any great love or delight even in ordinary conversation. He who has undeniably believed in the Godhead of Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God the Father, makes a passion and thrills his faith even more whenever he says �Son of God.� He who has undeniably received the gift of humility and is deeply conscious of his own helplessness when he says �have mercy on me,� grieves, humbles himself, and is gestured with the greatest foreboding at these concluding words of the prayer of Jesus. He who has received the gift of humility and deeply understands his own helplessness in the words �have mercy on me� groans, submits, and pours out with the greatest foreboding at these final words of the prayer of Jesus; this fosters hope of God’s mercy and grieves his own fall. That, I think, is the reason for the difference in intonation in the pronunciation of the prayer in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ!

            I spent five days with this old man, and he slowly began to recover his health. This time was instructive for me, since I did not notice how it flew by, because we in this hut, as if in a silent prison, devoted ourselves to nothing but praying in secret, pleading for the name of Jesus Christ, or talking about only one subject, that is, learning from the Fathers of the Church the following:(p class=”Aban”>

Here I began to come near to Pochaev. When I had gone a hundred steps, I was overtaken by a soldier. I asked him where he was going; he told me that he was going home to the Kamians’K region. Walking with him for ten steps in silence, I noticed that he was breathing heavily and looking very sad. I asked him, “Why are you so sad?” And he began to cling to me and say, “Good man, if you have already noticed my sorrow, then beat yourself hard and swear that you will not tell anyone, and I will tell you everything about myself, because I am going to die, and I have no one to talk to.”

            I assured him in a Christian way that I had no need to tell anyone anything, and that I would, from the love of brotherly advice, give him any advice I could.

After I had heard all this, I was astonished at myself and praised the wisdom and grace of God, observing how it turns sinners in different ways, and I began to say to him: “My brother!’. But he said to me, ‘It is not possible;’ and he went on to say: “I think that when I begin to pray, God will spoil me.”

                         • It is empty, brother! The devil puts these thoughts in your head. God is infinitely merciful and has compassion on sinners and forgives those who repent soon. After all, you know the Lord’s Prayer, that is, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Here it is, continuously and constantly.

                         • But how could I not know this prayer! I used to steal sometimes, and sometimes I read it, to be more courageous.

            Knowing this, and rejoicing at it, I asked him to tell me in detail what had happened to him.

            Here is what happened: as soon as I fell asleep, I found myself on the same meadow where I had been tortured. At first I was frightened, but I saw that instead of a cloud, the sun was shining brightly, a wonderful light was illuminating the whole meadow, and there I saw red flowers and grasses. Suddenly, my grandfather, who was so handsome that you wouldn’t believe it, approached me gently, politely and quietly, and said to me: “Go to Zhytomyr to the church of St. George the Victorious; there they will take you as a church janitor; live here until the end of your life and pray incessantly; God will have mercy on you!” Says this, he crossed me, and at that moment he disappeared. I felt such joy that I couldn’t even express it, as if something had dropped from me and I had flown to heaven… With this, I suddenly woke up, feeling that I was light, and my heart didn’t know what to do with joy. What shall I do now? I will go to Zhytomyr as soon as possible, as my grandfather ordered me to do. It will be easy for me to go with prayer.

            “Have mercy, dear brother, where are you going at midnight? Do the morning prayer, pray and pray with God. So we didn’t sleep, but after this conversation we went to church. He prayed diligently all morning with tears and said that it was very easy and joyful for him, and the Jesus prayer was done with delight. Then after lunch, I took him to the Zhytomyr road, where we parted with tears and joy.

            After this, I began to think about myself and think where I should go now. In the end, I came to the idea of returning to Kyiv. I was tempted by the wise instructions of my spiritual father there, and by the fact that, having lived with him, he may not find any Christ-loving benefactors to send me to Jerusalem or at least to Mount Athos. So, after spending another week in Pochaiv, spending time in remembrance of the instructive meetings I had seen on my way, and writing down some instructive subjects, I set out on the road, put my bag on, and went to church to take leave of the Mother of God and pray for lunch.

“And they stood behind the church. And suddenly, a man came out, though he was not very well dressed, but he looked noble, and he asked me where candles were sold. I indicated the place. He went away, and I remained to pray at the feet of the Virgin Mary. I prayed and went on my journey. After walking for a short while, I saw a window in a house that was open. A gentleman was sitting there reading a book. I had to walk past this window, and I saw that it was the same man who had asked me about the candles in the church. As I passed by, I took off my hat, and he called me over and asked, ‘Are you a wanderer?’ and, summoning me, he asked who I was and where I was going; then he brought me a cup of tea and said, ‘Listen, little one! I am also going in the same direction and am going on foot. The word of God is your guide.”

            I was very pleased with this reasoning and desire for prayer, and I asked him: “From which particular evangelical principle do you draw your teaching about prayer?”

            – From all four evangelists, he replied, word for word throughout the New Testament, by reading it in order. By long reading this and by searching, it became clear to me what is the gradual process and correct sequence of the teaching about prayer throughout the Gospel, beginning with the first evangelist and proceeding in a logical order (systematic). For example: the very beginning sets forth the attack or introduction to the teaching about prayer, then the form or external expression in words, then the condition necessary for prayer, the method for learning prayers, and examples. Finally, the secret teaching about inward, spiritual, and continuous prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, which is of a higher and more beneficial kind than form prayer; then its necessity, good fruits, etc. In short, a complete knowledge of the practice of prayer is systematically and consecutively set forth from beginning to end in the Gospel.

            Hearing this, I intended to ask him to show me all this in detail, and I began to talk to him: “Since I love to listen to and discuss prayer above all else, I am very eager to see this secret relationship of the teaching about prayer set forth in detail. Show it to me, Sir, throughout the Gospel.”

He readily agreed and said to me: “Read your Gospel, look into it and make note of what I will say” (he gave me a pencil). Please look at these notes of mine. “Here,” he began to say, “first in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter six, and read in it from verse 5 to verse 9 (Mt. VI, 5-9). Do you see here a preparation for prayer or an introduction that teaches not to pray for showy purposes and not in the midst of a noise, but in a secluded place and in quiet to begin praying and to pray only for the forgiveness of sins and the union with God, not to invent many and unnecessary requests for various practical needs. Then, continue reading this same section from verse 9 to verse 14 (Matt. VI, 9-14). Here is the prayer formula, that is, in which words it should be expressed. In it, all that is necessary and useful for our life has been wisely joined. Then continue reading verses 14 and 15 of the same chapter and you will see the condition that must be preserved for the prayer to be effective, for without forgiveness of the offenders by us, the Lord will not forgive our sins. Having moved to the seventh chapter, you will find from verse 7 to verse 12 the means for success in prayer and approval in hope: “Ask, search, knock,” this increased expression represents the frequency of prayer and the predominant exercise in it, so that prayer not only accompanies all occupations, but even exceeds them in time. This constitutes the most important attribute of prayer. You will find an example of this frequency of prayer in chapter 14 of the Gospel of Mark, from verses 32 to 40, where Jesus Christ himself repeats the same prayer many times. A similar example of the frequency of prayer is represented by the Gospel of Luke (XIV, 5-14) in the parable of the relentless prayer of a friend, and also by the many repetitive request of the widow in the judge (XVII, 1-15), showing the instructions of Jesus Christ that it should be

            After this fundamental teaching on prayer, we find further description in the Gospel of John of the profound teaching on the mysterious internal prayer of the heart, and first of all in the wise account of the discourse of Jesus Christ with the Samaritan woman, where the inner worship of God in spirit and truth, which God desires, and which is unceasing and tireless, is revealed. (John 4:5-25). Further on, in chapter 15, verses 4-8, the power, usefulness and necessity of an internal prayer, or the stay of the soul in Christ, in unceasing communion with God, is clearly drawn out. Finally, read chapter 16 of the same Evangelist, verse 23 and 25. Look, what mystery is revealed there! Do you see that prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, or the so-called Jesus prayer, which is the saying of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father, Who art in heaven,” often and many times repeated, has a great power and more easily opens the heart and purifies it. This can be seen from the example. The apostles, who had been disciples of the Lord Jesus for many years and had already been taught by Him the prayer of the Lord, or the “Our Father” prayer, as we know from them, but at the end of His earthly life, Jesus Christ revealed to them the mystery of what they still lacked in prayer, so that their prayer might be resolved. He said to them: “Ask, then, nothing in My Name. If you ask anything in My Name, the Father will give it to you.” This is what happened to them; for after this, when the apostles learned to offer prayer in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, how many miraculous wonders did they do, and how radiantly enlightened they themselves became! Now you see the connection and the completeness of the teaching on prayer so wisely set forth in the Holy Gospel! If, after this, you proceed to read the Epistles of the Apostles, you will also find a consistent teaching on prayer there.

