What tomorrow? You are our leader, God. There are so many thorny paths in life! Holy places experience of life, an unchanging storehouse of wisdom.

IN THE KIEV-PECHERSK LAVRA

I arrived at Holy Lavra from St. Petersburg and I will call Peter the light, but this light drives thoughts into the vain world, and in the Lavra the light shines on silence. When the Mother of God is lowered and the singing is heard “We take refuge under Your mercy,” then the soul freezes and from youth you remember your vanity of vanities and you go into the caves and see simplicity: there is no gold or silver, only silence breathes and the saints of God rest in simplicity without silver cancer, just simple cheap coffins. And you will remember your excess, which oppresses and oppresses, and leads to boredom. Involuntarily you will remember the bustle of life. Woe to those who rush and there is no end. Lord, deliver me from friends, and the devil is nothing. The devil is in a friend, and a friend is vanity. And I saw wondrous caves, wonders of wonders. How God blessed them, how can we not believe, you can’t help but sigh. There in the wild stone, the very Hand of God created them, and from time immemorial they hid there from the invasion of the only begotten people.

There are painful memories of the tormentors of foreigners, but at the present time the greater torment is brother against brother and how they do not know their own. Therefore, the torment is more severe. The offense takes over. Therefore, I am confident that the crowns will be closer to the Face of God from these tormentors at the present time (1911). Those were tormented by foreigners, and now by themselves, especially by fathers and fathers, by monks and by monks, and here is the Word of God upon us: to take upon brother and son against father, the end is approaching. And saw Job in the Pechersk caves, where his little kennel is cramped and cramped and carries a fragrant aroma. And for what? It’s very simple: for the fact that he did not choose a palace for himself, but reclined in the manger of the poor and patiently and calmly endured his cramped conditions, and for us, at least in simplicity and luxury, to be transported in spirit into his cramped little kennel and ask for his prayers, and the Lord will not refuse his saints prayers and we will be participants with him at the Right Hand of the Father, but it is impossible to speak about his patience: the books themselves will not contain it.

IN THE POCHAYEV LAVRA

Marvelous Pochaev Lavra. What surprised me? Firstly, I saw the people of God and rejoiced greatly at the pilgrims, that I had found true worshipers, then fear appeared in my soul and the science of seeking God, as they collect true pearls, and then I saw the Mother of God and fear and trembling seized me and I received silence and noticed meekness in myself. After every sacred thing is added the precious pearl of humility. And so I entered the Cathedral and was overcome with fear and trembling. And he remembered the vanity of earth. Marvelous miracles. Where the Mother of God herself set her footsteps, there a spring flows through the stone rock down the cave and there everyone takes water with faith, and it is impossible not to believe. Oh, what happy Russian people we are, and we don’t appreciate or know the price of miracles! God to Orthodox Christians that we don’t want to see them and are too lazy to go and go abroad to look at different mountains, but we look at them as a luxury, and not as God’s creation.

BY THE BLACK SEA

What can I say about my silence? As soon as I left Odessa along the Black Sea, there was silence on the sea and the soul and the sea rejoiced and slept in silence, you could see the little rolls shining like gold and there was nothing more to look for. Here is God's example: how precious is the human soul, is it not a pearl? What is the sea to her? Without any effort, the sea comforts. When you get up in the morning and the waves speak and splash and make you happy. And the sun shines on the sea, as if quietly, quietly rising, and at that time the soul of a person forgets all of humanity and looks at the shine of the sun, and the person’s joy flares up and the book of life is felt in the soul - indescribable beauty! The sea awakens you from the sleep of vanities, you think a lot, on its own, without any effort. The sea is spacious, and the mind is even more spacious. There is no end to human wisdom. Incompatible with all philosophers. The greatest beauty is when the sun falls on the sea and sets and its rays shine. Who can appreciate the radiant rays, they warm and caress the soul and provide healing comfort. The sun goes behind the mountains by the minute, a person’s soul grieves a little for its wondrous radiant rays... It’s getting dark... Oh, how quiet it becomes... There’s not even the sound of a bird, and out of thought the man begins to walk on the deck, involuntarily remembering his childhood and all the vanity and compares that silence of his with the vain world and quietly talks to himself and wants with someone to take away the soul (boredom) brought upon him by his enemies... A quiet night at sea and we will fall asleep peacefully from various thoughts, from deep impressions... .

