From a letter to the editor of The Citizen

Having received news of the death of his spiritual mentor, the Optina elder Father Ambrose, being ill and being in Sergiev Posad, he prepared this article and sent it to Prince Vladimir Petrovich Meshchersky, a well-known publicist of the protective direction, the publisher of the newspaper-magazine "Grazhdanin", in which he printed not one of his works.

§ I

"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" said the Apostle Paul.

After all, we are all: you, the prince, and I am unworthy, we are all "believers" - Orthodox Christians: let us no longer please our common enemies with petty strife, who do not sleep, as you see, and rise from different sides, and in new types and with new, heterogeneous weapons (Vl. Solovyov, L. Tolstoy, various scientific specialists, and even N. N. Strakhov, who recently appeared as a miserable defender of the Yasno-Polyansky town)!

Can good-heartedness, really "morality" be appropriate everywhere, except for literature?

Is it really only in literature, under the pretext of serving “ideas”, that every rancor, every bile, every poison, every stubbornness and every pride, even because of unimportant shades in these ideas, will be allowed and laudable?

Not! I don't believe this! I do not want to believe - the incorrigibility of this evil! I don't want to despair.

My mentor of blessed memory and so many other Russian people from Ambrose - in many and many cases was one of those peacemakers about whom it is said that they "will be called the sons of God."

He died, burdened with years and ailments, and finally weary of overwork for the correction and salvation of our...

I would consider myself extremely wrong if I didn’t suggest that you, prince, reprint here, firstly, the beginning of a small note by Yevgeny Poselyanin about who and what Ambrose was in the world, when and how he became a monk, etc. ., and then a description of his death and burial (by the same author). We must begin with this, and then, we hope, the Lord will help us to add something else from ourselves.

“Hieroshimonk Ambrose,” says Evgeny P, “the elder of the Kaluga Vvedenskaya Optina Hermitage, the successor of the great elders Leonid (Leo) and Macarius, peacefully reposed on October 10, having reached a deep, almost 80-year old age.

He was a native of the Lipetsk district, Tambov province, came from a clergy and was called in the world Alexander Mikhailovich Grenkov. Having successfully completed the course, he was left as a teacher at the Tambov Seminary, and no one thought that he would be a monk, since in his youth he was of a sociable, cheerful and lively disposition. But being a teacher, he began to think about the vocation of a person, and the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bgiving himself completely to God began to take possession of him more and more. Not without difficulty and not without hesitation, he decided to choose a monastic life, and so that no one could take away from him the determination for which he was afraid, Alexander Mikhailovich, without foreclosing anyone, about 25 years old, without taking leave, secretly from everyone left Tambov for advice from Elder Hilarion. The elder told him: "Go to Optina and be more experienced." Already from Optina, he sent a letter to Bishop Arseny of Tambov (later Metropolitan of Kyiv), in which he asked to be excused for his act and outlined the reasons that prompted him to do so. Vladyka did not condemn him.

From his solitude, the hermit called to him one of his comrades in study and service, who later also became an Optina hieromonk, and in enthusiastic words he described the spiritual happiness to which he had approached.

In Optina Hermitage, Alexander Grenkov, who took the name of Ambrose during his tonsure, was under the guidance of the famous elder Father Macarius.

Anticipating what kind of lamp is being prepared for monasticism in the face of a young monk, and loving him, Father Macarius subjected him to severe trials, in which the will of the future ascetic was tempered, his humility was brought up and monastic virtues developed.

As a close assistant to Father Macarius and as a scholar, Father Ambrose worked hard in translating and publishing well-known ascetic writings, which owe their resurrection to Optina Pustyn.

Upon the death - in 1866 - of Father Macarius, Father Ambrose was elected an elder.

The elder, the leader of conscience, is the person to whom people entrust themselves - lay people just like monks - seeking salvation and conscious of their weakness. In addition, believing people turn to the elders, as inspired leaders, in difficult situations, in sorrows, at hours when they do not know what to do, and ask by faith for guidance: “tell me my path, I will go to it.”

Father Ambrose was distinguished by his special experience, the boundless breadth of his eyes, the meekness and gentleness of a child. The rumor about his wisdom grew, people from all over Russia began to flock to him, and the great scientists of the world followed the people. Dostoevsky came to Father Ambrose, and Count L. Tolstoy visited more than once.

Everyone who approached Father Ambrose endured a strong, unforgettable impression, there was something in him that acted irresistibly.

Ascetic deeds and working life have long exhausted the health of Father Ambrose, but until the last days he did not refuse anyone advice. Great sacraments were performed in his cramped cell: here they were reborn, families were provided for, sorrows subsided.

Great alms flowed from Father Ambrose to all those in need. But most of all he donated to his favorite offspring - the Kazan women's community in Shamardin, 15 miles from Optina, which has a great future. Here he spent his last days and died ”(“ Mosk Ved ”, No. 285, October 15). From the same No. 285 I copy another passage from Mr. Fed. Ch., depicting very faithfully the nature of the activity of the deceased elder.

“Optina Pustyn is a good monastery. Good order in it, good monks, this is the Athos Monastery in Russia ... But there are no such shrines as miraculous relics, like especially glorified icons that attract Russian people to other monasteries ...

Why, why, to whom did they go and go to Optina: a village woman, languishing over the girdle of her only-begotten "angel", who had departed from her to God and carried away with him all her earthly joys; a man with a hardened body, to whom it came to life “lie down and die”; a petty-bourgeois woman with a bunch of children who has nowhere to lay her head; a noblewoman left by her husband with a daughter “with nothing”, and a nobleman with a family, left without work due to old age, with eight children, who received “at least a noose around his neck”; an artisan, a merchant, an official, a teacher, a landowner - with broken health or with a collapsing condition, complicated affairs and all with broken hearts? .. Why, why, to whom did they go: a senator with his family from St. province, county administration, metropolitan from the capital, Grand Duke, member of the royal family, writer, colonel from Tashkent, a Cossack from the Caucasus, a whole family from Siberia, a Russian atheist who has worn out his heart and thought, a Russian semi-science entangled in matters of mind and heart, a broken heart father, husband, mother, abandoned bride ... Where, to whom did all this go? What is the clue here?

Yes, in the fact that here, in Optina, there was a heart that accommodated everyone, there was light, warmth, joy - consolation, help, balance of mind and heart - there was grace from Christ, there was one who “suffers long, is merciful, does not envy, does not exalt himself, does not pride himself, does not behave rudely, does not seek his own, is not irritated, does not think evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, covers everything, believes everything, hopes everything, endures everything ”- everything for the sake of Christ, everything for the sake of others, - here there was love, accommodating everyone, there was Elder Ambrose ... "

The following verses are also very good, taken by me from the third article of the same issue (the article is signed only with the letter A).

Among the forests, in a country far and deaf

The peaceful abode has long sheltered,

She was fenced off from the world with a white wall, -

And sends a prayer to the sky after a fiery prayer.

The peaceful abode is a shelter for sick hearts,

Broken by life, offended by fate,

Or pure-hearted souls, pre-chosen by Thee,

O Almighty and Omniscient Father!

Let the storm there in the distance, the incessant rumble of the shafts,

Let the sea foam, boil the passions of life,

Let the formidable waves rage in the open, -

Here the pier is quiet on the right shores ...

Here it is so prayerfully and affectionately noisy

Tops of trees fragrant pine forest;

Humbled his stormy run, here with a silvery ribbon

The river between the bushes thoughtfully runs ...

Here are temples ... monks ... and live for many years

In the forest, in the holy skete, here is a perspicacious old man;

But the world found out about him: with an impatient hand

There is a knock on the door to him and the people are asking ...

Everyone here is accepted by him: both the gentleman and the peasant.

Rich and poor, everyone needs a wonderful old man:

A healing jet in the turmoil of a difficult life

Here consolation beats a spiritual spring.

Here, fighter of our lamentable days!

To a peaceful monastery for rest and prayer:

Like an ancient husband, giant fighter Antaeus,

Here, strengthened by strength, you will again go to battle.

It is nice here. Here you can relax

With a tired soul in the struggle for the truth of God,

And fresh strength can be found here

To a new, formidable battle with unbelief and lies.

For those who have visited Optina, especially those who have lived there for a long time, these sincere poems, of course, will remind you of many familiar feelings and pictures.

§II

In Moscow Ved No. 295 of October 25, Yevgeny Poselyanin describes in some detail the death and burial of Father Ambrose; - I will give his story in a slightly abbreviated form:

“Father Ambrose,” says EP, “had been unwell for a very, very long time. 52 years ago he came to Optina in poor health; About 25 years ago, returning in a sleigh from the Optina Monastery to the skete, he was thrown out of the sleigh, got a bad cold and dislocated his arm, and suffered for a long time from bad treatment by a simple veterinarian. This incident completely undermined his health. But he continued the same exorbitant labors and the same miserable existence.

Doctors, at the request of those who loved the elder, who visited him, always said that his illnesses were special, and they could not say anything. “If you were asking me about a simple patient, I would say that half an hour of life remains, and he may live even a year.” The elder existed by grace. He was 79 years old.

On July 3, 1890, he left for the Kazan women's community founded by him in Shamardin, 15–20 versts from Optina, and never returned. On this community, which was extremely dear to him, he placed his last cares. Last summer, he was going to go back, already went out on the porch to get into the carriage; he became ill, he stayed. In winter, he got a new icon of the Mother of God from somewhere. Below, among the grass and flowers, sheaves of rye stand and lie. Batiushka called the icon "The Conqueror of Bread", composed a special refrain to the general akathist to the Theotokos, and indicated that the icon should be celebrated on October 15th.

By the end of winter, Father Ambrose was terribly weak, but in the spring his strength seemed to return. In early autumn it got worse again. Those who came to him saw how sometimes he lay, broken by fatigue, his head fell helplessly back, his tongue could hardly utter an answer and instruction, a barely audible, indistinct whisper flew out of his chest, but he kept sacrificing himself, never refusing anyone.

By the end of September, the elder began to hurry with the Shamarda buildings, ordered to leave everything and finish the almshouse and the orphanage as soon as possible. On September 21, his terminal illness began. Sores appeared in his ears, causing him severe pain. He began to lose his hearing, but the usual activities continued, and he talked for a long time with those who came from other places and to whom he was close. He said to one nun: “This is the last suffering”; but she understood that in addition to all the hardships of the life of an old man, there must be another test, a painful illness. The disease went on as usual, but the thought of death did not occur to anyone.

Since October, new unrest began: the diocesan authorities demanded that the elder return to Optina; the bishop had to come to express his wish. The priest said: “The bishop will arrive, and many things will need to be asked to him by the elder; there will be many people, and there will be no one to answer him - I will lie and be silent; but as soon as he arrives, I will go on foot to my hut.

The last days have arrived.

A great consolation was sent to the departing old man: he was left alone with himself. One had to see what always, from morning to night, happened around Father Ambrose in order to understand what a small part of the day he could use for himself, for praying for himself, for thinking about his soul. A terrible struggle could darken the last days of the elder, the struggle between love for his children, who came to him in a crowd, and the thirst before leaving the world to be alone with God and his soul. He became deaf and dumb.

Once, when it got better, he said: “You all do not obey, so he took away my gift of speech, and took away my hearing so as not to hear how you ask to live according to your will.”

He was communed and unction; people went to him for a blessing, and he tried to overshadow them with the sign of the cross. Only his lively penetrating eyes shone with the former wisdom and strength. And then he knew how to express his affection. So, he had previously made a heated remark about the construction site to one of the closest monks and considered himself guilty. When they raised the priest to correct him, he laid his head on the monk's shoulder and looked at him, as if asking for forgiveness.

He hasn't eaten at all for the last seven days. Hearing and speech seem to have occasionally returned; on the penultimate night, he spoke with one of his assistants about the affairs of Shamardin. Forever remained hidden what feelings and thoughts arose in the soul of the great righteous man who left the earth; mute he lay in his cell; it was evident from the movement of his lips that he was whispering prayers. The strength left him completely. October 10, Thursday, he leaned to the right side; halting breathing still showed the presence of life; at half past twelve he suddenly trembled softly and walked away.

The expression of serene peace and clarity captured the features of his image, which during life shone with such selfless love and such truth.

On that very day, at exactly 11 ½ hours, the bishop got into the carriage to go to the elder. When halfway through he was informed that Fr. Ambrose had died and at what hour, he was amazed. He wept and said, "The elder has performed a miracle."

No words can describe the sorrow that the Shamarda sisters felt. At first they could not believe that the priest, them the father died, that he is not with them and will not be. Heavy pictures of grief filled the monastery, and from the amazing impression that the death of Father Ambrose made on all who knew him, one can judge what Father Ambrose is.

There were long negotiations between Optina and Shamardin about where to bury the priest. The synod decided to bury him in Optina. The impossibility of keeping even the graves of the elder was a new grief for Shamardin.