            In this way, by studying the New Testament thoroughly and carefully, one can find many more discoveries of hidden knowledge hidden in the word of God, which escape from a rare or hasty reading of it. From what I have now pointed out to you, do you observe how wisely and how systematically, that is, in a secret systematic relationship, the Lord’s New Testament expounds His teachings on this subject that we have now traced? In what a wonderful sequence of order is it arranged in all four of the Gospels? For example, in St. Matthew we see the attack or entry into prayer, its form, conditions, etc.; continuing on, in St. Mark we find examples; in St. Luke we find parables, and in St. John, a secret exercise in interior prayer, although all this is also present, more or less, in all the evangelists. In Acts, the practice and consequences of prayer are shown; in the Epistles of the Apostles, as in the Apocalypse itself, many devices are inextricably linked with the matter of prayer! That is why I am content with only one Gospel in my study of all the ways of salvation.

            All the time he pointed out and explained things to me, I noticed all the pointers in my Gospel, which was near my Bible. All this seemed very wonderful and instructive, and I thanked him much for it.

            Then we walked for nine more days in silence. This companion of mine was very ill with his legs, apparently from the unusualness of having to walk for so long, and therefore he hired a boat and took me with him. So we reached your borders and stayed here for three days, resting, before setting off immediately for Anzer, where he was very eager to go.

            – What a wonderful companion you have! He must be very devout, and very well educated; I would like to see him.

            – We are on the same floor. Apparently, I will bring him to you tomorrow. Now it is late… excuse me!

Sixth meeting

Брат від брата допомагаємо, бо
град твердий і високий; зміцнюється
як засноване царство.
(Прип. ХVIII, 19).

            – Ось за цим вчора словом і обіцянкою, з &8217;явившись до вас, я запросив з собою і того поважного супутника, який душевним спасінням полегшував мандрівний шлях, і якого ви хотіли бачити.

            – Дуже приємно як мені, також, сподіваюся, і цим чесним моїм відвідувачам, бачити обох вас і чути корисне досвідчене ваше слово. Ось і в мене: це – преподобний схимник, а це – благоговійний ієрей. Отже, де два чи три зібрано в ім&8217;я Ісуса Христа, там Він і Сам бути обіцяний; а нас тепер уже й п&8217;ятеро в ім&8217;я Його, то, звичайно, і благодать Його тим щедрішим на нас виллється!

            Вчорашнє оповідання супутника твого, любий брате, про полум&8217;яну прихильність твою до св. Євангелію, дуже чудове і повчальне. Цікаво почути, як відкрилася тобі ця велика благочестя таємниця?

           The Most Merciful Lord, Who wants to save everyone and to come to the knowledge of the truth, revealed this knowledge to me in a miraculous way, without any human mediation. For five years I was a professor at a high school, following the grim paths of vanity, immersed in the tumultuous philosophy of the world, not in Christ, and might have perished if not for the influence of something I experienced while living with my pious mother and my dear sister, on the Boulevard. There, I met and came to know a splendid young man who announced himself as a French, accredited student who had recently arrived from Paris and was looking for a job as a tutor. I was charmed by his great erudition, and I invited him to stay with me, as an honorary guest. For two months, he often visited me, and we sometimes took walks together, played games, went out in high society, of course, the most moral kind. Finally, he came to me with an invitation to one of those societies, and, to convince me quickly, began praising the special merriment and pleasantness of the place he was inviting me to. Having said a few words, he suddenly asked me to leave my study, where we were seated, and to sit in the living room. This seemed strange to me, and, since the living room was next to my mother and sister’s room, I asked him why.
He kept insisting, with various excuses, until he finally said to me bluntly, ‘Look, there’s an evangelist on that shelf among your books. I feel so respectful toward the book that it is hard for me to be in this room talking about our scattered affairs. Please take it out, and then we will.” Out of sincerity, I laughed at these words and took the evangelist off the shelf. Then I said, ‘Why didn’t you say that to me sooner?’ And, putting it in his hand, I said, ‘Please put it on the shelf in that room.’
As soon as I touched the evangelist, he trembled and disappeared.
This struck me so badly that I fell unconscious on the floor. When the servants entered and heard the noise, they could not revive me for almost half an hour. Finally, in great fear, I felt a strong sense of dread, trepidation, restless anxiety, and a complete numbness of my limbs so that I could not move them. Called to my aid, the doctor diagnosed the illness as paralysis, the result of a powerful shock or fright. For a year after that event, while receiving careful treatment from many doctors, I lay there, with no relief from the illness, which eventually led me to retire from academic teaching. My old mother had died by that time, and my sister had settled into a monastic life. So all this only increased my affliction. My only consolation at this time of painful suffering was reading the evangelist, which from the beginning of my illness never left my hands, as the pledge of a miraculous event.

            Once, unexpectedly, an unknown hermit who goes to gather for the monastery came to me. He spoke to me persuasively, urging me not to hope for medicines alone, which without God’s help are no stronger than to help, but to ask God and pray diligently for it, because prayer is the most powerful means of healing all diseases, both bodily and spiritual. I objected to him: “How can I pray in this state, when I am unable to bow down or raise my hand for the sign of the cross?” He replied to me: “Pray anyway!” And later he was unable to explain to me in a substantial way how to pray … After the visitor left, I began to think about prayer and its power and effect almost involuntarily, recalling the theological lectures I had heard at the institution when I was still a student. This occupation was very pleasant for me, it restored the bright religious knowledge in my memory, it warmed my soul, and immediately I began to feel some relief from my painful attacks. Since the Gospel was always with me, I, by virtue of my faith, considered it the best way to learn Christian prayer and piety. After reading this, I drew up a complete system of saving life and true inner prayer from it, as if from a rich source. With reverence, I noted all the places and texts on this subject, and since then I have been constantly trying to learn these divine precepts and to put them into practice as much as possible, although it is difficult. With this occupation, my illness gradually eased and, as you can see, I completely recovered. Having remained alone, I, in gratitude to God for His heavenly blessings and healing and enlightenment, decided to devote myself to the ascetic life, according to the example of my sister and the inclination of my soul, in order to receive and assimilate the sweet commands of eternal life, indicated to me in the Word.

      CONSULTANT.  – For such a binding condition of special and strange divine grace and for your scientific education, it is unforgivable not only to be sad, but even to allow shadows of doubt about divine intercession and help in your soul! Do you know what the God-educated Golden-mouthed one says about this? “No one should grieve (he warns) and conceive that the Gospel commandments are impossible or inconvenient! God, predetermining man’s salvation, naturally did not prescribe these commandments to make him a criminal by their inconvenience. No! eternity is eternal.”