Sea of ​​Christ. There are wondrous miracles on you. Visited by God Himself and created miracles. The shores are visible and the trees are shining, how can you not rejoice? Where not a bush or a leaf was visible, suddenly the shores are visible and we drive up and look at the nature of God and praise the Lord for His Creation and the beauty of nature, which cannot be described by the human mind and philosophy. The waves on the sea began to beat and there was anxiety in my soul. The person will lose the image of consciousness, walk as if in a fog... God, give me spiritual silence! At sea there is a temporary illness, but on the shore there is always such a wave. At sea the disease is visible to everyone, but on the shore it is unknown to anyone - the demon confuses the soul. Conscience is a wave, but whatever waves there are on the sea, they will subside, and conscience will only go out from a good deed. You get sick more on the shore. Oh, what a deception, what a disaster! They will tell her and look and see... Conscience speaks to everyone without a tongue about its shortcomings, everyone needs to look at it, we won’t hide any sin here and won’t bury it in the ground. And every sin is like a cannon shot - everyone will know...

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF CONSTANTINOPLE

What can I say with my little human mind about the great wonderful Saint Sophia Cathedral, the first in the whole world. Like a cloud on a mountain, so is St. Sophia Cathedral, the first in the whole world. Like a cloud on a mountain, so is the St. Sophia Temple. Oh woe! How the Lord is angry with our pride that He handed over the shrine to the wicked Turks and allowed His Face to be ridiculed and desecrated - they smoke in it. Lord, hear and return, let the temple be an ark! According to legend, it is said that it was because of pride that the temple was taken away from the Orthodox, for they did not recognize this ark and had a house of revelry and luxury. The Lord became angry for a long time and ordered to blaspheme His Shrine. Let us wait, the Lord will have mercy and return her with praise, we will feel and repent. There are intact places in it, they mean the Savior (in the altar) and the Mother of God (at the exit from the temple). There are 300 chandeliers in the temple. Wonderful miracles, where the Sultan jumped on the corpses of killed soldiers, the church was full of Orthodox Christians, and now the horse hit the column with its hoof and tore out a very large piece from the column and this has been preserved to this day, and where the Sultan leaned his hand on the column and now his hand is visible on the column in the wild stone, five fingers and the entire palm of the hand are very clearly indicated. This is a great miracle! And that’s why the temple will return to the hands of Orthodoxy, here God works miracles and commands people to repent.

I immediately reached the monastery Theodora Studita, a lot of paintings and Orthodox icons. The Mother of God of the Sign and many others directly pacifies the soul of a Christian. The confessional cell of Theodora Studita is still preserved, dark and calling for repentance - truly an ascetic of God. Because of our sins, the Lord has given the dwelling of the Orthodox to ridicule, but nothing concerns the Orthodox soul. You can be deprived of everything, including your home, but never your soul. The earthly merits were trampled upon and the labors of the Orthodox were desecrated and made a laughing stock, but the heavens adorned him with patience. Therefore, we have an example that earthly deprivation is the joy of heaven. You need to ask God to give you patience, and the loss of earthly things is a great feat. For the loss of earthly things, the reward is greater than if you give it yourself. You yourself give it of your own will, but then they deprive you, you grieve and inherit the Kingdom of God through sorrows. God will help everyone endure losses with patience and for this he will make him an heir to the Heavenly Father.

Right there in Constantinople, in the same temple a pulpit has been preserved John Chrysostom and power St. Ephraim other memories are stored. Between them is the column to which the Savior was chained. Just think that suffering everywhere shows: God, what sinners we are. Everything is suffering for us. You remember how long ago Chrysostom preached and everything seems as it is now, as if a patriarchal sound is heard and the icon is preserved on his pulpit. AND Roman Sladkopevets right there. God, how many miracles have been created! A huge temple was built in honor of the twelve apostles, which was turned into a mosque. Nothing has been preserved here, no icons, no memories, but it is only known that in the temple of all the apostles a desecration of the shrine took place. I won’t describe the Greek churches, marvelous antiquity! There is a church in Constantinople where Andrey for Christ's sake the holy fool I prayed and saw the Mother of God. I was at that place, but only a small wall and ruins and a small garden remained, and further away a Greek church.