On the 13th, the priest was buried. , in which he stood, represents a huge hall with simple wooden walls; on the walls in places there are pictures-images. He built this church himself. In the last weeks of his life, to this church, which is nothing more than the hall of a landowner's house standing there with a huge annex, a whole series of large rooms were finally attached on the right side, communicating directly with the church through windows and doors: Father Ambrose decided to transfer here from his Shamarda almshouses for those poor who cannot move - they will not need to be taken to church, through the windows they will always hear the service.

When the bishop arrived from Optina, they performed a memorial service, and the bishop entered the church at the sounds of: “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!”

Lunch began. When they began to pronounce funeral speeches, and then the funeral service took place, terrible sobs arose. It was especially difficult to look at the 50 children whom the father raised in his orphanage. During the service, they saw how an unknown woman brought a baby to the coffin, prayed and cried, as if asking for protection.

On this day, an event took place, which is much talked about. The benefactor Shamardina, the wife of a very famous Moscow trade figure, Mrs. P. often visited the father. Her married daughter had no children, and she asked the father to indicate how it would be best for her to take the child for adoption. Last year, in mid-October, the father said: "In a year I myself will give you a child."

At the funeral dinner, the young couple remembered the words of the priest and thought: “Here he died without fulfilling his promise.”

After dinner, at the porch of the abbess's building, the nuns heard a child's cry; there was a child on the porch. When the daughter of Mrs. P. found out about this, she rushed to the baby with a cry: “It was the father who sent my daughter to me!” Now the child is already in Moscow.

On October 14, the body of Father Ambrose was transferred from Shamardin to Optina. This event made an impression on everyone not of a funeral procession, but of the transfer of relics. The confluence of the people was enormous; the main road, in its entire very considerable width, was filled with moving people, and yet the procession stretched for two versts. Most of those who were seeing them off walked the entire long, about 20 versts, path, despite the heavy downpour that continued all the time. So he returned "on foot to his hut"! In the villages they greeted him with the ringing of bells, priests in vestments with banners left the churches. Women made their way through the crowd and applied the children to the coffin. There were people who carried without changing, moving only from one side to the other.

Most of all, the following undoubted sign struck everyone. On the four sides of the coffin, the nuns carried lighted candles without any cover. And the terrible downpour not only did not extinguish a single candle from them, but not once was the crackle of a drop of water falling on the wick.

On October 15, on the same day that the priest set the icon of the Conqueror of Bread to celebrate, he was buried. This coincidence was guessed only later. It involuntarily seems that, leaving his children, father Ambrose left this icon as a sign of his love and his constant concern for their urgent needs.

In the middle of the Optina Church in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, which the elder especially honored, stood his coffin, surrounded by many hieromonks, during the solemn rank of bishop's service.

Those who visited Optina remember behind the wall of the summer cathedral, to the left of the path, a white chapel over the grave of Father Ambrose's predecessor and teacher, Elder Macarius. Next to this chapel, on the very path, they dug a grave. During the work, they touched the coffin of Father Macarius; the wooden box in which he stood was all decayed, and the coffin itself and all the upholstery remained intact after 30 years. A new coffin was placed next to this coffin, a small hill was poured on top. This is the grave of Father Ambrose.

Those who knew what kind of life Father Ambrose lived cannot reconcile themselves to the idea that a common fate will befall his body.

There can be no special changes in Optina Pustyn; the same archimandrite remained there; there is also the father’s beloved disciple, father Joseph, to whom, leaving Optina, father Ambrose entrusted his work.

(Let us add from ourselves: another of his disciples, the head of the skete, Father Anatoly, himself already a long-time confessor and a highly experienced elder.)

“But the position of Shamardin is much more difficult,” Evgeny P. Shamardino says further, there was one father Ambrose; he is not even ten years old. The structure of the life of this community, its history, the importance that Father Ambrose attached to it, his prophecies about it, all this speaks of its great destiny.

But while her cross is heavy. Every word about the death of Father Ambrose here is the cry of a sore heart, the cry of a creature from whom everything was taken away.

Five hundred sisters were left almost without funds and without a leader.

Father Ambrose predicted that the monastery would face severe trials; but he also said: "Without me, you will be even better off."

Faith in the elder alone supports the sisters.”

* * *

I have almost nothing to add to the story of the author devoted to the elder.

Everything necessary has been said, and I can only testify that he truly and correctly assesses the spirit and merits of our common mentor.

As for a thorough and detailed biography of Father Ambrose, it is still ahead.

Surely, sooner or later, among his many admirers and students, there will be such a person who will decide to take on this charitable and, of course, entertaining work.

Here, in conclusion, let me remind you that many people think that Father Zosima in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov is more or less accurately copied from Father Ambrose. This is mistake. From Zosima only in outward, physical appearance somewhat resembles from Ambrose, but not in his general views (for example, on rebirth of the state in!) neither in the method of leadership, nor even in the manner of speaking - the dreamy old man of Dostoevsky does not look like a real Optina ascetic. And in general, from Zosima, he does not look like any of the Russian elders who lived before and now exists. First of all, all these elders of ours are not at all as sugary and sentimental as from Zosima.

From Zosima - this is the embodiment of the ideals and requirements of the novelist himself, and not the artistic reproduction of a living image from Orthodox-Russian reality ...

In the history of our country, as well as in world history, there are saints who are, as it were, “mileposts” on the way to the Almighty. One of these righteous people was the Monk Ambrose of Optina, whose memory is celebrated on October 23.

The future great Optina elder Hieroschemamonk Ambrose was born on December 4, 1812, in the village of Bolshaya Lipovitsa, Tambov province, into a large family of sexton Mikhail Fedorovich Grenkov and his wife Marfa Nikolaevna. At the age of 12, Sasha (that was his name) was sent to the first class of the Tambov Theological School, after which in 1830 he entered the Tambov Theological Seminary. Six years later, the studies were successfully completed, but Alexander did not enter the theological academy. He did not become a priest either. For some time he was a home teacher in a landowner's family, and then a teacher at the Lipetsk Theological School.

At the age of 27, tormented by reproaches of conscience about his unfulfilled vow given to God in the last class of the seminary - to be tonsured a monk if he recovers from a serious illness - Alexander Mikhailovich secretly, without even asking permission from the diocesan authorities, runs to Optina Pustyn, which was then "a pillar of fire in the darkness of the surrounding night, which attracted to itself all the slightest seekers of light."

According to legend, this monastery, located three miles from the city of Kozelsk, and surrounded on three sides by impenetrable virgin forests, and on the fourth side by the Zhizdra River, was founded by a repentant robber named Opta, an associate of Ataman Kudeyar. The life of the monastery was based on the strict observance of three rules: strict monastic life, the preservation of poverty and the desire to always and in everything to carry out the truth, in the complete absence of any partiality. The inhabitants were great ascetics and prayer books for Orthodox Russia. During his lifetime, Alexander Mikhailovich found, one might say, the very flower of her monasticism, such pillars as hegumen Moses, elders Leo and Macarius.

In April 1840, almost a year after his arrival, Alexander Mikhailovich Grenkov became a monk. He was actively involved in the daily life of the monastery: he boiled yeast, baked rolls, and was an assistant cook for a whole year. Two years later he was tonsured into a mantle and named Ambrose. After five years of living in Optina Pustyn, in 1845, 33-year-old Ambrose became a hieromonk.

His health during these years deteriorated greatly, and in 1846 he was forced to leave the state, being unable to fulfill his obediences, and began to be listed as a dependent of the monastery. Soon the state of his health became threatening, they were waiting for the end, and according to the ancient Russian custom, Father Ambrose was tonsured into the schema. But the ways of the Lord are inscrutable: two years later, unexpectedly for many, the patient began to recover. As he himself later said: “In the monastery, those who are sick do not die soon until the disease brings them real benefit.”

During these years, the Lord brought up the spirit of the future great elder not only with bodily infirmities. Especially important for him was communication with the elders Leo and Macarius, who, seeing in Ambrose the chosen vessel of God, spoke of him only: "Ambrose will be a great man." Listening to the wise instructions of Elder Leo, at the same time he became very attached to Elder Macarius, often talked with him, opening his soul to him and receiving important advice for himself, helped him in publishing spiritual books. The young ascetic finally found what his soul longed for. He wrote to friends about the spiritual happiness that had opened up for him in Optina Pustyn.

“Just as all the paths leading there converge at the top of a mountain, so in Optina – this spiritual peak – both the highest spiritual feat of inner work and service to the world in its entirety, both its spiritual and worldly needs, converged.” People went to the elders in Optina for consolation, healing, for advice ... Those who got confused in their everyday circumstances or in philosophical searches went to them, those who thirsted for the highest truth aspired there, in this “source of living water” everyone quenched their thirst. Outstanding thinkers of the era, philosophers, writers were there more than once or twice: Gogol, Alexei and Leo Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Vladimir Solovyov, Leontiev ... - you can’t count them all. Indeed, for a Russian person, an elder is a person sent by God Himself. According to F. M. Dostoevsky, “for the soul of a Russian person, tormented by labor and grief, and most importantly, by the everlasting injustice and everlasting sin, both one’s own and the world’s, there is no stronger need and consolation than to find a shrine or a saint, fall before him and bow to him. If we have sin, untruth and temptation, then it doesn’t matter if there is a saint and a higher one on earth somewhere, but he has the truth. This means that she does not die on earth, and therefore, someday she will come to us and reign over all the earth, as promised.

It was Ambrose, by Divine Providence, who was supposed to become one of the links in the line of 14 Optina elders: after the death of Elder Macarius, he took his place and for 30 years nourished the suffering souls.

Elder Ambrose appeared in Optina Hermitage and attracted the attention of exclusively intelligent circles at a time when this intelligentsia was embraced by Western philosophical thought. Previously, he himself was the soul of society, who loved everything secular (he sang and danced well), for whom “the monastery was synonymous with the grave,” he understood the spiritual quest of the intelligentsia better than anyone else and testified with his very life that the path he had chosen was the ideal of that happiness to which everyone should aspire.

No wonder it is said: "The power of God is made perfect in weakness." Despite his bodily suffering, which almost always chained him to bed, Elder Ambrose, who by that time already possessed a number of spiritual gifts - insight, healing, the gift of spiritual edification, and so on - daily received crowds of people and answered dozens of letters. Such a gigantic work could not be carried out by any human forces, the life-giving Divine grace was clearly present here.

Among the spiritual grace-filled gifts of Elder Ambrose, which attracted many thousands of people to him, one should first of all mention clairvoyance: he penetrated deeply into the soul of his interlocutor and read in it like in an open book, without needing his confessions. And charity was simply his need: Elder Ambrose generously distributed alms and personally took care of widows, orphans, the sick and suffering.

In the last years of the elder's life, 12 versts from Optina Hermitage, in the village of Shamordino, with his blessing, the women's Kazan Hermitage was arranged. The structure of the monastery, its rules - everything was established by the elder Ambrose himself, he personally tonsured many sisters of the monastery into monasticism. By the 90s of the XIX century, the number of nuns in it reached a thousand. There was also an orphanage, a school, an almshouse and a hospital.

It was in Shamordino that Elder Ambrose was destined to meet the hour of his death - in October 1891, at the age of 79.

Teachings and aphorisms of Elder Ambrose:

• We must live as the wheel turns - with just one point touching the ground, and the rest to strive upwards.
• Why is a person bad? Because he forgets that God is above him!
• If you do good, then you should do it only for God, why should no attention be paid to the ingratitude of people.
• The truth is rude, but God loves it.
• From affection, people have completely different eyes.
• To live is not to grieve, not to condemn anyone, not to annoy anyone, and to everyone - my respect.
• Who reproaches us, he gives us. And whoever praises, he steals from us.
• We must live without hypocrisy, and behave exemplarily, then our cause will be right, otherwise it will turn out badly.
• Hypocrisy is worse than unbelief.
• You don’t humble yourself, that’s why you don’t have peace.
• Our pride is the root of all evil.

Saints

In the world Grenkov Alexander Mikhailovich, was born on November 23, in the village of Bolshaya Lipovitsa, Tambov province, in the family of a sexton.

After his recovery, he did not forget his vow, but for several years he put off his fulfillment, “shrinking,” as he put it. However, his conscience did not give him rest. And the more time passed, the more painful the pangs of conscience became. Periods of carefree fun and carelessness gave way to periods of acute melancholy and sadness, intense prayer and tears. Once, when he was already in Lipetsk, walking in a nearby forest, he, standing on the bank of a stream, clearly heard the words in its murmur: "Praise God, love God ..."

Exhausted from his indecision, he went for advice to the well-known ascetic Hilarion, who lived in that area. "Go to Optina," the elder told him, "and you will be experienced."

He became Elder Leo's cell-attendant. Then he performed various monastic obediences in the monastery itself and in the skete, in the summer of the year he was tonsured into a cassock and was named Ambrose, in memory of St. Mediolan, in the city - into a mantle. In the city he was ordained a hierodeacon.