           Of course, the regular and persistent observance of God’s commands seems extremely difficult for our nature, and therefore salvation is inconvenient: but the same word of God that initiated the commandments also contains means not only for their convenient observance, but also for the consolation of their observance. If this initially seems to be enveloped in mystery, it is certainly so that the performer might be brought into more humble simplicity and led more easily to union with God through the indication of a direct haven to him in prayer and the request of his parental help. This is the secret of salvation, and it is by no means relying on one’s own efforts.

       BUILDER.  – How I would like to know this secret, the powerless and impotent one, so that through it I can, as a means, somewhat mend my lazy life for the glory of God and my own salvation!

       CONSULTANT.  – The secret is known to you, dear brother, from your book “The God of Goodness – The Reading of the Accused from the Mother’s Throat to Mistake “. Its essence lies in unceasing prayer, which you have so firmly learned and which you have so zealously engaged in and rejoiced in?

       BUILDER.  – I shall fall at your feet, holy father! For the sake of God, make me worthy to hear from your mouth the useful secret of salvation and about sacred prayer, which I most desire to hear and love to read to the upliftment and consolation of my sinful soul.

       CONSULTANT.– Although I cannot satisfy your desire with my own reasoning on this high pursuit, because I am still little experienced in this matter, but I have a very clear notebook by one of my spiritual writers on this very subject. If our interlocutors so wish, I will immediately bring it and, if you wish, I can read it to you. Thank you!

       ALL.  – Do us the grace, holy father! Do not deprive us of such a saving knowledge.

The Secret of Salvation through Constant Prayer

The question of how to be saved is a godly Christian question that arises naturally in everyone, due to a sense of a hurt and weakened nature and the remnant of a primal desire for truth and righteousness. Everyone, even if they have some belief in immortality and the reward of eternal life, is inevitably confronted with the thought of how to save themselves when they look up to heaven…Faced with this task, he consults reasonable and knowledgeable people, then reads the books of spiritual writers on this subject, striving to find out the truths and rules. In all these injunctions he encounters conditions that are presented as being necessary for salvation: a godly life, self-sacrifice, and constant efforts to fulfill all of God’s commandments, all of which testify to the unwavering faith. These are to be practiced with deep humility and in unison, for just as all virtues depend on one another, they must support, complete, and encourage one another, just as the sun’s rays are concentrated through a glass, focusing their power and creating heat. Or as the Bible says, “There is wealth and pride in the midst of the wicked…”

             Furthermore, to make the need for this complex and cumulative activity even more convincing, he hears the lofty praise of the virtues and the condemnation of the vices. All of this is accompanied by a false promise of great rewards and bliss, or of painful punishments and suffering in eternal life.

            This is the nature of the preaching of our time!

            Such is the direction taken by the person wishing for salvation, who joyfully goes on to implement the instructions and additions to the studies of all that is heard and read. But, alas! at the very first step of his aspiration, he finds no opportunity to achieve his goal, anticipating and even feeling that his damaged and weakened nature will gain the upper hand over the convictions of reason; that his free will is subject to the inclinations of damaged powers, and the spirit is weakened. In such an experienced awareness of his powerlessness, he naturally comes to the idea that there are no means to help with the fulfillment of what the law of God commands, what Christian piety demands, and by which all who were privileged to receive salvation and sanctity have proceeded. As a result, in order to reconcile the requirement of reason and conscience with the inability to perform, he turns again to the preachers of salvation with the question: how can one be saved? How can one justify conditions of salvation that are inaccessible to him? And can the preacher himself consistently carry out everything he teaches?… “Ask God, pray to God, so that He may help you!” Is it not better to have previously, or always, taught prayer as the cause of fulfilling everything that Christian piety requires and by which salvation is obtained? the questioner concludes, and along with this, proceeds to study prayer, reads, reflects, understands the teachings of those who wrote about this subject. True, he finds many sound thoughts, deep knowledge, and expressions in them. Another one thoroughly reflects on the necessity of prayer; another – on its power, beneficence, on the obligation to pray, on the fact that prayer requires diligence, attention, warmth of spirit, purity of thought, reconciliation with enemies, humility, sorrow, and so on, which must be present in prayer…

This general concept of prayer is addressed to those who are not familiar with the writings on inner prayer and the contemplative works of the Holy Fathers. Finally, a seeker meets a book called «Dobrotolyubiye pereklad», in which twenty-nine Holy Fathers have vividly illustrated the doctrine of true and essential interior prayer. Here the mystery of salvation and prayer begins to reveal itself to him, and he sees that to pray truly is to direct the intellect and memory to an unceasing remembrance of God, to walk in His divine presence, to subject oneself to His love through contemplation of God, and to unite the Name of God with the breath and movement of the heart, guided by Jesus Christ or through the making of the prayer of Jesus anywhere, at any time, and continuously.

            For the salvation of the soul, true faith requires good deeds – virtues, because “faith without works is dead” (v. 17), because man is proved by his deeds, not by faith alone. And if you want to enter into the womb, keep the commandments: do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not use your mother’s milk, and love others and do not do an evil thing to yourself” (v. 19). All these commandments must be kept together. “If you keep the whole law, you will be guilty of one thing, and guilty of everything” (v. 27). That is what St. James teaches.

            True prayer requires certain conditions: it must be offered with purity of mind and heart, with great diligence, with fervent attention, with reverent awe, and with deep humility. But who in his sincere conscience will not agree that he is far from these conditions for true prayer, that he offers his prayer more out of necessity, more under compulsion than by inclination, by the delight of prayer, by the love of prayer? This is what the Holy Scriptures testify to: “Can a man maintain righteous thoughts in his heart?” (Psalm 10:3), that the one true God gives us a new heart and a new spirit (Romans 12:2), “that what is good is indeed what the children of God desire” (Romans 14:23). And the Apostle Paul himself said: “My spirit cries out [proclaims], but my mind is without fruit” (Romans 7:24), and “I do not know how to pray with my mind” (1 Corinthians 14:15, emphasis added). This shows that we cannot display the essential qualities of prayer in our prayers!

            Then what remains of each person’s free will and power to save his soul? He cannot acquire faith without prayer, nor can he perform good deeds; finally, he cannot truly pray. What then remains for his free will and powers to be able to perish, but to be saved?

            Since in every matter there is quality, the Lord represented it by His will and gift. And in order to show more clearly the dependence of man on the will of God and to immerse him more deeply in humility, God has left the will and powers of man with a certain number of prayers, commanding him to pray constantly at any time and in any place. And in this way, the mysterious way of attaining true prayer, as well as faith, the fulfillment of the commandments, and salvation, is opened. Thus, a certain number has been given to man’s share. A part of prayer has been given to his will (see also St. Israel the Syrian, Protopresbyter Michael the Syrian, and St. John Chrysostom); in other words, a part has been given for God’s gifts; thus, from a spiritual perspective, it is clear that a certain number has been given to man’s share.  And this, as the Fathers of the Church constantly teach us. St. Makarios the Great says that the frequency of prayer is a matter of will and habit, while true prayer is a gift of grace. Velesht Isaac says that without frequent invocation of the name of Jesus Christ, it is impossible to purify the heart.