The soul freezes from the touching events, how the Mother of God protected everyone in the air and prayed for everyone, and even now on the Day of the Intercession Her concern is to have mercy and comfort. She teaches her ascetics to pray and appears to her righteous and sinners and listens to the petitions of everyone brought to Her, Mother. She knows all our needs and we receive everything that She asks the Lord for. Her petition to the Lord always reaches Him. One thousand-pound column was brought from Rome to Constantinople; this is great miracle, it’s impossible to describe everything, I haven’t written a lot about Constantinople.

FURTHER

We got to Blizzards, a small town where Paul the Apostle preached and immediately 30 martyrs, in whom he lit the fire of faith, they believed in Christ and to this day this place reminds that preaching is alive here. The town is beautiful, by the sea above the water in the mountains. Here is the Gulf of the Archipelago and the marvelous beauty of the shores, wonderful mountains. God, lead us to your feet, the further we go, the more soul-saving places we encounter. One can understand that it is not without reason that Russian people collect all their pennies and strive to see these places where miracles happen. I met a lot of people, but especially in the third grade there are many true Christians, they suffer and pray constantly, they read akathists in the morning and in the evening, you watch and do not get tired. And I saw Bulgarian women who truly understood the Kingdom of God, like myrrh-bearing women, lovers of Christ. I was convinced that the dress of the Turks is the same as that of Christians and Jews. We can expect the fulfillment of the word of God over us, that there will be one Orthodox Church, regardless of the apparent difference in clothing. First they destroyed this difference, and then it will be converted to faith; it is difficult to understand all this. First, all foreigners will be deceived by the clothes, and then they will have a single Church.

Smyrna located on the Asia Minor coast at the end of the huge Gulf of Smyrna. Smyrna has several beautiful Greek temples. One of them is at the place where the Samaritan woman talked with Jacob in the presence of the Savior and believed in Him. What events are kept by the Turks, how to figure out that the Turks have everything, all antiquity, what can you say to this, if not that it is better that they have the same spirit with us and the United Orthodox Church. In Smyrna, except for the temple, which she founded with her preaching Samaritan woman named Fetinya, there is also a temple in the place where Mother of God preached. The relics of St. George the Victorious (part of a leg) and the relics of St. Coats of the Unmercenary. Then we drove past the island of Metelena, where the bishop was located. Gregory (November 5). The sermon of the saints is very clear: this is how it shines in the hearts of the Orthodox. In Smyrna there is a mountain on which there was a circus, where the disciple of John the Theologian and many others with them were tortured. Where are there no martyrs for Christ? All crowns were achieved with blood. Not far from Smyrna, the ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus have been preserved.

IN Ephesus lived a long time John the Theologian-Apostle and finished his Gospel here, all Wisdom is deep, therefore the very channel by the sea will awaken many to life from sleep. The Mother of God temporarily stayed here and the 3rd Council met. The first Bishop of Ephesus was Apostle Timothy, disciple of the Apostle Paul. Both died as martyrs. And also lived here John Chrysostom. There are many preserved caves near Ephesus. You need to go to the caves by horse. This wondrous path teaches you to look at yourself, how you are succeeding and whether you are a fellow worker in these places. At least sow a bead of truth and for this we will come to life, if only it were not the work of the enemy, Satan would not be possessed, he would not cast his nets for the artist, which we do not know how to understand. Nearby there is also the island of Chios, where Isidore was martyred in the 3rd century. All places are consecrated. God, sanctify us together with them, have mercy on us!

Island Patmos. Was imprisoned here John the Theologian and here he wrote the Gospel and Apocalypse. At the site of the Evangelist John the Theologian, there now stands an Orthodox Greek monastery and the entire island is inhabited by Christians. John prays for his pilgrims and we became his henchmen. We left for the Mediterranean Sea, the ship did not land anywhere.

God, how much faith the apostles ignited on these shores! They endlessly made lovers of Christ and for this there were martyrs everywhere, both on this side and on the other side of the Mediterranean, and the Greeks with their philosophy became proud. The Lord was angry and handed over all the works of the apostles to the Turks.