He possessed an unusually lively, sharp, observant and penetrating mind, enlightened and deepened by constant concentrated prayer, attention to himself and knowledge of ascetic literature. By the grace of God, his insight turned into clairvoyance. He penetrated deeply into the soul of his interlocutor and read in it, as in an open book, without needing his confessions. With all the qualities of his richly gifted soul, Fr. Ambrose, despite his constant illness and frailty, combined inexhaustible cheerfulness, and knew how to give his instructions in such a simple and playful form that they were easily and forever remembered by every listener. When it was necessary, he knew how to be exacting, strict and demanding, using "instruction" with a stick or imposing penance on the punished. The elder did not make any distinction between people. Everyone had access to him and could talk to him: a St. Petersburg senator and an old peasant woman, a university professor and a metropolitan fashionista.

With what kind of requests, complaints, with what kind of sorrows and needs people did not come to the elder! A young priest comes to him, a year ago appointed, of his own free will, to the very last parish in the diocese. He could not stand the poverty of his parish existence and came to the elder to ask for blessings for a change of place. Seeing him from a distance, the elder shouted: “Go back, father! He is one and you are two!” The priest, perplexed, asked the elder what his words meant. The elder answered: “Why, the devil who tempts you is alone, and your helper is God! Go back and don't be afraid of anything; it's a sin to leave the parish! Serve the liturgy every day and everything will be fine!” The overjoyed priest perked up and, returning to his parish, patiently carried on his pastoral work there, and after many years became famous as the second Elder Ambrose.

In the elder, to a very strong degree, there was one Russian trait: he loved to arrange something, to create something. He often taught others to undertake some business, and when private people themselves came to him for a blessing on such a thing, he began to discuss with fervor and gave not only a blessing, but also good advice. It remains completely incomprehensible from where Father Ambrose took the most profound information on all branches of human labor that was in it.

The outer life of the elder in the Optina Skete proceeded as follows. His day began at four or five in the morning. At this time, he called his cell-attendants to him, and the morning rule was read. It lasted more than two hours, after which the cell-attendants left, and the elder, left alone, indulged in prayer and prepared for his great daily service. At nine o'clock the reception began: first the monastics, then the laity. The reception lasted until lunch. At two o'clock they brought him meager food, after which he was left alone for an hour and a half. Then Vespers was read, and reception resumed until nightfall. At 11 o'clock, a long evening rule was performed, and not earlier than midnight, the elder was finally left alone. Father Ambrose did not like to pray in plain sight. The cell-attendant who read the rule had to stand in another room. One day, one monk broke the ban and entered the cell of the elder: he saw him sitting on the bed with his eyes fixed on the sky, and his face radiant with joy.

So for more than thirty years, day after day, Elder Ambrose accomplished his feat.

In the last ten years of his life, he took on yet another concern: 12 versts from Optina, in Shamordino, through the efforts of the Reverend, the women's Kazan Mountain Monastery was arranged, which flourished so quickly that by the 90s. 19th century the number of monastics in it reached 500 people. There was also an orphanage and a school for girls, an almshouse for old women and a hospital.

The telegram about the death of the elder found Bishop. Vitaly halfway to Shamordin, overnight in the Przemysl Monastery. The bishop's face changed and he said in embarrassment: "What does this mean?" The bishop was advised to return to Kaluga the next day, but he replied: “No, probably this is the will of God! Ordinary hieromonks are not buried by bishops, but this is a special hieromonk - I want to perform the funeral of an elder myself.”

It was decided to move about. Ambrose to Optina Pustyn, where he spent his life and where his spiritual leaders, the elders Leo and Macarius, rested. The words of the Apostle Paul are engraved on the marble tombstone: All would be to all, that I might save every one” (1 Corinthians 9:22). These words accurately express the meaning of the elder's feat in life.

A chapel was erected over his grave, which was destroyed and wiped off the face of the earth under Soviet rule. But all the pilgrims who came to Optina prayed and served memorial services for the deceased Optina elders in the place where, according to assumptions, the chapel used to be; they laid out on this holy place a cross made of whitewashed brick. Subsequently, it turned out that the believers were almost not mistaken when they venerated the grave of Elder Ambrose. Honest relics rested one and a half meters closer to the altar of the Nikolsky chapel of the Vvedensky Cathedral

Sheared in schema:
1846-1848

The holy relics of St. Ambrose are in the Vvedensky Cathedral

Brief life

In the Vvedensky Church of Optina Hermitage there is a shrine with the relics of St. Ambrose, the elder of Optina, a man who had a huge impact on the spiritual life of all of Russia in the 19th century. We resort to his prayerful help and intercession even today. Miracles happen at the relics of the elder, people are healed of many, sometimes incurable, diseases.

The Monk Ambrose was not a bishop, an archimandrite, he was not even an abbot, he was a simple hieromonk. Being mortally ill, he accepted the schema and became a hieroschemamonk. In this rank he died. For lovers of the career ladder, this may be incomprehensible: how is it that such a great elder is just a hieromonk?

Metropolitan Filaret of Moscow spoke very well about the humility of the saints. He was once at a service at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, where at that time there were many bishops and archimandrites, whom it is customary to address: "Your Eminence, Your Reverence." And then, in front of the relics of our father Sergius of Radonezh, Metropolitan Filaret said: “I hear everything around me: Your Eminence, Your Reverence, you alone, father, are simply reverend.”

This is how Ambrose, the elder of Optina, was. He could talk to everyone in his language: help an illiterate peasant woman who complained that turkeys were dying, and the lady would drive her out of the yard. Answer the questions of F. M. Dostoevsky and L. N. Tolstoy and other, the most educated people of that time. “All things to all, that I may save every one” (1 Corinthians 9:22). His words were simple, well-aimed, sometimes with good humor:

“We must live on earth as the wheel turns, touches the earth with a little one point, and tends upward with the rest; and we, as soon as we lay down, we can’t get up. ” “Where it is simple, there are a hundred angels, and where it is tricky, there is not a single one.” “Don’t boast, peas, that you are better than beans, if you get wet, you will burst yourself.” “Why is a person bad? “Because he forgets that God is above him.” "Who thinks about himself that he has something, he will lose." “Life is the simplest, the best. Don't break your head. Pray to God. The Lord will arrange everything, just live easier. Don't torture yourself thinking about how and what to do. Let it be - as it happens - this is to live easier. “You need to live, not to grieve, not to offend anyone, not to annoy anyone, and all my respect.” “To live - not to grieve - to be content with everyone. There is nothing to understand here." “If you want to have love, then do deeds of love, even if at first without love.”

And when someone said to him: “You, father, speak very simply,” the elder smiled: “Yes, I have been asking God for this simplicity for twenty years.”

The Monk Ambrose was the third Optina Elder, a disciple of the Monks Leo and Macarius, and the most famous and glorified of all the Optina Elders. It was he who became the prototype of the elder Zosima from the novel "The Brothers Karamazov" and the spiritual mentor of all Orthodox Russia. What was his life path like?

When people talk about destinies, they usually mean the visible course of human life. But we must not forget about the spiritual drama, which is always more important, richer and deeper than the external life of a person. Saint Basil the Great defined man in these words: "Man is an invisible being." This applies to the highest degree to spiritual people of such a level as St. Ambrose. We can see the outline of their outer life and only guess about the secret inner life, the basis of which was the deed of prayer, the invisible standing before the Lord.

Of the biographical events that are known, some important milestones in his difficult life can be noted. A boy was born in the village of Bolshaya Lipovitsa, Tambov province, in the pious Grenkov family, closely associated with the Church: his grandfather is a priest, his father, Mikhail Fedorovich, is a sexton. Before the birth of the child, so many guests came to the grandfather - the priest, that the mother, Marfa Nikolaevna, was transferred to the bathhouse, where she gave birth to a son, named in holy baptism in honor of the right-believing Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky. Later, Alexander Grenkov, having already become an old man, joked: “As I was born in people, so I live in people.”

Alexander was the sixth of eight children in the family. He grew up alive, smart, lively, in a strict family he sometimes even got it for childish pranks. At the age of 12, the boy entered the Tambov Theological School, which he brilliantly graduated as the first of 148 people. From 1830 to 1836, the young man studied at the Tambov Seminary. Possessing a lively and cheerful character, kindness and wit, Alexander was very loved by his comrades. Before him, full of strength, talented, energetic, lay a brilliant life path, full of earthly joys and material well-being.

But the ways of the Lord are inscrutable... St. Philaret wrote: “The omniscient God chooses, predestinates from the cradle, and calls at the time determined by Him, in an incomprehensible way combining the conjugation of all kinds of circumstances with the will of the heart. The Lord in due time girds and leads His chosen ones in whatever way they wish, but wherever they wish to go.”

In 1835, shortly before graduating from the seminary, the young man fell dangerously ill. This disease was one of the first numerous diseases that tormented the elder all his life. Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov wrote: “I have spent my whole life in sickness and sorrow, as you know: but now do not be sorrowful—there is nothing to be saved with. There are no feats, no true monasticism, no leaders; sorrow alone replaces everything. The feat is associated with vanity; vanity is difficult to notice in oneself, all the more to be cleansed of it; sorrow is alien to vanity and therefore provides a person with a charitable, involuntary feat, which is sent by our Providence according to the will ... ”This first dangerous illness led the young seminarian to take a vow to become a monk if he recovers.

But he could not decide to fulfill this vow for four years, in his words, "he did not dare to immediately end the world." For some time he was a home teacher in a landowner's family, and then a teacher at the Lipetsk Theological School. The trip to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, prayers at the relics of St. Sergius of Radonezh became decisive. The well-known recluse Hilarion, whom the young man met on this journey, paternally instructed him: "Go to Optina, you are needed there."

After tears and prayers in the Lavra, worldly life, entertaining evenings at a party seemed to Alexander so unnecessary, superfluous, that he decided to urgently and secretly leave for Optina. Perhaps he did not want the persuasion of friends and family, who prophesied for him a brilliant future in the world, to shake his determination to fulfill his vow to devote his life to God.

In Optina, Alexander became a student of the great elders Leo and Macarius. In 1840 he was dressed in a monastic dress, in 1842 he took monastic vows with the name Ambrose. 1843 - hierodeacon, 1845 - hieromonk. Behind these brief lines are five years of work, ascetic life, hard physical work.

When the famous spiritual writer E. Poselyanin lost his beloved wife, and his friends advised him to leave the world and go to a monastery, he answered: “I would be glad to leave the world, but in the monastery they will send me to work in the stable.” It is not known what kind of obedience they would have given him, but he truly felt that the monastery would try to humble his spirit in order to turn him from a spiritual writer into a spiritual worker.

Alexander was ready for monastic trials. The young monk had to work in a bakery, bake bread, boil hops (yeast), and help the cook. With his brilliant abilities, knowledge of five languages, it was probably not easy for him to become just a cook's assistant. These obediences brought up in him humility, patience, the ability to cut off his will.

Having perspicaciously guessed in the youth the gifts of the future elder, Saints Leo and Macarius took care of his spiritual growth. For some time he was Elder Leo's cell-attendant, his reader, regularly came to Elder Macarius for services and could ask him questions about spiritual life. The Monk Leo especially loved the young novice, affectionately calling him Sasha. But out of educational motives, he experienced his humility in front of people. He pretended to thunder against him with anger. But he said to others about him: "The man will be great." After the death of Elder Leo, the young man became the cell-attendant of Elder Macarius.

During a trip to Kaluga for ordination as a hieromonk, Father Ambrose, exhausted by fasting, caught a severe cold and fell seriously ill. Since then, he could never recover, and his health was so bad that in 1846 he was taken out of state due to illness. For the rest of his life, he could hardly move, suffered from perspiration, so he changed clothes several times a day, could not stand the cold and drafts, ate only liquid food, in an amount that was barely enough for a three-year-old child.

Several times he was close to death, but each time miraculously, with the help of the grace of God, he returned to life. From September 1846 to the summer of 1848, Father Ambrose's state of health was so threatening that he was tonsured a schema in his cell, retaining his former name. However, quite unexpectedly for many, the patient began to recover. In 1869, his health was again so bad that they began to lose hope for an amendment. The Kaluga miraculous icon of the Mother of God was brought. After a prayer service and cell vigil, and then unction, the elder's health succumbed to treatment.

The Holy Fathers list about seven spiritual causes of illness. About one of the causes of illness, they say: “Having become righteous, the saints endured temptations, either because of some shortcomings, or in order to receive great glory, because they had great patience. And God, not wanting the excess of their patience to remain unused, allowed them temptations and illnesses.