The Holy Fathers exhort us first of all to begin our ascetic and virtuous deeds and acts by invoking the name of Jesus Christ frequently, uninterruptedly, for often and impure prayer can lead to purity. Blessed Diodor states that if a person invokes God’s name (prays) frequently, he will not commit sins. What practical advice these Holy Fathers have given us! They illuminate in a searching simplicity the means and ways for perfecting the soul. How different they are from the moral precepts of theoretical reason! Reason convinces us: do this and that well, arm yourself with fortitude, use your willpower, be convinced of the good results of virtue, for example – cleanse your mind and heart of idle dreams, fill the place of these with instructive reflections, do good and you will be honored and at peace, live as reason requires, and yet all this striving will fail to achieve its goal without frequent prayer, without enlisting God’s help. Let us now examine the counsels of the Fathers and see, for example, what they say about the purification of the soul. St. Lysimachus writes: “When your soul is darkened by unclean thoughts, vanquish your adversaries by the Name of Jesus Christ, repeating it frequently. You will find no more powerful and effective weapon, either in Heaven or on Earth.” St. Gregory the Sinaite teaches: “Know that no one can restrain his reason on his own, and so when an unclean thought arises, invoke the Name of Jesus Christ more often and more frequently, and the thought will die away by itself.” What a simple and convenient, yet experienced method! And it is the opposite of the advice of theoretical reason, which seeks to achieve purity by its own self-sufficiency! Having understood these experienced counsels of the Holy Fathers, we come to the true conclusion that the main, only, and most convenient way to acquire salvation and spiritual perfection is as a part of, and the continuousness of prayer, no matter how ineffectual it may be.

           Christian soul! If you do not find the strength within yourself to worship God in spirit and in truth; if your heart does not yet feel the warmth and sweetness of spiritual and inner prayer, then offer in your prayer sacrifice what you can, what is within your power, what is proportionate to your strength. Let the lower organs of your mouth be like the first in unceasing prayer; let them call incessantly upon the mighty name of Jesus Christ. This is not a great task, and is within the reach of everyone. At the same time, this is required by the aged and proven commandment of the holy Apostle: “Let us offer (always) a sacrifice to God, or the fruit of the lips confessing his name.” Part of the prayer will inevitably become habit and is turned into nature, engenders in time a certain disposition of the mind and the heart to the right state of mind. Imagine therefore what would happen if a person irreproachably fulfilled this one commandment of God concerning incessant prayer: in one way he would fulfill all the commandments, for if he were to carry out prayer incessantly at all times and in all his deeds and activities, secretly invoking the divine Name of Jesus Christ, although at first unemotionally, but then he would no longer have time for sinful pleasures. Every wicked thought he would meet with an obstacle to its propagation, every sinful matter would not be so cleverly considered in a vain mind: many speeches and talk would be shortened or altogether destroyed, and every guilt would be immediately cleansed by the gracious power of God’s name. Constant practice in prayer would often distract the soul from sinful deeds and lead it to a real knowledge of them – to union with God! Now you see how important and necessary quantity in prayer is! Part in prayer is the only way to acquire a pure and genuine prayer, it is the best and most effective preparation for prayer and the surest way to achieve the goal of prayer and salvation!

       According to one spiritual writer, it is indeed wonderful. “I know, he says, that for many pseudo-spiritual shallow philosophers who seek everywhere an illusory greatness and noble pretenses in the eyes of reason and pride, a simple, oral, and solitary practice of prayer seems to be a trivial, or a slight, or a lowly, occupation. They forget the instruction of Jesus Christ: ‘Unless you are like children, you will not enter the kingdom of God.’ They make up some science for prayer on the shaky foundations of natural reason.’ Were not such frequent prayers most praised by the Divine Teacher Himself?’ For them, it is half the world – there is no need for it! It is enough to continue it, not to be distracted, and not to worry: it will purify itself.

       Yes, after all these persuasions that the frequency of prayer, despite its weakness, is so powerful, is completely within the power of man, and lies entirely within his own will – dare to try, even for the first time, to observe yourself with regard to the frequency of your prayer in such a way that the invocation of the name of Jesus Christ is far more present; and this advantage of prayer over the affairs of life will inevitably show you that this day is not lost, but acquired for salvation; that on the scales of the judgment of God, frequent prayer will tip the scale of your weaknesses and deeds, and will smooth out the sins of that day in the book of your conscience, will place you on the scale of righteousness, and will give you hope of sanctification in the eternal life. (From the author’s manuscript, obtained by Father Ambrose from the Good Monastery).

     BUILDER.  – With all my heart I thank you, holy father! You have delighted my sinful soul with this reading. For the sake of the Lord, may he bless me to copy it for myself for a few hours. Everything I have read is so wonderful and joyful, and my foolish mind understands it exactly, just as the holy fathers comment on it in ‘Dobrotolubiya.’Bot, for example, John of Karpathos in the 4th part of ‘Dobrotolubiya’ also says that if you lack the strength to moderation and active deeds, then know that the Lord seeks to save you through prayer. And in your notebook, as beautifully and clearly as in ‘Dobrotolubiya’, it is all so laid out. Thank God first, and then you, that I was given the opportunity to hear this!’

       PROFESSOR.  And I have listened to your lecture with great respect and pleasure, dear father! All the arguments are absolutely sound in the strictest logic, and are wonderful to me. But, I think, the possibility of uninterrupted prayer is primarily conditioned by favourable circumstances of absolute solitude. For I agree that frequent or incessant prayer is a powerful and the only way to gain the grace of assistance in all the works of godliness and the sanctification of the soul, and it is accessible to the human powers; but this method can be used only when a person has the occasion to be alone and at peace, that is, when he is freed from occupations, cares, and distractions; at such times he has only to contend with sloth or boredom. But if he is obliged to perform his duties, if he is continually engaged in business, if he is obliged to go about in a noisy society, and if he would exercise himself well in their prayer, it is impossible for him to do so, because of the inevitable disturbance. Thus the only method that can be applied frequently under favourable circumstances is not capable of being applied by everybody.

Note. – In vain do you lay down thus! Not to mention how the heart, trained in interior prayer, can always, whatever its employment (both physical and intellectual), in any noise without hindrance, pray and invoke the name of God (the conductor knows this himself, and the neophyte needs gradual training in it), it is possible to say categorically that no side can pray. For the secret thought of man is subject to no external constraint, and is completely free within itself; at any time it can be perceived and turned to prayer, even while speech can secretly, without any external sound, express prayer in the presence of many people, and during external occupations; yet notwithstanding, our occupations are not so important, and our conversations are not so interesting, that we cannot find convenience, in their midst, to call upon the name of Jesus Christ, even if our mind is not yet accustomed to continuous prayer; although, of course, the seclusion of people and distracting objects is the principal condition for attentive and nonstop prayer; however, in the event of failing to use this, one should not excuse oneself for the scantiness of prayer: since the number of opportunities available to each person – whether healthy or sick – depends on his will. Examples to this end are those who, burdened with obligations, distracting positions, cares, labors, and workload, not only always called upon the divine name of Jesus Christ, but even through this learned, and achieved, continuous interior prayer of the heart. For example, Patriarch Photius, raised to the rank of patriarch from among the senators, while governing the great Constantinopolitan flock, was constantly calling upon the divine name, and even through this he learned and achieved spontaneous, heartfelt prayer. Similarly, Callistus in Holy Mount Athos, while performing the arduous service of a cook, learned the art of continuous prayer. Similarly, the humble Lazarus, burdened with the ceaseless labors of the brotherhood, continually, amidst all the noisy occupations, uttered the Lord’s prayer and pacified himself. And many others practiced similarly in the uninterrupted invocation of the divine name. If it were not possible to pray amid distracting occupations, or in the company of people, then, of course, it would not be enjoined to be impossible. St. John Chrysostom, in his discourse on prayer, says the following: “No one should presume to give an answer that it is not always possible to pray in the midst of life’s preoccupations, nor to be in the temple. Everywhere one is not present,one can establish an altar to God in one’s mind through prayer.” It is possible to pray anywhere. And indeed, if a person pays close attention to himself, he will find convenience for prayer everywhere, once he is sure that prayer should constitute the principal occupation before all his obligations, and does not rush into distractions in his labors, so as to gain more time for quiet prayer through all this. He is presented with the possibilities and the will of man, and that it is possible, and convenient, in every time, state, and place to pray, and to move from frequent oral prayer to rational prayer, and from this to heartfelt prayer which opens the kingdom of God within us.