Nowadays, as with the Greeks, all the bishops are literate and observe the hymn of God, but there is no poverty of spirit, and the people only follow the poverty of the spirit, they will follow it in droves, because the holiness of God is high, and the poverty of the spirit is higher. Without poverty, the bishop will cry if they don’t give the cross, but if he has it in him, then even a thin cassock is pleasant and a crowd will follow the thin cassock. I am an eyewitness to this forgive me, I am very familiar with many bishops may the Lord save them for their unity. Why do they now go to different religions? Because there is no spirit in the temple, but there are many letters - the temple is empty.

And now, when Fr. John (of Kronstadt) served, there was a spirit of poverty in the church and thousands came to him for spiritual poverty. And now there are, but there are few such ministers, there are bishops, but they are afraid that they will distinguish simple monks, more holy ones, and not those who have gained fat in the world this is difficult for them to strive for their laziness crushes them. Of course, with God everything is possible, there are some fat monks who were born this way, after all, health is a gift, some of them also have a spark of God I’m not talking about them. It’s no better when you go to Jerusalem, you see the holy shores, where the apostles were saved, walked along these shores and more than once crossed here in this place from shore to shore, from city to city. You would think that the people also travel with fear and it is so easy to pray here. You see how the apostles prayed for all travelers here, and therefore it is easy to pray at sea, because God feeds and feeds with milk there through wisdom.

City Rhodes, buried in all kinds of gardens. What grace there is in the Mediterranean Sea. What is missing in Rhodes? and greenery and flowers in the month of February. How the Lord warms us and always has a fruitful year. Great is God's mercy in this place. Cyprus visited Mother of God. On about. Cyprus has many shrines, ancient ascetics and remains of relics. There are many monasteries for men and women. Passed the city Mersin. All places are visited by wonderful events; the soul will inevitably rejoice.

Five hours' drive from Beirut grave Jonah the prophet, which was in the belly of a whale and was thrown into the Mediterranean Sea. What wonderful prophecies he made to expose the madmen who did not know what they were doing, their madness was enough for them, but the Lord was pleased to send prophets to them and these madmen believed and became ascetics, and we all know where the Holy of Holies is , but we close our ears tightly so as not to hear, and we close our eyes so as not to see, and we say to ourselves: “there is still time - there are many years ahead, we will be saved a thousand times!”

City Tripolis it stands by the sea, surrounded by part of the Lebanese Mountains, but nothing else. A fortress like ours, the Peter and Paul Fortress. The Lebanese mountains are conducive to piety. Beirut is located above the sea, all immersed in greenery. God, the source of life is everywhere. St. George the Victorious in this city he crushed the serpent, in this place there is a well and a Turkish prayer house, the lake is overgrown with grass. Woe, how angry God is with the Orthodox, you need to think about how unpleasant it is with the Turks, but God gave them all the sacred things. Here is an example of the fact that when we receive from the Lord some kind of holy image and trample it underfoot, then we will become empty, the shrine will be out of place. Great ascetic and miracle worker of God, give me strength to behold your beauty! God, work miracles, what memories, what miracles are happening all over the earth, for Your pleasure, Lord, we ask and pray to You: do not leave us lazy, our hope and hope is in You, please us, Lord, with Your prayers!

Jaffa where he lived prophet Elijah. And in the place where the prophet prayed, at the bottom of the mountain there is a cave. There is a Greek monastery here. I am an eyewitness of all these places, the fire went down there and there was no rain. Ilya created many miracles in the city of Jaffa. I saw his stern appearance on his icon towards us sinners and when we looked, awe for all that is good, God, filled us. Ilya, glorious one, beg Christ, because you are like us, and the Lord will hear, and we earnestly ask you, beg Christ to love us and have mercy on us, to give us eternal bliss. From here you can travel to Nazareth. The Jaffa Valley of immense beauty has captured paradise. There is no wiser place in the world than this place. As they say in the church about the abundance of the fruits of the earth, here it is. It’s even incredible that you can find an immense paradise of beauty on earth. Let anyone have grief or the loss of earthly treasures; I am sure that sorrows, like smoke on the wind, will be carried away from the sheer abundance with which God shines in these places. Illuminate us sinners with true radiance and Your mercy.