The monks Leo and Macarius, who introduced the traditions of eldership, mental prayer in the monastery, had to face misunderstanding, slander, and persecution. St. Ambrose did not have such external sorrows, but, perhaps, none of the Optina Elders bore such a heavy cross of illness. The words came true on it: "The power of God is made perfect in weakness"

Particularly important for the spiritual growth of the Monk Ambrose during these years was communication with Elder Macarius. Despite his illness, Fr. Ambrose remained as before in complete obedience to the elder, giving him an account of even the smallest thing. With the blessing of Elder Macarius, he was engaged in the translation of patristic books, in particular, he prepared for printing the "Ladder" of St. John, hegumen of Sinai. Thanks to the elder's guidance, Fr. Ambrose was able to learn the art of arts—noetic prayer—without much stumbling.

Even during the life of Elder Macarius, with his blessing, some of the brethren came to Father Ambrose to reveal their thoughts. In addition to the monks, Father Macarius brought Father Ambrose closer to his worldly spiritual children. So the elder gradually prepared himself a worthy successor. When Elder Macarius reposed in 1860, circumstances gradually developed in such a way that Father Ambrose was put in his place.

The elder received crowds of people in his cell, did not refuse anyone, people flocked to him from all over the country. He got up at four or five in the morning, called his cell attendants, and the morning rule was read. Then the elder prayed alone. At nine o'clock the reception began: first the monastics, then the laity. At two o'clock they brought him meager food, after which he was left alone for an hour and a half. Then Vespers was read, and reception resumed until nightfall. At 11 o'clock, a long evening rule was performed, and not earlier than midnight, the elder was finally left alone. So for more than thirty years, day after day, Elder Ambrose accomplished his feat. Before Father Ambrose, none of the elders opened the door of their cell to a woman. He not only received many women and was their spiritual father, but also founded a nunnery near Optina Hermitage - the Kazan Shamorda Hermitage, which, unlike other nunneries of that time, received more poor and sick women. By the 90s of the 19th century, the number of nuns in it reached 500 people.

The elder possessed the gifts of mental prayer, clairvoyance, miracle-working, many cases of healing are known. Numerous testimonies speak of his grace gifts. One woman from Voronezh, seven miles from the monastery, got lost. At this time, some old man in a cassock and a skullcap approached her, he pointed out to her with a stick the direction of the way. She went in the direction indicated, immediately saw the monastery and came to the elder's house. Everyone who listened to her story thought that this old man was a monastery forester or one of the laymen; when suddenly a cell-attendant came out onto the porch and loudly asked: “Where is Avdotya from Voronezh?” - “My doves! Why, I myself am Avdotya from Voronezh! the narrator exclaimed. Fifteen minutes later, she left the house all in tears and, sobbing, answered questions that the old man who showed her the way in the forest was none other than Father Ambrose himself.

Here is one of the cases of the old man's foresight, told by the artisans: “I should have gone to Optina for money. We made an iconostasis there, and I had to receive a rather large amount of money from the rector for this work. Before leaving, I went to Elder Ambrose to take a blessing on the way back. I was in a hurry to go home: I was waiting the next day to receive a large order - ten thousand, and the customers were bound to be with me the next day in K. The old man, as usual, was doomed to the people that day. He found out about me that I was waiting, and he ordered me to tell through my cell-attendant that I should come to him in the evening to drink tea.

Evening comes, I went to the old man. Father, our angel, kept me for quite a long time, it was almost dusk, and he said to me: “Well, go with God. Spend the night here, and tomorrow I bless you to go to mass, and after mass come to me to drink tea. How is it so? I think. Don't dare to argue. The elder detained me for three days. I didn’t have time to pray at the All-Night Vigil - it just pushes me in the head: “Here is your elder! Here's a seer for you...! Now your earnings are whistling." On the fourth day I come to the elder, and he tells me: “Well, now it’s time for you and the court! Walk with God! God bless! Don’t forget to thank God in time!”

And then all sorrow fell away from me. I left Optina Hermitage for myself, but my heart was so light and joyful... Why did the priest just say to me: “Then don’t forget to thank God!?” I came home, and what do you think? I am at the gate, and my customers are behind me; late, which means against the agreement to come for three days. Well, I think, oh, you are my blessed old man!

A lot has passed since that time. My senior master falls ill to death. I come to the patient, and he looks at me and how he cries: “Forgive my sin, master! I wanted to kill you. Remember, you arrived from Optina three days late. After all, there were three of us, according to my agreement, for three nights in a row they guarded you on the road under the bridge: they envied you for the money that you brought from Optina for the iconostasis. You wouldn’t be alive that night, but the Lord, for someone’s prayers, took you away from death without repentance ... Forgive me, damned one! "God will forgive you, as I forgive." Here my patient wheezed and began to end. Kingdom of heaven to his soul. Great was the sin, but great was the repentance!”

As for healings, they were innumerable. The elder covered up these healings in every possible way. Sometimes he, as if in jest, hits his head with his hand, and the disease passes. Once a reader who read prayers suffered from a severe toothache. Suddenly the old man hit him. Those present chuckled, thinking that the reader must have made a mistake in reading. In fact, his toothache stopped. Knowing the elder, some women turned to him: “Father Abrosim! Beat me, my head hurts." The sick after visiting the elder recovered, the life of the poor improved. Pavel Florensky called Optina Pustyn "a spiritual sanatorium for wounded souls."

The spiritual strength of the elder manifested itself sometimes in quite exceptional cases. Once Elder Ambrose, bent over, leaning on a stick, was walking from somewhere along the road to the skete. Suddenly a picture appeared to him: a loaded cart was standing, a dead horse was lying nearby, and a peasant was crying over it. The loss of a horse-nurse in peasant life is a real disaster! Approaching the fallen horse, the elder began to slowly walk around it. Then, taking a twig, he whipped the horse, shouting at it: “Get up, lazybones!” and the horse rose obediently to its feet.

Elder Ambrose appeared to many people at a distance, like St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, either for the purpose of healing or for deliverance from disasters. To some, very few, it was revealed in visible images how strong the prayerful intercession of the elder before God. Here are the recollections of one nun, the spiritual daughter of Fr. Ambrose, about his prayer: “The elder straightened himself to his full height, raised his head and raised his hands up, as if in a prayer position. It seemed to me at that time that his feet were separated from the floor. I looked at his illuminated head and face. I remember that there seemed to be no ceiling in the cell, it parted, and the elder’s head seemed to go up. This was clear to me. A minute later, the priest leaned over me, amazed at what he saw, and, crossing me, said the following words: “Remember, this is what repentance can lead to. Go."

Judgment and perspicacity were combined in Elder Ambrose with an amazing, purely maternal tenderness of heart, thanks to which he was able to alleviate the most difficult grief and console the most sorrowful soul. Love and wisdom - these are the qualities that attracted people to the elder. The word of the elder was with authority based on closeness to God, which gave him omniscience. It was a prophetic ministry.

Elder Ambrose was destined to meet the hour of his death in Shamordino. On June 2, 1890, as usual, he went there for the summer. At the end of the summer, the elder tried three times to return to Optina, but could not because of ill health. A year later, the disease worsened. He was unctioned and received communion several times. On October 10, 1891, the elder, after sighing three times and crossing himself with difficulty, died. The coffin with the body of the old man was transferred under the drizzling autumn rain to Optina Hermitage, and not one of the candles surrounding the coffin went out. About 8,000 people attended the funeral. On October 15, the body of the elder was interred on the southeastern side of the Vvedensky Cathedral, next to his teacher, Elder Macarius. It was on this day, October 15, in 1890, that Elder Ambrose established a feast in honor of the miraculous icon of the Mother of God “The Conqueror of Bread”, before which he himself offered up his fervent prayers many times.

Years passed. But the path to the elder's grave did not overgrow. Times of grave upheavals have come. Optina Pustyn was closed and ruined. The chapel on the grave of the elder was wiped off the face of the earth. But the memory of the great saint of God was impossible to destroy. People randomly marked the place of the chapel and continued to flow to their mentor.

In November 1987 Optina Pustyn was returned to the Church. And in June 1988, by the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Monk Ambrose, the first of the Optina Elders, was canonized as a saint. On the anniversary of the revival of the monastery, by the grace of God, a miracle happened: at night, after the service in the Presentation Cathedral, the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, the relics and the icon of St. Ambrose streamed myrrh. Other miracles were performed from the relics of the elder, with which he certifies that he does not leave us sinners by his intercession before our Lord Jesus Christ. To Him be glory forever, Amen.

Hieroschemamonk Ambrose of Optina was born on November 23, 1812, in the village of Bolshaya Lipovitsa, Tambov Province, in the family of sexton Mikhail Fedorovich and his wife Marfa Nikolaevna. Before the birth of the baby, many guests came to his grandfather, the priest of this village. The parent, Maria Nikolaevna, was transferred to the bathhouse. November 23 at Fr. Theodora was in great turmoil - and there were people in the house, and people crowded in front of the house. On this day, November 23, Alexander was born - the future elder of the Optina Hermitage - the Monk Ambrose of Optina. The elder jokingly used to say: "Just as I was born in the public, so I live in the public."

Mikhail Fedorovich had eight children: four sons and four daughters; Alexander Mikhailovich was the sixth of them.

As a child, Alexander was a very lively, cheerful and intelligent boy. According to the custom of that time, he learned to read according to the Slavic primer, the book of hours and the psalter. Every holiday, together with his father, he sang and read on the kliros. He never saw or heard anything bad, because. was brought up in a strictly ecclesiastical and religious environment.

When the boy was 12 years old, he was sent to the first class of the Tambov Theological School. He studied well and after graduating from college, in 1830, he entered the Tambov Theological Seminary. And here study was given to him easily. As his friend from the seminary later recalled: “Here, it used to be, you would buy a candle with the last money, repeat, repeat the assigned lessons; he (Sasha Grenkov) did little, but he would come to class, begin to answer the mentor, - exactly as written, better everyone." In July 1836, Alexander Grenkov successfully graduated from the seminary, but did not go to either the Theological Academy or the priesthood. He seemed to feel in his soul a special vocation and was in no hurry to fit himself into a certain position, as if waiting for the call of God. For some time he was a home teacher in a landowner's family, and then a teacher at the Lipetsk Theological School. Possessing a lively and cheerful character, kindness and wit, Alexander Mikhailovich was very loved by his comrades and colleagues. In the last class of the seminary, he had to endure a dangerous illness, and he vowed to be tonsured as a monk if he recovered. After his recovery, he did not forget his vow, but for several years he put off its fulfillment, "shrinking," as he put it. However, his conscience did not give him rest. And the more time passed, the more painful the pangs of conscience became. Periods of carefree youthful fun and carelessness gave way to periods of acute anguish and sadness, intense prayer and tears.

Once, while already in Lipetsk and walking in a nearby forest, he, standing on the bank of a stream, clearly heard in its murmur the words: "Praise God, love God ..." At home, secluded from prying eyes, he fervently prayed to the Mother of God to enlighten him mind and direct its will. In general, he did not have a persistent will and already in his old age he told his spiritual children: "You must obey me from the first word. I am a yielding person. If you argue with me, I can yield, but it will not be to your advantage." In the same Tambov diocese, in the village of Troyekurovo, lived the well-known ascetic Hilarion at that time. Alexander Mikhailovich came to him for advice, and the elder told him: "Go to Optina Pustyn - and you will be experienced. You could go to Sarov, but now there are no more experienced elders there, as before." (Elder Venerable Seraphim died shortly before this). When the summer holidays of 1839 came, Alexander Mikhailovich, together with his fellow seminary and colleague at the Lipetsk school, Pokrovsky, having equipped a wagon, went on a pilgrimage to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra to bow to the hegumen of the Russian land, Ven. Sergius.

Returning to Lipetsk, Alexander Mikhailovich still continued to doubt and could not immediately decide to break with the world. This happened, however, after one evening at a party, when he made everyone present laugh. Everyone was happy and happy and in a good mood went home. As for Alexander Mikhailovich, if earlier in such cases he felt repentance, now his vow given to God was vividly presented to his imagination, he remembered the burning of the spirit in the Trinity Lavra and the former long prayers, sighs and tears, the definition of God, transmitted through Fr. . Hilarion.

In the morning, this time, determination was firmly ripe. He was afraid that the persuasion of his relatives and friends would shake his resolve, Alexander Mikhailovich secretly left for Optina from everyone, without even asking the permission of the diocesan authorities.

Here, during his lifetime, Alexander Mikhailovich found the very flower of her monasticism: her pillars such as hegumen Moses, the elders Leo (Leonid) and Macarius. Hieroschemamonk Anthony, brother of Fr. Moses, ascetic and seer.

In general, all monasticism under the guidance of the elders bore the imprint of spiritual virtues. Simplicity (cunning), meekness and humility were the hallmarks of Optina monasticism. The younger brethren tried to humble themselves not only before their elders, but also before their equals, being afraid even with a glance to offend the other, and at the slightest misunderstanding they hurried to ask each other for forgiveness.

So, Alexander Grenkov arrived at the monastery on October 8, 1839. Leaving the cab at the Gostiny Dvor, he immediately hurried to the church, and after the liturgy, to Elder Leo to ask for blessings to stay in the monastery. The elder blessed him to live for the first time in a hotel and rewrite the book "Sinful Salvation" (translated from modern Greek) - about the fight against passions.