      Profesor. — I agree that during all mechanical occupations, it is possible, and even convenient, to perform frequent, or even continuous, prayer, because mechanical handicrafts do not require intense concentration, and there is much to think about, and so my mind can therefore immerse itself in constant prayer and my lips follow along. But when I have to occupy myself solely with something intellectual, in some way: with attentive reading, or reflection on a deep subject, or a work, then how can I pray with my mind and my lips at the same time? And since prayer is primarily the concern of the mind, then how can I give different occupations to one mind at the same time?

      The solution to this problem of yours is very easy, if we take into account that prayers are divided into three groups: 1) beginners, 2) those who are able to do it, and 3) those who have mastered the prayer. Therefore, beginners can have and, during intellectual exercises, occasional frequent arousal of the mind and heart to God, and the recital of a short verbal prayer; and those who are able or who have become accustomed to prayer can engage in meditation or creation in the continual presence of God, as the basis of prayer. This can be expressed in such an example. Imagine that a strict and demanding King has ordered you to make a reflection on a given deep subject – in His presence – at the foot of His throne; no matter how fully occupied you are with your subject, the presence of the King, whose life is in His hand, by dominating you, does not allow you, even for a moment, to forget that you are thinking, understanding, and making not alone, but in a place that requires particular reverence, respect, and decorum. This sense and lived sense of the nearness of the King very clearly expresses the possibility of engaging in constant inner prayer and in intellectual exercises.

            As for those who, by long practice or the grace of God, have acquired heart prayer from intellectual prayer, such people not only during deep intellectual occupation, but even in their sleep do not cease praying continuously, as the Wise Man says: “While I sleep, my heart wakes&Rrdquo;. — O God, who himself awakens to prayer, engulfing both the mind and the whole soul in a continuous prayerful effusion, in which state he who prays was not, and with what abstract and rational occupation he might be engaged.

Hierotheos. Please, Reverend Father, allow me also to express my views. In the article you have read, it is perfectly expressed that the only way to salvation and perfection is part of prayer – "whatever it may be." I do not understand this, and therefore it seems to me that what will be gained if I constantly pray and call only in the language of Im’ya divine, but not it? This will only be a useless babbling! The result will be that the language will grow tired, and the mind, which prevents this in its reflections, will also be damaged in its ability to act. God does not require words, but a careful mind and a purified heart. Is it not better, even if only rarely, or at a fixed time, to perform even a short prayer, but with attention, effort, warmth of heart, and with proper understanding? Otherwise, even if you repeat the prayer day and night, but do not have the purity of the soul and the deeds of virtue, then you will not gain anything; but remaining with only an external noise, and eventually becoming tired and bored, you will come to the point where, having completely cooled your faith to prayer, you will completely give up this fruitless exercise. Moreover, the futility of one oral prayer can be seen in the denunciations presented in the Holy Scriptures; thus, for example: "These people worship Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me." "Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven." "I would rather use my heart to say ten thousand words than use darkness to speak." And others. All this expresses the fruitlessness of external, careless prayer with the mouth.

          Irrefutable.  – Your conclusion might have some grounds, if it were not combined with the advice of the oral prayer, – perseverance, or constancy; if the prayer in the Name of Jesus Christ did not have an inherent power, and did not gain attention and diligence through gradual practice of prayers… But since we are talking about the frequency, duration and perseverance of prayer (even though it is accompanied at first by inattention or dryness), then we will analyze this further. One spiritual writer, convincing in the greatest benefit and fruitfulness of frequent prayer, which is expressed in uniform words, concludes by saying: “Although many ignorant people consider this oral and frequent creation of the same prayer to be vain and even trite, calling it mechanical and absurd; the secrets that are subsequently revealed by this mechanical exercise, do not know how this inanimate, but frequent chanting suddenly becomes a real cry of the heart, penetrates into the depths, becomes more pleasant, becomes natural for the soul, enlightens it, nourishes it, and leads to union. To teach children the alphabet and reading; the tediousness of this assertion of letters was a mystery to them. To purify the soul, you must first cleanse your body: do you impose a fast on yourself, deprive your body of nourishing and irritating food?

      БУДІВЕЛЬНИК. Truly, an honest father! I have seen many people who, without any educational instruction, without knowing that there is attention, spontaneously produce an uninterrupted prayer to Jesus, who achieved what their mouths and tongues could not hold back from expressing the prayer, which subsequently delighted and enlightened them so, and from weakness and carelessness.<\/p>

      СХІМНИК. Yes! Prayer seems to transform a person. Its power is so powerful that no force of passion can withstand it. If you wish, Brother, I will read to you, at your request, a brief but interesting article I took with me. <\/p>

      ВСІ. With reverent satisfaction, we will listen! <\/p>

      СХІМНИК. <\/p>

Confession on the power and effect of prayer <\/h2>

            Prayer is so powerful and mighty that if you pray and do whatever you want, prayer will lead you to the right and righteous action. <\/p>

            For godly deeds, nothing more is needed than love: love and do whatever you want, says blessed Augustine, because one who truly loves cannot want to do anything that is not pleasing to his beloved. <\/p>

            Since prayer is the result and effect of love, it is truly possible to say the same thing about it: do whatever you want, and you will reach the goal of prayer and attain sanctification! <\/p>

To develop this concept more thoroughly, let us explain by examples: <\/p>

1) Pray, and think everything you want, and your thought will be purified by prayer. Prayer will give you enlightenment of the mind, tame and remove all unnecessary thoughts. <\/p>
– This is what St. Gregory the Sinaite says: “If you want to drive away thoughts and purify your mind, cast them out with prayer, for nothing can keep thoughts away from you except prayer.” <\/p>
– This is also said by St. John the Ladder: “By the Jesus Jam, conquer your imaginary enemies, for outside of this weapon you will find no other.” <\/p>

            2) Pray, and do whatever you want, and your actions will be pleasing to God and useful and beneficial to you. <\/p>

 Repeated prayer, about anything it may be, will not remain fruitless (Marc the Fool for Christ) since there is the grace in it itself. “Holy is His name, and every one that calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” For instance, someone who prayed without success in unbelief in this prayer, received a vision and a call to repent. A lustful girl prayed when she returned, and the prayer showed her the path to a chaste life and to listening to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

             3) Pray, and do not work too much with your own strength to overcome passions. Prayer will destroy them within you: “Whatever causes you to stumble, keep away from; and whatever causes you to fall, do not do,” the Holy Scriptures say. And St. John the Capadocian teaches us that if you do not have the gift of temperance, do not be discouraged; but know that God demands from you diligence in prayer, and prayer will save you.

             The old man described in the Liturgy, who “triumphed over vanity,” that is, having sinned, did not become sad, but turned to prayer and used it sensibly, is a proof of this example.

             4) Pray and be not afraid of anything, do not be afraid of hardships, do not be afraid of hardships, prayer will protect you, ward them off. Remember the sinking sinful Peter; Paul, who prayed in prison; the monk who was spared the temptation by prayer; the girl who was saved from the criminal soldier through prayer, and similar cases: these confirm the power, strength and universality of prayer in the name of Jesus Christ.

5) Pray, however, always, and be not ashamed of anything; be spiritually cheerful and calm: prayer will arrange everything and teach you. Remember that the holy Fathers, John the Golden-Mouthed and Mark the Fool for Christ, speak about the power of prayer: the first affirms that “prayer, even if offered by us, full of sins, immediately cleanses”; the second says this: “To pray in our strength is something, but to pray pure is a gift of grace.” Therefore, whatever is within your power, sacrifice it to God; if you can, offer the quantity first to Him in sacrifice, and God’s power is poured out on your weak power; and prayer, dry and scattered, but frequent, having mastered the habit of it, and having turned to the nature, becomes a pure, clear, flaming and worthy prayer.