JERUSALEM

Finished the journey, arrived in the holy city Jerusalem the front road. During the transition from the great wave to the earthly paradise of silence, the first thing they did was serve a prayer service. I cannot describe the impression of joy here, the ink is powerless it is impossible, and the tears of every admirer will flow with joy. On the one hand, the soul always sings “may God rise again” joyfully, and on the other hand, it remembers the great sorrows of the Lord. The Lord suffered here. Oh, how you see the Mother of God at the Cross. You can vividly imagine all this and how He had to grieve so much for us in Attica. Oh, Lord, you go and think and sorrow will appear, and you see the same people walking around as they did then, wearing cloaks and strange clothes on them from the previous testament, just like now, everything was the same. And now the tears flow, those days are approaching, Great Lent has come and you leave the temple, and in these churches great events took place and the Savior Himself shed tears. Why do I talk about such a moment when I was approaching Tomb of Christ!

So I felt that the Coffin was the coffin of love and had such a feeling in myself that I was ready to caress everyone and such love for people that all people seemed saints, because love does not see any shortcomings in people. Here at the tomb you see all the people who love you with their spiritual hearts and they feel joyful at home. How many thousands of visitors will be resurrected with Him. And what kind of people? All the simpletons who are lamenting, God forced them to love Himself with various fears across the sea, they fast, their food is only crackers, they don’t even see how they are saved. God, what can I say about the Coffin? I will only say in my soul: Lord, You Yourself have risen from the depths of sin into Your Eternal Palace of Life! Oh, what an impression it makes Calvary! Right there in the Church of the Resurrection, where the Queen of Heaven stood, a round bowl was made in that place, and from this place the Mother of God looked at the height of Golgotha ​​and cried when the Lord was crucified on the Cross. When you look at the place where the Mother of God stood, tears will inevitably flow and you see in front of you how it all happened. God, what a deed was done: they took off the body and laid it down. What sadness and what crying there, in the place where the body lay! God, God, what is this for? God, let us sin no more, save us with Your suffering!

They took us to Patriarchal Court, began to wash their feet. God, what a picture comes to mind. They wash their feet, dry them with a towel, and tears flow from the believers, everyone is amazed at the depth of the teaching, how we are taught to humble ourselves. What else will I describe here? God, humble us; we are Yours. So they sat us down in rows and placed Jewish jugs of the Old Testament: this is how the Last Supper and conversation arise in the soul: with it great events began and there was the first hint to the disciples about parting with Him. Great are the sufferings, great is Your love for us. Our treasure, do not be angry with us; we cannot be without You. They took us to spend the night. But then the akathists on Calvary sang at the tomb. God, what a joy! So the heart trembles with tenderness and tears. Then in the morning at 12 o'clock there was mass and they sang Easter. Then I looked around and said: Heaven on earth, do not leave me, be in me!

Here in Cave of the Resurrection the cross of Tsar Constantine and his mother Helen, who, as they say in history, found three crosses and the Lord indicated on which He was crucified. Everyone sang, “We bow to Your Cross...” Your Cross served as a shield for miracles. The Cross is with us, as is God the Savior.

Also in the Church of the Resurrection opposite the Arab altar, grave Nicodemus who built his own tomb, but laid it for the Lord. He had previously done good deeds and became like a great talent. Never be afraid to do good, you will always be honored - the demon arranges for you to be a Pharisee, and not become like or be like Nicodemus - this is the whole role of the demon. But do it, do it, and you will receive your crown and peace. How many thrones are there in the Church of the Resurrection! Christian thrones of all languages, all on different languages pray. I can’t describe everything, they tell a lot about how when they didn’t believe and closed the temple and the Catholics stood at the tomb, and the Armenians smashed in the street, on the porch in the column. Grace descended and one Turk spat at the column, and his teeth remained there and you can see how God punishes unbelievers. God, save and help. They took us to the Assumption, where the tomb of the Queen of Heaven was, we walked along the road and were led by kavas with torches and a crowd of people with fear and various lepers along the road - everything, as happened in the time of the Savior, and the lepers also shouted “give me a wig.” We saw the house of Judas and Pilate, they are not far from each other - neighbors and now Pilate is unknown, and Judas is an example of all shortcomings.