In January 1840, he went to live in a monastery, not yet dressed in a cassock. At that time, clerical correspondence was going on with the diocesan authorities regarding his disappearance, and a decree had not yet been issued from the Kaluga bishop to the rector of Optinsky on the admission of teacher Grenkov to the monastery.

In April 1840, A. M. Grenkov finally received a blessing to wear a monastic robe. For some time he was Elder Leo's cell-attendant and his reader (rule and services). At first he worked in the monastery bakery, cooked hops (yeast), baked rolls. Then in November 1840 he was transferred to the skete. From there, the young novice did not stop going to the elder Leo for edification. In the skete, he was the cook's assistant for a whole year. He often had to come to Elder Macarius for service, either to receive a blessing regarding the meal, or to strike the bell for the meal, or on other occasions. At the same time, he had the opportunity to tell the elder about his state of mind and get answers. The goal was such that temptation would not overcome man, but that man would overcome temptation.

Elder Leo was especially fond of the young novice, affectionately calling him Sasha. But out of educational motives, he experienced his humility in front of people. He pretended to thunder against him with anger. To this end gave him the nickname "Chimera." By this word he meant an empty flower, which is found on cucumbers. But he said to others about him: "The man will be great." Expecting an imminent death, Elder Leo called on Father Fr. Macarius and said to him about the novice Alexander: “Here is a man painfully huddling with us, the elders. I am already very weak now.

After the death of Elder Leo, Brother Alexander became Elder Macarius's cell-attendant (1841-46). In 1842 he was tonsured into the mantle and named Ambrose (in honor of St. Ambrose of Milan, Comm. 7 December). This was followed by hierodeaconhood (1843), and after 2 years - ordination to hieromonk.

Health about. Ambrose during these years was greatly shaken. During a trip to the priestly consecration in Kaluga on December 7, 1846, he caught a cold and was ill for a long time, having received a complication in the internal organs. Since then, he has never been able to truly recover. However, he did not lose heart and admitted that bodily weakness had a beneficial effect on his soul. “It’s good for a monk to be sick,” Elder Ambrose liked to repeat, “and in an illness you don’t need to be treated, but only to heal.” And he said to others as a consolation: "God does not require bodily exploits from the patient, but only patience with humility and thanksgiving."

From September 1846 to the summer of 1848, Father Ambrose's state of health was so threatening that he was tonsured a schema in his cell, retaining his former name. However, quite unexpectedly for many, the patient began to recover and even go outside for walks. This turning point in the course of the disease was a clear action of the power of God, and Elder Ambrose himself later said: “The Lord is merciful! In the monastery, those who are sick do not die soon, but stretch and stretch until the illness brings them real benefit. In the monastery it is useful to be a little sick so that the flesh would be less rebellious, especially in the young, and trifles would come to mind less.

Not only through bodily infirmities did the Lord bring up the spirit of the future great elder during these years, but also the communion with the elder brethren, among whom there were many true ascetics, had a beneficial effect on Father Ambrose. Let us cite as an example one case, which the elder himself later spoke about.

Shortly after Fr. Ambrose was ordained a deacon and was supposed to serve the liturgy in the Presentation Church; before the service, he approaches Abbot Anthony, who was standing in the altar, to receive a blessing from him, and Fr. Antony asks him: "Well, are you getting used to it?" Father Ambrose cheekily answers him: "With your prayers, father!" Then about. Anthony continues: "To the fear of God?..." Father Ambrose realized the inappropriateness of his tone at the altar and became embarrassed. “So,” Fr. Ambrose concluded his story, “the old elders were able to accustom us to reverence.”

Especially important for his spiritual growth during these years was communication with Elder Macarius. Despite the illness, Fr. Ambrose, as before, remained in complete obedience to the elder, even in the smallest thing he gave an account to him. With the blessing of Macarius, he was engaged in the translation of patristic books, in particular, he prepared for printing the "Ladder" of St. John, Abbot of Sinai.

Thanks to the leadership of Elder Macarius, Fr. Ambrose was able to learn the art of the arts - mental prayer without much stumbling. This monastic work is fraught with many dangers, since the devil tries to bring a person into a state of delusion and with significant sorrows, since an inexperienced ascetic, under plausible pretexts, tries to fulfill his will. A monk who does not have a spiritual guide can severely damage his soul along this path, as happened in his time with Elder Macarius himself, who independently studied this art. Father Ambrose was able to avoid troubles and sorrows during mental prayer precisely because he had the most experienced mentor in the person of Elder Macarius. The latter loved his student very much, which, however, did not prevent him from exposing Fr. Ambrose some humiliations to break his vanity. Elder Macarius brought up in him a strict ascetic, adorned with poverty, humility, patience, and other monastic virtues. When for about. Ambrose will intercede: "Father, he is a sick man!" “But I really don’t know you better,” the old man will say. "But after all, reprimands and remarks to a monk are brushes that erase sinful dust from his soul; and without this, a monk rusts."

Even during the life of Elder Macarius, with his blessing, some of the brethren came to Fr. Ambrose to open thoughts.

Here is how Abbot Mark (who ended his life in retirement in Optina) tells about this. “As far as I could notice,” he says, “Fr. Ambrose lived at that time in complete silence. I went to him daily for the revelation of thoughts and almost always found him reading patristic books. If I didn’t find him in his cell, then this meant that he was with Elder Macarius, whom he helped in correspondence with spiritual children, or worked on translating patristic books. Sometimes I found him on the bed and with restrained and barely noticeable tears. It seemed to me that the elder always walked before God or as I would always feel the presence of God, according to the words of the psalmist: "... I foresaw the Lord before me" (Ps. 15: 8), and therefore everything that he did, he tried to do for the sake of the Lord and to please Him. Therefore, he always complained, fearing that I might offend the Lord in some way, which was also reflected on his face. Seeing such concentration of my elder, I was always in trembling reverence in his presence. Yes, it was impossible for me to be otherwise. When, as usual, I knelt down before him, to semi To receive a blessing, he very quietly asked me: “What do you say, brother, is it pretty?” Puzzled by his concentration and tenderness, I answered: “Forgive me, for the Lord’s sake, father. Maybe I didn’t come at the right time?” “No,” the elder will say, “say what you need, but briefly.” And, having listened to me with attention, he will reverently give useful instructions and let me go with love.

He taught instructions not from his own philosophizing and reasoning, although he was rich in spiritual intelligence. If he taught spiritual children related to him, then, as if in the midst of a student, he offered not his own advice, but certainly the active teaching of the Holy Fathers. "If Fr. Mark complained to Fr. Ambrose about someone who offended him, the elder would , will say in a deplorable tone: "Brother, brother! I am a dying man." Or: "Today or tomorrow I will die. What will I do with this brother? After all, I'm not a pastor. You need to reproach yourself, humble yourself before your brother, and you will calm down." Such an answer evoked self-reproach in Father Mark's soul, and he, humbly bowing to the elder and asking for forgiveness, left reassured and comforted, "as if flying on wings."

In addition to the monks, Fr. Macarius brought together Fr. Ambrose and with his worldly spiritual children. Seeing him talking to them, Elder Macarius jokingly says: “Look, look! Ambrose is taking my bread!” So Elder Macarius gradually prepared himself a worthy successor. When Elder Macarius reposed (September 7, 1860), circumstances gradually developed in such a way that Fr. Ambrose was put in his place. 40 days after the death of Elder Macarius, Fr. Ambrose moved to live in another building, near the skete fence, on the right side of the bell tower. On the western side of this building, an extension was made, called a "hut" for receiving women (they were not allowed into the skete). Father Ambrose lived here for thirty years (before leaving for Shamordino), serving his neighbors on his own.

With him were two cell-attendants: Fr. Michael and Fr. Joseph (future elder). The chief clerk was Fr. Clement (Zederholm), the son of a Protestant pastor, converted to Orthodoxy, a most learned man, a master of Greek literature.

To listen to the rule, at first he got up at 4 in the morning, rang the bell, to which his cell-attendants came to him and read morning prayers, 12 selected psalms and the first hour, after which he was alone in mental prayer. Then, after a short rest, the elder listened to the clock: the third, the sixth with the pictorial and, depending on the day, the canon with the akathist to the Savior or the Mother of God. He listened to these akathists while standing. After prayer and a light breakfast, the working day began with a short break at lunchtime. The food was eaten by the old man in the amount that is given to a three-year-old child. During the meal, the cell-attendants continue to ask him questions on behalf of the visitors. After some rest, hard work resumed - and so on until late in the evening. Despite the extreme exhaustion and sickness of the elder, the day always ended with the evening prayer rule, consisting of small compline, the canon to the Guardian Angel and evening prayers. From the incessant reports, the cell-attendants, now and then leading to the elder and taking out visitors, could hardly keep on their feet. The elder himself at times lay almost unconscious. After the rule, the elder asked for forgiveness, "if I have sinned in deed, in word, in thought." The attendants accepted the blessing and headed for the exit. The clock will ring. “How much is it?” the elder will ask in a weak voice, “they will answer: “Twelve.” “Belated,” he will say.

Two years later, the old man suffered a new illness. His health, already weak, was completely weakened. Since then, he could no longer go to the temple of God and had to take communion in his cell. In 1869, his state of health was so bad that they began to lose hope for an amendment. The Kaluga miraculous icon of the Mother of God was brought. After a prayer service and cell vigil, and then unction, the elder's health succumbed to treatment, but extreme weakness did not leave him throughout his life.

Such severe deteriorations were repeated more than once. It is hard to imagine how he could, being nailed to such a suffering illness, in complete exhaustion, receive crowds of people every day and answer dozens of letters. The words came true on it: "The power of God is made perfect in weakness." If he were not the chosen vessel of God, through which God Himself spoke and acted, such a feat, such a gigantic work could not be accomplished by any human forces. Life-giving Divine grace was clearly present and assisting here.

The grace of God, resting in abundance on the elder, was the source of those spiritual gifts with which he served his neighbor, comforting those who mourn, confirming the doubters in the faith, and instructing everyone on the path of salvation.

Among the spiritual grace-filled gifts of Elder Ambrose, which attracted thousands of people to him, one should first of all mention clairvoyance. He penetrated deeply into the soul of his interlocutor and read in it, as in an open book, without needing his explanations. With a light, imperceptible hint, he pointed out to people their weaknesses and made them seriously think about them. One lady, who often visited Elder Ambrose, became very addicted to playing cards and was embarrassed to admit it to him. Once, at a general reception, she began to ask the elder for a card. The elder attentively, with his special, intent gaze, looking at her, said: “What are you, mother? Do we play cards in the monastery?” She understood the hint and repented to the elder of her weakness. With his perspicacity, the elder greatly surprised many and disposed them to immediately completely surrender to his guidance, in the confidence that the priest knew better than they what they needed and what was useful to them and what was harmful.

One young girl who graduated from higher courses in Moscow, whose mother had long been the spiritual daughter of Fr. Ambrose, never seeing the elder, did not love him and called him "a hypocrite." Her mother persuaded her to visit Fr. Ambrose. Having come to the elder for a general reception, the girl stood behind everyone, at the very door. The old man entered and, opening the door, closed the young girl with it. After praying and looking around at everyone, he suddenly looked out the door and said: "And what kind of giant is this? Is this Vera come to watch the hypocrite?" After that, he talked with her alone, and the attitude of the young girl towards him completely changed: she fell in love with him passionately, and her fate was decided - she entered the Shamorda monastery. Those who with complete confidence surrendered themselves to the guidance of the elder never repented of this, although they sometimes heard such advice from him that at first seemed strange and completely unrealistic.

Usually a lot of people gathered at the Elder. And here is one young woman who was persuaded to visit Batiushka, is in an irritated state that she is being made to wait. Suddenly the door opens wide. An old man with a clear face appears on the threshold and says loudly: "Whoever is impatient here, come to me." Approaches a young woman and leads her to him. After a conversation with him, she becomes a frequent guest of Optina and a visitor to Father Fr. Ambrose.

A group of women gathered near the fence, and one elderly woman with a sickly face, sitting on a stump, told that she was walking from Voronezh with sore legs, hoping that the elder would heal her. Seven versts from the monastery, she got lost, exhausted, having fallen on snow-covered paths, and in tears she fell on a fallen log. At this time, some old man in a cassock and a skullcap approached her and asked about the reason for her tears, he indicated the direction of the path with a stick. She went in the direction indicated and, turning behind the bushes, immediately saw the monastery. Everyone decided that it was the monastery forester or one of the cell-attendants; when suddenly a servant she knew came out on the porch and loudly asked: "Where is Avdotya from Voronezh?" Everyone was silent, looking at each other. The servant repeated his question louder, adding that Father was calling her. - "My dears! Why, Avdotya from Voronezh, I myself am!" - exclaimed a storyteller who had just arrived with sore legs. Everyone parted, and the wanderer, hobbled to the porch, disappeared through the door. After about fifteen minutes, she left the house all in tears, and sobbing answered questions that the old man who showed her the way in the forest was none other than Father Ambrose himself or someone very much like him. But in the monastery there was no one like Fr. Ambrose, and he himself could not leave his cell in winter due to illness, and then he suddenly appeared in the forest as a signpost for the way for the wanderer, and after that, after half an hour, almost at the minute of her arrival, he already knows about her in detail!