             6) Lastly, if your time of rest were accompanied by prayer, then naturally there would be no time left not only for sinful deeds, but even for thoughts about them.

            Now you can see how much wisdom is concentrated in this wise saying: “Love and do what you will. Pray and do what you will!” How joyfully and delightfully all this is said to the sinner, burdened with weaknesses, to one who is weighed down by clashing passions!

            Prayer – that is, everything for total salvation and perfection of the soul… Yes, but the condition of prayer is closely linked here to the name itself: “Pray constantly,” the Word of Bomi commands. Consequently, prayer then will manifest its all-encompassing power and fruit when it is accomplished frequently, continuously, because prayer is in general within our own will: how pure, diligent, and perfect prayer is the gift of grace.

            Therefore, let us pray as often as possible, let us dedicate our whole lives to prayer, even if we begin disheartened! The frequent practice will teach us attention, and the quantity will inevitably lead to quality.

       PROFESSOR. Indeed, the work of prayer is great! And our zeal for its frequency is the key to unlocking its beneficial treasures. But how often do I encounter struggle within myself between zeal and sloth! How I would desire to find a method and help for the victory and conviction and stimulation to constantly adhere to prayer!

       WISDOMTEECHER. Many of the spiritual writers differ in the means and methods based on a sound understanding – to stimulate perseverance in prayer: for example:

            1) They advise delving deep into meditations on the necessity, priority, and fruitfulness of prayer for the salvation of the soul.

            2) They firmly persuade themselves that God, indeed, requires prayer from us, and His Word everywhere preaches this.

            3) They are constantly mindful that, with sloth and carelessness toward prayer, it is impossible to make progress in the works of godliness and gain peace and salvation; moreover, this must inevitably be met with punishment in this life as well as torment in the next.

            4) They inspire determination with the examples of the divine benefactors who have all achieved sanctification and salvation through constant prayer, etc.

        Although all these remedies have their own merit and derive from a true understanding, but a sickly and indulgent soul, by taking and using them, rarely sees their fruitfulness because these medicines are bitter for its refined taste and weak for its deeply wounded nature. For a Christian does not know that prayer must be often and earnestly, that this is what God requires; that for sloth in prayer we will suffer the penalty; that all the saints prayed diligently and incessantly; but all this knowledge rarely has a beneficial effect! No observer sees in himself that he either does not or hardly justifies the action of these persuasions of reason and conscience, and at the frequent reminder of this, he lives as indifferently and indolently as before. ‘

The clearest example of this powerful means is to be found in the detailed descriptions of prayerful joys contained in the many accounts of the sufferings from ailments or dryness during prayer, considering ourselves unworthy of these joys and blaming ourselves for our carelessness about prayer.

Abba. Does this reflection not lead the inexperienced to spiritual vanity, as the theologians call the desire of the soul to seek exaggerated delight and love of grace, without being satisfied with what it should do to practise piety out of duty and obligation, and without dreaming of a reward?

Father. I think that the theologians in this case are warning against exaggerated spiritual pleasure or greed, and not quite rejecting the pleasure and delight in the virtues, because, if one desires a reward and is not perfected, God does not forbid a person to think about the reward and pleasure and indeed to live according to the commandments until the state of perfection is attained.

“Honour your father and mother”, that is the commandment!

And there follows a reward that encourages its observance: “Blessed are those who do so” (Mt 5:9).

“If you want to be perfect, sell what you have and give it to the poor” (Mt 19:21), that is the demand of perfection.

And there follows directly the reward that encourages the attainment of perfection: “Go and sell what you have and give the money to the poor” (Mt 19:27).

“Rejoice at that day and exhilarate, when man hates you and wishes to take your name in vain, for the sake of the Son of man” (Lk 6:22), that is the great demand of the virtue for which extraordinary strength of spirit and indomitable patience are required. For this there is the great reward and delight capable of breaking through and supporting extraordinary strength of spirit: “Your guilt has a great reward in heaven” (Mt 5:26), therefore I think that some desire for pleasure in heartfelt prayer is necessary, and is the main means to attain both diligence and success. All of this, then, most clearly confirms the practical reasoning of the counsellor of penance on this subject, just heard by us…

      Knowledge. – One of the great theologians says this about this subject very clearly: “As much care and effort are devoted to planting a vine in order to obtain its fruit, and if no fruit is obtained, the whole operation is pointless; so it is with prayer, if we are to receive the fruits of the spiritual life, that is, love, peace, joy, and other desires, or the hope of the fruits, that is, the pleasure that fills our hearts, we must perform these things” (cf. Chapter 3, Chapter 5). Do you see how clearly this holy father answered the question about the need for joy in prayer? … And, moreover, not long ago, I was reminded of something that constitutes the main cause of our nudity: and the study of this natural inclination can also be a powerful means of encouraging us to pray, which the professor seeks to cultivate. Studying that action cannot exist without a cause, and, following the scale of perceptible things from the lower to the higher, we finally reach the principal cause, God. That is why no nation or tribal people, even among the savages, have ever had or have any notion of God whatsoever. Something murmurs within them for something unknown, drawing them upwards, and there must be a cause. It is on this basis that all natural religions come into being, and it is extremely curious that the essence or soul of every one of them is a secret prayer, expressed in some form of visible action by the heathen people.… How strange this phenomenon appears to the intellect, and yet how much it demands that it disclose the hidden cause of this strange phenomenon, which is expressed in the natural desire for prayer.

         Oh, if only people did not abuse this noble gift and keep it in dignity over their spiritual nature! Then they would have a powerful encouragement and a means on the path to moral perfection. But, alas! How often does this noble gift become a ridiculous addiction of self-love, when one uses it as the means of one’s animal nature!

         I thank you wholeheartedly, my dear visitors! Your spiritually salvific conversation has delighted me greatly and has told me many instructive things as an inexperienced one. May the Lord bestow his grace on your illuminating love.

         We all took our leave.

Seventh acquaintance: Spiritual conversations

&8220;Pray for one another and heal each other&8221; (James 5:16).

      THE BUILDER. – My companion, Professor, and I could not resist the common desire to go on our way and not to visit you forever and ask for your prayers for us…

      PROFESSOR. – Yes, your sincerity and the saving conversations we enjoyed with you among your friends are unforgettable in our souls, as a pledge of fellowship and Christian love even in the distant country to which we are heading.

            – Thank you for your memory and your love, and meanwhile, as it happens, your visit is timely! Two hermits have stopped here: a Moldavian monk and a hermit who lived for twenty years in silence in the forest. They want to see you, I will now summon them…

      Here they are!

      BUILDER. – Ah, what a blissful life in the desert! And a convenient place for unhindered bringing the soul into union with God! A silent forest, like the Garden of Eden, in which the tree of life grows in the prayerful heart of a hermit. If I had any means of food, I would not let go of the hermits’ life.

      PROFESSOR. – Everything seems particularly good to us from afar, and from experience everyone is convinced that any place, having its own conveniences, also has its own difficulties. Of course, for those who have a melancholic temperament and a desire for solitude, a solitary life is comforting, but there are many dangers on this path! Ascetic history presents many examples in which it is seen how many hermits and hermits have completely cut themselves off from contact with people, have fallen into self-deception and profound deception.

      PUSTELNIK. – I am surprised how often, not only in monastic monasteries, but even from some god-fearing laymen, one hears that many who desire a life of solitude or spiritual practice, are restrained from following this urge by fear of falling into temptation. Insisting on this, they present examples in support of their arguments; because both they themselves avoid inner life, and others keep away from it. I think this comes from two sources: either from a lack of understanding of the matter and from ignorance of spiritual things, or from their own laziness towards ascetic contemplation and jealousy that others should not surpass them in these higher attainments, who stand at a lower level compared to them. The Fathers of the Church enter into this matter, who directly and decisively teach that one should not fear or doubt in calling upon God. If some have fallen into self-deception or madness of the mind, this has happened to them from pride, from the absence of a guide and from accepting appearances and dreams as true. If such a temptation did occur (they continue), it would lead to discernment and insight; for rapid divine help intervenes in this permissiveness. Courage! I am with you, do not fear! says Jesus Christ. (Greek Synax. p. 425) It follows from this that it is useless to fear and intimidation from inner life under the pretext of self-delusion: for a humble awareness of one’s sins, openness of the soul to the guide, and “unconcern” in prayer constitute a solid and secure fortress against this temptation, which many fear so much, and yet many so fear, and so many so fear, and so many so fear, and so many so fear, and so many so fear, and so many so fear, so much according to the experienced word of St. Philopheus of Sinai, who says the following: “Many monks do not understand the temptation of their minds, which they experience from demons; that is, they diligently practice only one activity (in external virtues), but they do not care about the mind, that is, about inner contemplation, they do not care, they do not care, .” “If they even hear of others’ developing this inner grace, they consider this envy,” confirms the saint.

       Monastic life. Although the guidance of an experienced and knowledgeable spiritual guide, or elder, to whom one could openly open the soul, thoughts and encounters in the path of inner training, without hindrance and with benefit, is a main condition in the practice of heart prayer, that is ascetic, the parents who recommend it are an exception. St Nikon the Hermit clearly teaches this as follows: “in the exercise of inner heart action, a true and knowledgeable guide is necessary. If there is no such one, then it is necessary to seek one diligently: if you do not find one, then with sorrow of heart, call upon God for help to glean the instruction and leadership in the teaching of the Holy Scriptures.” At the same time, it is also necessary to take into account that a sincere and diligent seeker can hear a useful and instructive word from ordinary people, for the Holy Fathers also assure us that if one asks a simple person with faith and the right intention, he will be able to give a word of help; if one demands instruction from a prophet without faith and a right intention, he will not satisfy one’s desire … The example of this can be seen in the Great Egyptian Macarius, to whom at one time a simple peasant made an understanding and thus put an end to his addiction. As for “privacy”, that is, to not imagine or accept any visual apparitions of light, angels, Christ or any saints, and to turn away from any dreams, the experienced Holy Fathers ordinarily prescribe this because the ability of imagination conveniently confers or brings something to life; and thus the inexperienced can become easily caught up in these dreams, perceive them as visions of grace, and fall into self-deception, while at the same time, as the Holy Scripture presents it, “the devil also turns into an angel of light.” And that the mind naturally and conveniently can be in “privacy” and keep it in the presence of God, can be seen from the fact that the power of imagination can sensibly imagine something in “privacy” and to keep in mind the image in the presence of objects that are not subject to the sense of sight, which have no form, are not visible, are not measured by touch of what is on the cold ground, for example: the image and perception of our souls as air, warmth, and cold; when in the cold, one can quickly imagine warmth in the mind, even though it has no form, is not visible, is not measurable by touch of what is on the cold ground! Similarly, the presence of a spiritual and inscrutable divine being can be imagined in the mind, and perceived in the heart, in “privacy.”

ESCALANTINATE. — During my wandering, I have heard from people with piety and those seeking salvation that they are afraid, under the impression of temptation, to touch the inner work. Some, and I have been also benefited with the advice of St. Gregory of Sinai from Dobrotolyubie, who says that “the work of the heart cannot be charming [as that of the mind], for if the adversary wanted to transform the warmth of the heart into his chaotic burning; or the joy of the heart into a humid pleasure: but time, experience and feelings themselves distort these his tricks, even for those who are not very…”—

      I have also met others who, despite their great pity and having discovered the way of sobriety and inner prayer, in the event of any obstacle or sinful weakness, lose hope and abandon the inner work of the heart that they have known!

      PROFESSOR. — This is very natural! I sometimes also feel this myself, when something happens that deviates from the inner state and leads to pastimes, or makes some sin… For since inner prayer of the heart is a holy mystery and an essential union with God, is it proper and not presumptuous to introduce a holy cause into a sinful heart, and not purify it first of all with no sins, and not purify it first of all with any evil, until it has been first purified with no sins, and not with evil, and not purified first of all with sin? Is it not necessary to prepare oneself for the communion of God? It is better to be unholy before God than to introduce the 7 “inspired verbs” into a darkened and deluded heart…

      Monk. — It is a great pity that you think like this! This thought of “disbelief,” which is more sinful than any sin, and constitutes the chief weapon of the evil world against us… The experienced Ancient Fathers of ours give a completely different teaching in this case. St. Nikita Stifatos says that even if you have fallen and have fallen to the depths of hellish wrath, then even at that time do not despair, but rather turn to God, and He will soon restore your fallen heart and give you a strength even greater than before (Ch 54). Thus, after any fall or weakness of the heart under sin, it is necessary to drive it immediately into the presence of God for healing and purification, just as tainted things, having lain for some time under the influence of the sun’s rays, lose their tainted acuteness and power. Many spiritual teachers affirm this firmly. In the struggle against our enemies, salvation – our passions – – does not in any way have to withdraw from the life-giving action, i.e. the calling of Jesus Christ that is in our hearts! Our actions must neither distract us from walking in the presence of God nor from inner prayer, generating anxiety, despair and sadness, but on the contrary, reinforce our conversion to God. A baby is led by the mother when it begins to walk, and it turns more quickly to her and clings strongly to her when it stirs.

       The Hermit.  – I think that upheavals of depression and doubts are best aroused by dispersion of mind, rather than by continuous silence and seclusion. The ancient wise Fathers won over despondency, received their inspiration and strengthening in hope of God, in the quiet of solitude; and they gave us good and wise advice: “Sit silently in your cell and it will teach you everything.”

       The Professor.  – Upon my honest word, I would very much like to hear your critical analysis of my thoughts about the praiseworthy silence and the beneficial use of solitude, which the hermits are so keen to keep to. Here is how I am reasoning about this: since everyone is subject to the law of nature, commanded by the Creator, and is in inevitable dependence on one another, and therefore they are obliged to help one another in life, to work and be useful to one another, this mutuality forms the well-being of the human race, and love for the neighbour. And what can the silent hermit do in his inaction to serve his neighbour, and what benefit does he bring for the welfare of human society? He completely destroys the law of Creation in himself, regarding the bond of love for one’s fellow-man and a beneficial influence on one’s fellow-men!..

       The Hermit. – Since your view of silence is not true, then your conclusion is not correct, let us examine it more closely:

         1. The secluded hermit does not merely remain in an idle and empty state. On the contrary, he is constantly active, and sometimes even more than whoever takes part in public life. He labours incessantly with the highest intellectual appeal of his nature: he observes, understands, watches both the progress and state of his moral being. That is what silence is really for! And as this benefit is paramount to the hermit’s own improvement, so too is it for the development of moral life, because the able hermit, transmitting his inner experiences – or verbally, in exceptional cases, or in written form – benefits more than any public or private benefactor, because the merciful private benefactor is always restricted to a small number of benefactions; the enlightened and experienced moral benefactor, on the other hand, benefits entire nations, since his experiences and teachings pass from generation to generation, and this is something we have used for a very long time indeed. And what distinguishes him not from the generous miracle of Christ for the sake of Christian love, but even surpasses it in its effects.