Here is one of the cases of the foresight of the elder Ambrose, told by one of the elder’s visitors, a certain artisan: “Shortly before the elder’s death, about two years old, I had to go to Optina for money. We made the iconostasis there, and I had to pay for this work from the rector I received my money and before leaving I went to Elder Ambrose to take a blessing on the way back. The old man, as usual, had a death for the people that day. He found out about me that I was waiting, and he ordered me to tell through my cell-attendant that I go to him in the evening to drink tea. Although I had to hurry to the court, and the honor and joy of being with the elder and drinking tea with him were so great that I decided to postpone my trip until the evening in full confidence that I would drive at least all night and manage to get there in time.

Evening comes, I went to the old man. The old man received me so merry, so joyful, that I don’t even feel the ground under me. Father, our angel, kept me for quite a long time, it was almost dusk, and he said to me: "Well, go with God. Spend the night here, and tomorrow I bless you to go to mass, and after mass come to me to drink tea." How is that so? - I think. Don't dare to argue. I spent the night, I was at mass, I went to the old man to drink tea, and I myself mourn for my customers and think everything: Perhaps, they say, I will have time to get to K at least in the evening. No matter how it is! I drank tea. I want to say to the elder: “Bless me to go home,” but he didn’t even let me say a word: “Come,” he says, “to spend the night with me.” My legs even buckled, but I don’t dare to object. The day has passed, the night has passed! In the morning I was already bolder and I think: I haven’t been, and today I’ll leave; maybe a day my customers waited for me. Where are you! And the elder did not let me open my mouth. "Go, - he says, - to the vigil today, and tomorrow to mass. Spend the night again with me!" What a parable is this! Here I was already completely grieved and, to confess, I sinned against the old man: here is the seer! He knows for sure that, by his grace, a profitable business has now gone out of my hands. And I am so restless with the old man, which I cannot convey. I didn’t have time for prayer that time at the all-night vigil - it just pushes into my head: “Here is your elder! Here is your seer ...! Now your earnings are whistling.” Oh, how annoying I was at that time! And my elder, as if it were a sin, well, for sure, forgive me, Lord, as a mockery of me, he meets me so joyfully after the vigil! ... It was bitter, insulting to me: and what, I think, he rejoices ... But I still do not dare to express my grief aloud. I spent the night in this order and the third night. During the night, my grief gradually subsided: you can’t bring back what floated and slipped through your fingers ... The next morning I come to the old man, and he tells me: “Well, now it’s time for you and the court! Go with God! God bless! Yes, don’t forget in time Thank God!"

And then all sorrow fell away from me. I left Optina Hermitage for myself, and my heart was so light and joyful that it is impossible to convey ... Why did the priest only say to me: “Then do not forget to thank God!?” ... I must, I think, for that the Lord deigned to visit the temple for three days. I’m going home slowly and don’t think about my customers at all, it was very gratifying to me that the priest treated me like that. I came home, and what do you think? I am at the gate, and my customers are behind me; late, which means against the agreement to come for three days. Well, I think, oh, you are my blessed old man! Truly marvelous are Your works, O Lord! ... However, all this did not end yet. You listen to what happened next!

Not much has passed since that time. Our father Ambrose died. About two years after his righteous death, my senior master falls ill. He was my trusted man, and he was not an employee, but straight gold. He lived with me hopelessly for more than twenty years. Sick to death. We sent for a priest to confess and take communion, while in memory. Only, I see, a priest comes to me from a dying man and says: "The patient is calling you to his place, he wants to see you. Hurry, no matter how you die." I come to the patient, and as soon as he sees me, he rises somehow on his elbows, looks at me and starts crying: "Forgive my sin, master! I wanted to kill you..." you..." "No, master, I really wanted to kill you. Remember, you arrived three days late from Optina. After all, there were three of us, according to my agreement, for three nights in a row they guarded you on the road under the bridge; for money, what are you You were envious of the iconostasis from Optina. If you weren’t alive that night, the Lord, for someone’s prayers, took you away from death without repentance... Forgive me, the accursed one, let me go, for God’s sake, my darling in peace! "God forgive you, as I forgive." Here my patient wheezed and began to end. Kingdom of heaven to his soul. Great was the sin, but great was the repentance!

The clairvoyance of Elder Ambrose was combined with another most valuable gift, especially for a shepherd - prudence. His teachings and advice were visual and practical theology for people thoughtful about religion. The elder often gave instructions in a half-joking manner, which encouraged the discouraged, but the deep meaning of his speeches did not diminish in the slightest. People involuntarily thought about the figurative expressions of Fr. Ambrose and remembered the lesson given to them for a long time. Sometimes at general receptions the invariable question was heard: "How to live?" In such cases, the elder answered complacently: "We must live on earth as the wheel turns, touches the ground with just one point, and tends upward with the rest; but we, as soon as we lie down, we cannot get up."

Let us cite for example some other statements of the elder.

"Where it's simple, there are a hundred angels, and where it's tricky - there's not a single one." "Do not boast, peas, that you are better than beans, if you get wet, you will burst yourself."

"Why is a person bad? - Because he forgets that God is above him."

"Who thinks about himself that he has something, he will lose."

The prudence of the elder also extended to practical questions, far from the problems of spiritual life. Here is an example.

A wealthy Oryol landowner comes to the priest and, among other things, announces that he wants to arrange a water pipe in his vast apple orchards. Batiushka is already completely covered by this water supply system. “People say,” he begins with his usual words in such cases, “people say that this is the best way,” and he describes in detail the construction of the water supply system. The landowner, returning, begins to read literature on this topic and finds out that the priest described the latest inventions in this technique. The landowner is back in Optina. "Well, what's the plumbing?" - asks the father. Everywhere apples spoil, and the landowner - a rich harvest of apples.

Judgment and perspicacity were combined in Elder Ambrose with an amazing, purely maternal tenderness of heart, thanks to which he was able to alleviate the most difficult grief and console the most sorrowful soul.

One resident of Kozelsk, 3 years after the death of the elder, in 1894, told the following about herself: “I had a son, served on the telegraph office, carried telegrams. Batiushka knew him and me. for a blessing. But now my son fell ill with consumption and died. I came to him - we all went to him with our grief. He stroked my head and said: "Your telegram broke off!" and began to cry. And my soul felt so light from his caress, as if a stone had fallen off. We lived with him, as with our own father. Now there are no such elders. And maybe God will send more!"

Love and wisdom - it was these qualities that attracted people to the elder. From morning until evening, people came to him with the most pressing questions, into which he deeply delved into, with which he lived in the minute of conversation. He always grasped the essence of the matter at once, explained it incomprehensibly wisely, and gave an answer. But in the course of 10-15 minutes of such a conversation, more than one issue was decided, but at that time Fr. Ambrose contained in his heart the whole person - with all his affections, desires - his whole world, internal and external. From his words and his instructions, it was clear that he loved not only the one with whom he spoke, but also all those loved by this person, his life, everything that was dear to him. Offering his solution, Fr. Ambrose had in mind not just one thing in itself, regardless of the consequences that may arise from it both for this person and for others, but having in mind all aspects of life with which this matter was in any way in contact. What mental tension must be in order to solve such problems? And such questions were offered to him by dozens of lay people, not counting the monks and fifty letters that came and were sent out daily. The word of the elder was with authority based on closeness to God, which gave him omniscience. It was a prophetic ministry.

There were no trifles for the old man. He knew that everything in life has a price and consequences; and therefore there was no question to which he would not answer with participation and a desire for good. Once a woman stopped the old man, who was hired by the landowner to go after turkeys, but for some reason her turkeys were dead, and the hostess wanted to count her. “Father!” she turned to him with tears, “I don’t have any strength; I don’t eat up on them myself, I keep my eyes peeled, but they hurt me. Those present laughed at her. And the elder, with sympathy, asked how she fed them, and gave her advice on how to support them differently, blessed her and let her go. To those who laughed at her, he noticed that in these turkeys her whole life. After it became known that the woman's turkeys were no longer stabbed.

As for the healings, they were innumerable and it is impossible to list them in this short essay. The elder covered up these healings in every possible way. He sent the sick to Pustyn to St. Tikhon of Kaluga, where there was a source. Before Elder Ambrose, no one had heard of healings in this Desert. You might think that Rev. Tikhon began to heal through the elder's prayer. Sometimes about. Ambrose sent the sick to St. Mitrofan of Voronezh. It happened that they were healed on the way there and returned back to thank the elder. Sometimes he, as if in jest, hits his head with his hand, and the disease passes. Once a reader who read prayers suffered from a severe toothache. Suddenly the old man hit him. Those present chuckled, thinking that the reader must have made a mistake in reading. In fact, his toothache stopped. Knowing the elder, some women turned to him: "Father Abrosim! Beat me, my head hurts."

The spiritual strength of the elder manifested itself sometimes in quite exceptional cases.

Once Elder Ambrose, bent over, leaning on a stick, was walking from somewhere along the road to the skete. Suddenly a picture appeared to him: a loaded cart was standing, a dead horse was lying nearby, and a peasant was crying over it. The loss of a breadwinning horse in peasant life is a real disaster! Approaching the fallen horse, the elder began to slowly walk around it. Then, taking a twig, he whipped the horse, shouting at it: “Get up, lazybones,” and the horse obediently rose to its feet.

Elder Ambrose appeared to many people at a distance, like St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, either for the purpose of healing or for deliverance from disasters. To some, very few, it was revealed in visible images how strong the prayerful intercession of the elder before God. Let us cite the memoirs of one nun, the spiritual daughter of Fr. Ambrose.

“In his cell, lamps were burning and a small wax candle on the table. It was dark for me to read from the note and there was no time. I said that I remembered, and then in a hurry, and then added:“ Father, what else can I tell you? What to repent? “I forgot.” The elder reproached me for this. But suddenly he got up from the bed on which he was lying. Having taken two steps, he found himself in the middle of his cell. I involuntarily turned after him on my knees. lifted his hands up, as if in a prayer position. It seemed to me at that time that his feet were separated from the floor. I looked at his illuminated head and face. I remember that there seemed to be no ceiling in the cell, he parted, and the head of the elder seemed I clearly imagined this. A minute later, the priest leaned over me, amazed at what he had seen, and, crossing me, said the following words: “Remember, this is what repentance can lead to. Go." I left him, staggering, and wept all night about my foolishness and carelessness. In the morning they gave us horses, and we left. During the life of the elder, I could not tell anyone this. He once and for all forbade me to talk about such cases, saying with a threat: "Otherwise you will lose my help and grace."

From all over Russia, the poor and the rich, the intelligentsia and the common people flocked to the old man's hut. It was visited by famous public figures and writers: F. M. Dostoevsky, V. S. Solovyov, K. N. Leontiev, L. N. Tolstoy, M. N. Pogodin, N. M. Strakhov and others. And he received everyone with the same love and benevolence. Charity was always his need, he distributed alms through his cell-attendant, and he himself took care of widows, orphans, the sick and suffering. In the last years of the elder's life, 12 versts from Optina, in the village of Shamordino, with his blessing, the women's Kazan hermitage was arranged, in which, unlike other women's monasteries of that time, more poor and sick women were admitted. By the 90s of the 19th century, the number of nuns in it reached 500 people.

It was in Shamordino that Elder Ambrose was destined to meet the hour of his death. On June 2, 1890, as usual, he went there for the summer. At the end of the summer, the elder tried three times to return to Optina, but could not because of ill health. A year later, on September 21, 1891, the disease intensified so that he lost both his hearing and his voice. His deathbed suffering began - so severe that he, as he admitted, had never experienced the likes of them in his whole life. On September 8, Hieromonk Joseph consecrated him (together with Father Theodore and Anatoly), and communed him the next day. On the same day, the rector of Optina Hermitage, Archimandrite Isaac, came to the elder in Shamordino. The next day, October 10, 1891, at half past twelve, the elder, after sighing three times and crossing himself with difficulty, died.

The funeral liturgy with the rite of burial was performed at the Vvedensky Cathedral of Optina Hermitage. About 8,000 people attended the funeral. On October 15, the body of the elder was interred on the southeastern side of the Vvedensky Cathedral, next to his teacher Hieroschemamonk Macarius. It is noteworthy that on this very day, October 15, and just a year before his death, in 1890, Elder Ambrose established a feast in honor of the miraculous icon of the Mother of God "The Conqueror of Bread," before which he himself offered up his fervent prayers many times.

Immediately after his death, miracles began in which the elder, as in life, healed, instructed, and called to repentance.

Years passed. But the path to the elder's grave did not overgrow. Times of grave upheavals have come. Optina Pustyn was closed and ruined. The chapel on the grave of the elder was wiped off the face of the earth. But the memory of the great saint of God was impossible to destroy. People randomly marked the place of the chapel and continued to flow to their mentor.

In November 1987 Optina Pustyn was returned to the Church. And in June 1988, Elder Ambrose of Optina was canonized by the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. On October 23 (new st.), on the day of his death (the established day of his memory), a solemn episcopal service was performed in Optina Hermitage with a large gathering of pilgrims. By this time, the relics of St. Ambrose had already been found. All those who participated in the celebration experienced that day that pure and inexpressible joy that the holy elder so loved to bestow on those who came to him during his lifetime. A month later, on the anniversary of the revival of the monastery, by the grace of God, a miracle happened: at night, after the service in the Vvedensky Cathedral, the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God and relics streamed myrrh, as well as the icon of St. Ambrose. Other miracles were performed from the relics of the elder, with which he certifies that he does not leave us sinners by his intercession before our Lord Jesus Christ. To Him be glory forever! Amen

Selected Instructions of Elder Ambrose

"How to live?" - the elder heard this very important question from all sides. He, as usual, answered in a joking tone: "To live - do not grieve, do not condemn anyone, do not annoy anyone, and all my respect." Such a tone of the elder's speech often brought a smile to the lips of frivolous listeners. But if you seriously delve into this instruction, then everyone will see a deep meaning in it. - "Do not grieve," i.e. so that the heart is not carried away by sorrows and failures inevitable for a person, but is directed to the Single Source of eternal sweetness - God; through which a person puts up with sorrows or "humbles himself," and this calms down. - "Do not condemn," "do not annoy." The most common condemnation and vexation among people are the offspring of pernicious pride. They alone are enough to bring down the soul of a person to the bottom of hell; and outwardly, for the most part, they are not considered a sin. - "My respects to all" - points to the commandment of the Apostle: "in honor one another warn"(Rom. 12:10). Reducing all these thoughts to one common one, we see that in the above saying, the Elder preached mainly humility - this is the basis of spiritual life, the source of all virtues, without which it is impossible to be saved.

About how much we care about the body, and how much about the soul

The Gospel says: "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul"(Mark 8:36). How precious is the human soul! It is dearer than the whole world, with all its treasures and blessings. But it is terrible to think how little we understand the dignity of our soul. On the body, this dwelling of worms, this fallen coffin, all our thoughts turn from morning to evening, but on the immortal soul, on the most precious and beloved creation of God, on the image of His glory and majesty, hardly one thought turns all week. The most flourishing years of our lives are dedicated to the service of the body, and only the last minutes of decrepit old age are devoted to the eternal salvation of the soul. The body daily revels, as at a rich man's feast, with full bowls and sumptuous dishes, while the soul barely collects the crumbs of the divine word on the threshold of God's house. An insignificant body is washed, dressed, cleansed, adorned with all the treasures of nature and art, and the dear soul, the bride of Jesus Christ, the heir of heaven, wanders with an exhausted step, dressed in the clothes of a wretched wanderer, having no alms.

The body does not tolerate a single stain on the face, no impurity on the hands, no patch on the clothes, and the soul from head to toe, covered with filth, is nothing but deeds that passes from one sinful mud to another, and its annual, but often hypocritical confession only multiplies the patches of his garments, and does not renew them. Various kinds of amusements and pleasures are required for the well-being of the body; it often exhausts entire families, for it people are sometimes ready for all kinds of labors, and the poor soul barely has one hour on Sundays to serve the Divine Liturgy, barely a few minutes for morning and evening prayers, forcibly collects one handful of copper coins for almsgiving, and she is pleased when she expresses the remembrance of death with a cold sigh. For health and preservation of the body, they change the air and dwelling, call on the most skillful and most distant doctors, abstain from food and drink, take the most bitter medicines, allow themselves to be burned and cut, but for the health of the soul, to avoid temptations, to remove themselves from the sinful infection, they do not not a single step, but remain in the same air, in the same unkind society, in the same vicious house, and do not look for any doctor of souls, or choose a doctor unknown and inexperienced, and hide before him what is already known and heaven and hell, and what they themselves boast about in societies. When the body dies, then grief and despair are heard, and when the soul dies from mortal sin, then often they don’t even think about it.

So we do not know the dignity of our soul, and like Adam and Eve, we give our soul for a red-looking fruit.

Why don't we at least cry like Adam and Eve? We, for the most part, care about the acquisition of blessings, only, unfortunately, often earthly and temporal, and not heavenly. We forget that earthly blessings are fleeting and irresistible, while heavenly blessings are eternal, infinite and inalienable.

Omnipotent Lord! Help us to despise everything that is fleeting, and take care of the only need for the salvation of our souls.

About salvation

While a Christian lives on earth, his salvation, according to the words of St. Peter of Damascus, is between fear and hope, and people are all looking for complete satisfaction on earth, and moreover from a place and from people, while the Lord himself speaks in the Gospel : "In the world you will be mournful." These words clearly show that no matter where a Christian lives, there cannot be without some kind of sorrow. There is only one comfort - in the fulfillment of the commandments of the Gospel, as it is said in the psalms : "Many peace to those who love your law, and there is no temptation for them." If something or someone tempts or confuses us, then it is clearly shown that we do not have a completely correct attitude to the law of God's commandments, of which the main commandment is not to judge or condemn anyone. Each one will be glorified or ashamed by his deeds at the terrible judgment of God. And even in the Old Testament it was prescribed to attend to oneself and one's own salvation and correction of one's own soul. This is what we should be most concerned about.

Nowhere does the Lord want to involuntarily compel a person, but everywhere he submits to our good will, and by their own will people are either good or evil. Therefore, let us blame in vain that those who live with us and those around us hinder and impede our salvation or spiritual perfection. Samuel lived and was brought up by Elijah the priest, with his depraved sons, and kept himself, and was a great prophet. Eve also transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise. And Judas, and the three-year life in the face of the Savior Himself, did not make him better, when he saw so many miracles, constantly heard the Gospel preaching, but became even worse, he sold his Teacher and the Redeemer of the world for thirty pieces of silver.

Our mental and spiritual unsatisfactoriness comes from ourselves, from our inability and from an incorrectly formed opinion, which we do not want to part with. And it then leads us to embarrassment and doubt and various bewilderment; and all this torments and weighs us down and leads us to a desolate state. It would be good if we could understand the simple patristic word: "If we humble ourselves, then we will find peace in every place, without going around with our minds many other places where the same thing can happen to us, if not worse."

About humility

You need to humble yourself in front of everyone, and consider yourself worse than everyone. If we have not committed the crimes that others have committed, then this may be because we did not have the opportunity to do so, the situation and circumstances were different. In every person there is something good and kind, but we usually see only vices in people, but we see nothing good.

To the question, is it possible to desire perfection in the spiritual life? The elder answers: “It is not only possible to desire, but one must also strive to improve in humility, that is, in considering oneself in the feeling of the heart worse and lower than all people and every creature. It is natural and necessary for a sinner to humble himself. If he does not humbles himself, then humble his circumstances, providentially arranged for his spiritual benefit.In happiness, he usually forgets himself, and attributes everything to himself, to his impotent strength and imaginary power, but only some misfortune visits him, asks for mercy from an imaginary enemy.

The Elder also told how sometimes unintentionally circumstances humble a person: “Once someone arranged a dinner at his place and sent his servants to invite guests. to me?" To this the messenger replied: "They sent good ones after good ones, but they sent me to your mercy."

Elder Ambrose also spoke as an edification to his disciples about humility: “A visitor came to the rector, Fr. Archimandrite Moses, but did not find him at home, he went to his brother, Fr. Abbot Anthony. In the middle of the conversation, the guest asked the abbot: “Tell me, father, what rules do you follow?” Father Anthony answered: “I had many rules: I lived in the desert and in monasteries, and all the rules were different, and now there is only one tax collector: "God be merciful to me a sinner."

At the same time, Batiushka also told how “One kept wanting to wander back and forth, and to Kyiv and Zadonsk, and the old man alone said to her: “All this is not good for you, you better sit and do the Mytarev prayer.”

About unbelief

“I once told Batiushka,” his spiritual daughter writes, about one family, that I feel sorry for all of them, they don’t believe in anything, neither in God, nor in the future life. It’s a pity precisely because they, perhaps, and they are not to blame for this themselves, they were brought up in such unbelief, or there were some other reasons.” Batiushka shook his head and said so angrily: “There is no excuse for the atheists. After all, the gospel is preached to everyone, decisively to everyone, even to the Gentiles; Finally, by nature we are all born with the feeling of knowing God, so we ourselves are to blame. You ask if you can pray for such people. Of course, you can pray for everyone."

Some, the Elder said, renounced their faith in God out of imitation of others and out of false shame. And here is a case: one did not believe in God. And when, during the war in the Caucasus, he had to fight, in the midst of the battle, when bullets were flying past him, he bent down, hugged his horse, and read all the time: "Blessed Mother of God, save us." And then, when, remembering this, his comrades laughed at him, he retracted his words. Then Father added: "Yes, hypocrisy is worse than unbelief."

About repentance

In order to give a proper idea of ​​the power and importance of repentance, Elder Ambrose said: “What a time has come now! all his sins in detail, but then again he is taken for his own.

The Elder also transmitted an edifying story: “There was a demon in the form of a man, and dangling his legs. Seeing this with spiritual eyes, he asked him: “Why are you not doing anything?” everyone is doing better than me."

"Three degrees for salvation. It is said in St. John Chrysostom: a) do not sin b) repent when you have sinned c) whoever repents badly, endure the sorrows that find."

“It happens, as the Father said, that although our sins are forgiven us through repentance, our conscience does not cease to reproach us. the scar remains. So, even after the forgiveness of sins, scars remain, that is, reproaches of conscience.

“Although the Lord forgives the sins of the penitent, every sin requires a cleansing punishment. For example, the Lord himself said to the prudent robber: “Today you will be with me in paradise,” and meanwhile after these words they broke his legs, and what was it like on one hand , with broken legs, hang on the cross for three hours? So he needed a cleansing suffering. For sinners who die immediately after repentance, the prayers of the Church and those praying for them serve as cleansing, and those who are still alive must themselves be cleansed by the correction of life and alms that covers sins."

About suffering

“God does not create a cross for a person, i.e., purifying sufferings of the soul and body. And no matter how hard it is for another person, the cross that he carries in life, but still the tree from which it is made always grows on its soil hearts."

“When a person, the Elder used to say, goes the straight path, there is no cross for him. But when he steps back from him, and starts rushing first in one direction, then in the other, then various circumstances appear that push him again onto the straight path These shocks constitute a cross for a person. They are, of course, different, who needs what. "

“There is a mental cross, sometimes sinful thoughts confuse a person, but a person is not guilty of them if he does not deign to them. When the Lord appeared to her drove them away from her, she called out to Him: "Where have you been hitherto, O sweet Jesus?" The Lord replied: "Was in your heart." She said: "How could this be? After all, my heart was full of impure thoughts." And the Lord said to her: “Therefore, understand that I was in your heart, that you had no disposition for impure thoughts, but rather tried to get rid of them, but being unable to, you were sick about this, and by this you prepared a place for me in your heart. ."

"Sometimes innocent sufferings are sent to a person so that, following the example of Christ, he would suffer for others. The Savior Himself first suffered for people. His Apostles also suffered for the Church and for people. To have perfect love means to suffer for others."

About love

Love covers everything. And if someone does good to his neighbor according to the inclination of the heart, and not driven only by duty or self-interest, then the devil cannot interfere with such.

Love is above all. If you find that you do not have love, but you want to have it, then do deeds of love, although at first without love. The Lord will see your desire and effort and put your love into your heart. “Whoever has a bad heart should not despair, because with the help of God a person can correct his heart. You just need to carefully monitor yourself, and not miss the opportunity to be useful to your neighbor, often open yourself to the elder and do all possible alms. Of course, this cannot be done suddenly, but the Lord is long-suffering, He only ends a person's life when he sees him ready to pass into eternity, or when he sees no hope for his correction.

About charity

About alms, Elder Ambrose said: "St. Demetrius of Rostov writes: if a man comes to you on a horse and asks, give it to him. How he uses your alms, you are not responsible for it."

Also: "St. John Chrysostom says: start giving to the poor, what you don't need, what you have lying around, then you will be able to give more and even depriving yourself, and finally you will be ready to give everything that you have."

About laziness and despondency

“Boredom is a grandson’s despondency, and laziness is a daughter. To drive her away, work hard in business, don’t be lazy in prayer; then boredom will pass, and zeal will come. And if you add patience and humility to this, then you will save yourself from many evils.”