            2. The beneficial and useful influence of the monk upon the neighbours is revealed not only in the exposition of his instructive observations on inner life, but even his example of his detached life benefits the attentive layperson, leading him to self-consciousness and to a sense of reverence… inciting him to a pious life, reminding him of what a person can be on earth, and how accessible it is to return him to his original contemplative state, from which he came out of the hands of the Creative One.

            3. The benefit shown comes from the silence of a true, enlightened, and blessed with the gracious light monk. But even if the monk did not have these gracious gifts to be a light to the world, if he entered the path of silence with the sole purpose of hiding himself from his fellow men, because of his indolence and carelessness and bad and seductive example, he would still have done much good, and had a beneficial influence on society, and had a beneficial influence on society with dry and barren branches, and removing harmful plants to allow the growth of better and more useful ones. And this is a lot, and this is still a public benefit, since the hermit, by his solitude, makes distracting to the society that would necessarily have arisen from his seductive life among people, and harms the morality of others.

            The importance of silence is reflected by St Isaac the Syrian as follows: "When on one side we place all the activities of this life, and on the other side silence: we will then find that it outweighs whatever we might lay against it on the scales of graces and virtues. God’s signs and miracles and powers in the world can be compared to hermits and their silence, which, like infamy on silence, is a glory and the conversion of many peoples to God." (p. 41).

            Even the most profane sages recognised the benefit of silence: the Neoplatonist school, which had many famous thinkers under the guidance of the philosopher Plotinus, developed to the extreme a contemplative, inner life attained primarily in silence… One spiritual writer said that if a state were developed to the fullest extent it would be necessary to have people for other than social civic purposes, to sustain the spirit of truth, and to accept it from all the ages past, preserve it for future ages, and pass it on to posterity. Such people in the Church are hermits, solitary ascetics, and ourselves (i.e. nuns).

BUILDER. – It seems to me that no one has so clearly appreciated the advantages of silence as St. John of the Ladder: “Silence, he says, is the mother of prayer, the return from the prison of sin, an insensitive achievement in the virtues, and a constant ascent to heaven.” And Jesus Christ Himself, to show us the usefulness and necessity of solitary silence, often left public preaching and went to silent places for prayer and rest. Pious ascetics are like pillars that support the piety of the Church with their incessant prayers: even in ancient times it was evident that many pious laymen, even kings and noblemen, went to visit hermits and ascetics to ask their prayers for strengthening and salvation. Therefore, a solitary ascetic can serve others and contribute to the good of society by his solitary prayer.

            Thus, they began to learn together, passing each other what they understood; the subject of learning was the same. And what happened after a few days? The careless became diligent, loved learning, neglecting it turned into diligence and resourcefulness, which had a beneficial effect on both their character and morality. And the resourceful friend became even more capable and hard-working. They profited from each other in action… And this is natural; for a person is born into a society of people, develops intelligent concepts through people; the customs of life, sentiments, aspirations, desires, in short, everything he receives as a model. And therefore, since the lives of people consist in the closest relationship and powerful influence upon each other, then who lives among people like this, will acquire habits, actions, and customs. Thus, the cold can be warmed, the foolish can be sharp, the lazy can be embarrassed by the lively participation of a person like him. The spirit of a spirit can transmit itself, can have a beneficial influence on each other: to draw it to prayer, to attention, to encourage it to abandon despair, to turn away from sin, and to stimulate it to sacred activity, and therefore can be helpful to one another, can become more pious, more active, and more godly. One to another, let us ask for intercessions!

            And from this we can see that God is not satisfied with many petitions and supplications (as is the case with the powerful in the earth), but the spirit and power of prayer purifies and enlivens the soul for which one prays, and presents it as capable of union with God.

            If such a fruitful mutual prayer of those who live on earth is true, then it is obvious that prayer for those who have passed away is also mutually beneficial in the closest relationship of the heavenly world with the earthly one; it can also attract the souls of the militant Church to communication with those of the triumphant Church; or, what is the same, with those who have passed away.

            Although all that I have said is a psychological judgment; but by covering the Holy Scriptures, we will convince ourselves of its truth!.. 1) So says Jesus Christ to the Apostle Peter: “Pray for you, so that your faith does not fail.” Here the power of Christ’s prayer strengthens Peter’s spirit and encourages him against faith in the midst of temptation. 2) When the Apostle Peter was in prison, prayer was fervent in the church for him. Here the help of brotherly prayer in difficult circumstances of life is revealed… 3) But the clearest commandment about praying for others is expressed by the holy Apostle James as follows: “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. For in much praying the supplications of the righteous person turn quickly to help.” Here the above-mentioned psychological conclusion is clearly confirmed…

            What of the example of the Apostle Paul, given as a model of prayer for one another? One writer remarks that this example of St. Paul should teach us how much mutual prayer is needed, when this holy and powerful spiritual exercise recognizes the need for this spiritual, prayerful help. In his Letter to the Hebrews, he makes the following request: “Pray for us, for we are always hopeful, as sincere as those others who want to live a good life.’’ Upon reflecting on this, how unreasonable it would be to rely on our own prayers and successes when an humble and pious man asks that the prayers of his fellow Christians be joined to his own? And so, in holiness, simplicity, and the union of love, how should we not reject or despise the prayerful help of even the mightiest of believers, when the discerning spirit of the Apostle Paul did not exercise discrimination in this case? He asked for common prayer from everyone, knowing that the power of God is accomplished in weakness; therefore, it can sometimes be realized in the weak, perhaps even in prayerful people.”

            Having been convinced by this example, let us note that prayer for one another maintains the union of Christian love, commanded by God, and testifies to the humility and spirit of the person praying, and ignites an intercessory prayer.

      PROFESSOR.  — Your analysis and arguments are excellent and precise, but it would be interesting to hear from you the very method and form of prayer for the needs of one’s neighbor, because I believe that if the fruitfulness and effectiveness of prayer depends on the lively involvement of one’s neighbor and, above all, on the constant influence of the soul praying upon the soul in need of prayer, there will be no purpose in seeking God’s presence in a vain way and pouring out one’s soul before God in its own need. And if it is only once or twice a day to bring one’s neighbor to mind in their presence and ask them for God’s help; then is this enough to effect and support the soul of the one for whom one is praying? In short, one wishes to know how or what to pray for one’s neighbors.

      Monk.  – Whatever is prayed to God, must not, nor can it, exclude oneself from God’s presence, because if it is poured out to God, it is certainly in His presence… With regard to the way in which one should pray for one’s neighbor, it is worthwhile to note that the power of this prayer consists in the sincere Christian involvement. Therefore, at the time of mentioning one’s neighbor, or at the time assigned for this purpose, it is necessary to position one’s mental sight to God, and to offer one’s prayer in the following form: Oh Gracious Lord! May your will, which wants to save all and come to the knowledge of truth, be done: save and have mercy on your servant (such and such). Receive this desire of mine as the cry of love, commanded by you.

          Ces paroles sont généralement répétées au moment des mouvements de l’âme ou lorsque l’on recite les chants – avec cette prière. J’ai compris par l’expérience à quel point cette prière est bénéfique pour celui à qui elle est adressée.

      PRÉATEURO. – Une sagesse et des réflexions glanées dans vos observations et vos délibérations m’obligent à les garder vivement gravées dans mes mémoires, et à avoir envers vous tout respect et toute gratitude dans mon reconnaissant cœur…

      BÂTONNIER ET PRÉATEURO. – Or, le moment est venu de partir. Nous vous prions, à l’adieu, de vos prières et de votre bienveillance.

          Fils du Créateur de l’univers, qui avez ressuscité de la mort le Pasteur des brebis du monde, en versant le sang du Testament éternel, notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, rendez qu’en toutes les choses on fasse selon votre volonté, en vous créant des œuvres qui lui soient agréables, Jésus-Christ. Amen.

Amen.