“What do people sin from?”, the Elder sometimes asked a question, and he himself solved it: “Or from the fact that they do not know what to do and what to avoid; or if they know, they forget; if they do not forget, then they are lazy, discouraged. On the contrary: since people are very lazy in deeds of piety, they very often forget about their main duty, to serve God. From laziness and forgetfulness they reach extreme unreason or ignorance. These are the three giants: despondency or laziness, oblivion and ignorance, from which the whole human race is bound by irresolvable ties. And then negligence follows with all the host of evil passions. Therefore, we pray to the Queen of Heaven: "My Most Holy Lady, the Theotokos, with your holy and all-powerful prayers, drive away from me your humble and cursed servant of your laziness, despondency, forgetfulness, foolishness, negligence, and all bad, crafty and blasphemous thoughts."

About patience

“When you are annoyed, never ask why and why. In Scripture, this is nowhere to be found. On the contrary, it says: “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, the right cheek, turn the other to him also. In fact, it is not convenient to hit the gum on the cheek, and this should be understood as follows: if someone slanders you, or annoys you innocently with something, this will mean hitting the gum on the cheek. Do not grumble, but endure this blow patiently, turn your left cheek, that is, remembering your wrong deeds. And if maybe you are now innocent, then you have sinned a lot before; and by that you will be convinced that you are worthy of punishment. Self-justification, a great sin."

"Father, teach me patience," said one sister. "Learn," answered the Elder, and begin with the patience of finding and encountering troubles. - "I can not understand how you can not be indignant at insults and injustices." The answer of the Elder: "Be fair yourself, and do not offend anyone."

About irritability

“No one should justify their irritability with some kind of illness, it comes from pride. And the husband's anger, according to St. Apostle James, does not do the righteousness of God. In order not to indulge in irritability and anger, one should not hurry.

About envy and vindictiveness

The elder said: "You need to force yourself, even against your will, to do some good to your enemies, and most importantly, not to take revenge on them, and be careful not to somehow offend them with a look of contempt and humiliation."

One person asked: “I don’t understand, Father, how you not only don’t get angry at those who speak badly of you, but also continue to love them.” The elder laughed a lot at this, and said: "You had a little son, were you angry with him if he did something wrong and said something." On the contrary, did you try to somehow cover his shortcomings?

About pride

A lot of people have nothing to be proud of. On this occasion, the Elder related the following story: "One confessor told the confessor that she was proud. "What are you proud of?" - he asked her, "Are you really noble?" - "No, she answered." - "Well, talented? "- No. "So it became to be rich?" No. "Hm ... in that case, you can be proud," said the confessor in the end.

To the question: how is it that the righteous, knowing that they live well according to the commandments of God, are not exalted by their righteousness, the Elder answered: “They do not know what the end awaits them. Therefore, he added, “Our salvation must be accomplished between fear and hope. No one should ever give in to despair, but one should not hope too much either.

On the meaning of temptation

The freedom of rational beings has always been tested and is still being tested until it is established in goodness. Because without testing, good does not come true. Every Christian is tested by something: one by poverty, another by illness, a third by various bad thoughts, a fourth by some kind of disaster or humiliation, and another by various perplexities. And this tests the firmness of faith, and hope, and the love of God, that is, to which a person is more inclined, to which he clings more, whether grief strives, or is still nailed to earthly things. So that a Christian person, through such trials, can see for himself what position and disposition he is in and involuntarily humble himself. Because without humility all our deeds are vain, as the God-wise and God-bearing fathers unanimously affirm.

The freedom of even angels was tested. And if the celestials did not escape the test, then how much more should the freedom and will of those living on earth be tested.

On the meaning and necessity of fasting

We can see the need for fasting in the Gospels and, firstly, from the example of the Lord Himself, who fasted for forty days in the wilderness, although he was God and had no need for this. Secondly, to the question of His disciples why they could not cast out a demon from a man, the Lord answered: "Because of your unbelief; and then added : "This kind cannot come out except by prayer and fasting"(Mark 9:29). In addition, there is an indication in the Gospel that we must fast on Wednesday and Friday. On Wednesday the Lord was handed over to be crucified, and on Friday he was crucified.

Meal food is not filthy. It does not defile, but fattens the human body. And St. apostle paul says : "If our outer man smolders, then the inner one is renewed from day to day"(2 Corinthians 4:16). He called the outer man the body, and the inner soul.

Every deprivation and every compulsion is valued before God, according to what is said in the Gospel: The heavenly kingdom is taken by force, and those who use force take it by force"(Matt. 11:12). And boldly and arbitrarily violating the rule of fasting are called enemies of the cross, and God is their belly and glory in their shame (shame). And the psalms say:" Lost from the womb“Of course, it’s a different matter if someone breaks fasting due to sickness and physical infirmity. But those who are healthy from fasting are healthier and kinder, and moreover, they are more durable, although they look skinny. When fasting and abstinence, the flesh does not rebel so much, and sleep does not overcome so much, and empty thoughts crawl into the head less, and spiritual books are more readily read and more understood.

And so, if, by the grace of God, you have manifested a good desire to be cleansed of internal vices, then let it be known to you that this kind cannot be removed by anything, except by fervent prayer and fasting, however prudent fasting. And then we had one example of an imprudent post here. One landowner, who spent his life in bliss, suddenly wanted to observe a severe fast: he ordered himself to crush hemp seed during the whole Great Lent and ate it with kvass, and from such a steep transition from bliss to fasting, he spoiled his stomach so much that the doctors in the course of a whole year couldn't fix it. However, there is also the patristic word that we should not be killers of the body, but killers of the passions.

About prayer

So that people would not remain in carelessness, and would not place all their hope on extraneous prayer help, the Elder repeated the usual folk saying: "God help me, and the peasant himself does not lie down."

One nun said: “Batiushka! Through whom should we ask for prayer help if not through you?” The elder answered: "And ask yourself!" You remember, the twelve Apostles asked the Savior for the Canaanite wife, but He did not hear them, and when she herself began to ask, she begged.

But since prayer is the strongest weapon against the invisible enemy, he tries in every possible way to distract a person from it. The Elder related the following story: “On Athos, a monk had a starling, a talker, whom the monk loved very much, being carried away by his conversations. on the bright feast of the Resurrection of Christ, the monk went up to the cage and said: “Starling, Christ is risen!” And the starling answers: “That is our misfortune that he has risen,” and immediately died. And an intolerable stench spread in the monk’s cell. Then the monk realized his mistake and repented."

That God most of all looks at the inner prayerful mood of a person’s soul, the Elder said: “I once came to Fr. Abbot Anthony alone with a sick foot and said: “Father, my legs hurt, I can’t bow, and this confuses me. Father Anthony answered him: “Yes, the Scripture says:“ With eun, give me yours heart," and not said - "legs."

One nun told the Elder that she had seen an icon of the Mother of God in a dream and heard from her: "Make a sacrifice." The priest asked: "What did you sacrifice?" She replied: "What will I bring, I have nothing." Then the Father said: “It is written in the psalms: the sacrifice of praise will glorify me."

On External and Moral Progress

One of Batushka's spiritual daughters conveyed to him the following questions of her son: 1. "According to the Gospel, the society of people before the end of the world appears in the most terrible form. This rejects the possibility of constant improvement of mankind. Is it possible after this to work for the good of mankind, being sure that means are not able in the final result before the end of the world to achieve the possible moral perfection of mankind.2. The duty of a Christian is to do good and try to make this good triumph over evil.At the end of the world, the Gospel says, evil will triumph over good.How is it possible strive for the victory of good over evil, knowing that these efforts will not be crowned with success, and that evil will triumph in the end?"

Answer of Elder Ambrose: Tell your son: evil has already been defeated, defeated not by the efforts and forces of man, but by the Lord Himself and our Savior, the Son of God Jesus Christ, who, for this, descended from heaven to earth, was incarnate, suffered by humanity, and by His godmothers through suffering and resurrection, he crushed the power of evil and the malefactor of the devil, who ruled over the human race, freed us from devilish and sinful slavery, as he himself said: "I give you power to tread on snakes and scorpions, and on all the strength the enemy and nothing will hurt you"(Luke 10:19). Now, in the sacrament of baptism, all believing Christians are given the power to trample on evil and do good, through the fulfillment of the Gospel commandments, and no one is forcibly possessed by evil, except for those who are negligent about keeping God's commandments, and mainly those to want to overcome evil by one's own strength, which has already been defeated by the coming of the Savior, shows a lack of understanding of the Christian sacraments of the Orthodox Church, and reveals a sign of the proud arrogance of a person who wants to do everything on his own, without turning to God's help, while the Lord himself speaks clearly : "You can't do anything without me"(John 15:5).

You write: the Gospel says that at the end of the world, evil will triumph over good. The Gospel does not say this anywhere, but only says that in the last time faith will decrease: "But the Son of Man, when he comes, will he find faith on earth?"(Luke 18:8) and "Because of the increase of iniquity, the love of many will grow cold" (Matt. 24:12). And St. Apostle Paul says that before the second coming of the Saviors " A man will appear iniquity, son of perdition, adversary and exalted above all that is called God or Holy"(2 Thess. 2:3-7), that is, the Antichrist. But it is immediately said that the Lord Jesus will kill him with the spirit of His mouth; and will annul him by the appearance of His coming .. Where is the triumph of evil over good? the triumph of evil over good is only imaginary, temporary.

On the other hand, it is also unfair that humanity on earth is constantly improving. There is progress or improvement only in external human affairs, in the convenience of life. For example, we use railways and telegraphs, which did not exist before: coal is dug up, which was hidden in the bowels of the earth, etc. In the Christian-moral respect, there is no general progress. At all times there have been people who have achieved high moral and Christian perfection, being guided by the true faith of Christ, and following the true Christian teaching, in accordance with divine Revelation, which God revealed in His Church through God-inspired men, prophets and apostles. Such people will also be in the time of Antichrist, which will be reduced for their sake, according to what has been said: " And if If those days were not shortened, no flesh would be saved, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened"(Matthew 24:22).

Moral perfection on earth, imperfect is achieved not by all mankind in the aggregate, but by each believer in particular, in proportion to the fulfillment of God's commandments and in proportion to humility. Final and perfect perfection is achieved in heaven, in the future endless life, for which the short-term human life on earth serves only as a preparation, just as the years spent by a young man in an educational institution serve as a preparation for future practical activity. If the purpose of mankind was limited to its earthly existence, if for man everything ended on earth: then why? The earth and everything on it will burn"(2 Peter 3:10). Without a future blessed, endless life, our earthly sojourn would be useless and incomprehensible.

The desire to work for the benefit of mankind is very plausible, but it is not placed in its place. Everyone wants to verbally work for the good of their neighbors, and cares little or nothing about the fact that you must first turn away from evil yourself, and only then take care of the benefit of your neighbors.

The broad undertakings of the young generation about great activities for the benefit of all mankind are like as if someone, without finishing the course of the gymnasium, dreamed a lot about himself, that he could be a professor and a great mentor at the university. But on the other hand think. that if we cannot move the whole of humanity forward, then it is not worth working at all - this is just another extreme. Every Christian is obliged according to his strength and according to his position to work for the benefit of others, but so that all this is in time and in order, and so that the success of our labors is presented to God and His holy will.

In conclusion, I will say: advise your son that he should not confuse external human affairs with spiritual and moral ones. In external inventions, partly in the sciences, let it find progress. And in the Christian-moral sense, I repeat, there is no general progress in humanity and cannot be. Everyone will be judged according to their deeds.

Troparion, tone 5

Like a healing spring, we flow to you, Ambrose, our father! You truly instruct us on the path of salvation, protect us from troubles and misfortunes with prayers, console us in bodily and spiritual sorrows, and even teach us humility, patience and love. Pray earnestly the Lover of Christ and the Intercessor that our souls be saved.

Kontakion, tone 2

Having fulfilled the covenant of the Chief Shepherd, thou hast inherited the grace of the elders, aching at heart for all those who come to you. In the same way, we, your children, cry with love to you: Holy Father Ambrose, pray to Christ God that our souls be saved.

Prayer

O GREAT OLDER and servant of God, reverend Father Ambrose, Praise to the Optina monastery and all Russia to the teacher of piety! Wishing to work for the Lord, you were not lazy in labor, in vigil, in prayers and fasts, you labored, and you were a mentor to monastics and to all people, a beloved teacher.

We glorify your humble life in Christ, for the sake of which God exalted you still on earth, and most of all crowned you with heavenly glory in the chamber of eternal glory.

Accept now the prayer of us who honor you, and be our immutable patron. Deliver us from mournful circumstances, mental and bodily ailments, from crafty and disorderly people, and from sinful falls. Ask our Fatherland for peace, silence, spiritual renewal and unshakable prosperity. Pray to the merciful Lord, may everything be sent down to us, even for the benefit and salvation of our souls, and may our life end in repentance and observance of His commandments. On the Day of Judgment, may it honor us with the right to stand and eternal life in the Kingdom of His glory. Amen.