Reached with the crowd caves Mother of God and the whole crowd sang: “At Nativity you preserved virginity, at the Dormition you did not forsake the world...” troparion and song to the Mother of God, and they kissed Her coffin and everyone sang and enjoyed Her joy that the Lord took Her Body to Himself. We looked and again imagined what was here, where the Heavenly Power took Her Most Pure Body, Lord, do not leave the careless! Right there in Her cave and Joseph buried, as the story says, the old man rests here. Great Starche! Pray to God for us! They took us to the red gate, where the Lord was condemned for the last time! Oh, look what judgment is! If anyone has suffered, everyone will say about him: no, that’s why they are persecuting him; ah, this is still not enough for me, but for what they say, I am now innocent, but previously I sinned: but the Lord has not sinned either now or before.

Reached Gethsemane, where the Lord often talked with His disciples before His heavy sighs and prayers for the Cup of Death. The unworthy ones bowed down to the place where we wept with His bloody tears and were drenched in His blood! When you see that we are here in the very place where He prayed, the whole crowd has stirred up, some are crying, some are sighing deeply, everyone’s tears are flowing. This stone in the wall is now drenched in the blood of the Savior, this place will inevitably teach you to pray. His feat is always before the eyes of believers, and when you see the place where the Savior stood, and you know that in the Garden of Gethsemane the tears of God flowed like rivers, then you are afraid to step on the ground, every reed is holy - it is impossible to describe it. God save us and have mercy on us in Your Heart. We immediately see where the disciples slept on the stones and the Lord came to wake them up more than once, but we rest forever in sleep and in evil. Lord, awaken us! We went higher and heard the ringing of bells.

ABOUT THE GRACE OF GREAT SATURDAY

Oh what a wait Holy Fire how all the pilgrims languish until procession! They have been waiting for this blessed fire for more than a day. Many are crying, and the Arabs are clapping their hands, jumping and singing something in a frenzy, with troops and Turkish cavas all around. The main moment comes: the Patriarch undresses, remains in his underwear and enters Edicule, Where tomb of Christ. The people are waiting with tears and with great tension for the Patriarch to come out with fire... So he jumps out, carrying fire and runs to the Church of the Resurrection, lights unquenchable candles, and then goes out to the people and from a bunch of candles they light candles and fans with great zeal all outside themselves with joy and do not feel tired, they burn candles in bunches of thirty-three candles. The faces of the fans glow with extreme joy, but there is great noise throughout the temple. In all parts of the temple and in all the chapels, people gained joy and were filled with grace along with the lighting of candles from the Holy Fire. Some took the fire home, while others only burned the candles, lighting and extinguishing them up to three times. A wonderful event has happened and is happening. God, give me memory so as not to forget such an update.

How pleasant it is to be in the Holy Land, it is impossible not to visit it with faith, you can stay there for at least a little, three months, and then you will see the entire Shrine. And if you don’t look at it at three months, you’ll live for at least a year and you won’t see anything, you won’t recognize anything, but you will recognize it but not appreciate it. The sacred loves fear. For Jerusalem, you only need to go everywhere once: visit all the places and appreciate it. At home, during your work and labors, be transported in spirit to the Tomb and to other places of the Holy Place. The first time a joy incomprehensible to you appears, but the second time we begin to blaspheme and unbelief takes root in us. Anyone who has not been there will ask you to go for obedience and tell him with trepidation how many mistakes there are for young novices and novices. It can be very difficult for nuns, it would be better not to let them go, it’s a huge temptation, the enemy is very jealous and many of them become hangers-on and traders of the shrine, they run around, say “we have a holy father” and sign you up. The wine is sold as “crawfish for a wig” and people drink it because it’s cheap. This is mostly done by the Athonite “kellyot” blueberries, which is why blueberries cannot go there, most of them live outside of Jerusalem, it’s not supposed to be explained, but whoever was there knows.

visited Jordan, sang the troparion “I am baptized in the Jordan...” and kontakion and plunged into the waters of the Jordan. We looked at the Jordan desert, where she was saved Mary of Egypt. At the place where the Lord was baptized, everyone is immersed in water and thinking about the remission of sins. The crowd has great faith. Many nations tremblingly flee to the Jordan to get rid of their sins. Lord, as the soul seeks peace, it doesn’t care about distance. Many thousands are transported body and soul from end to end of the earth in order to find purification. God, cleanse us in Your waters of the Jordan!

Here and Dead Sea We looked, God’s punishment was upon him, fear and horror seized us. As the Lord was angry at the lawlessness of people, we can see only waters, no animal or insect lives in them, and there are no fish at all, and we look and cry. Woe to us! The god of the city did not spare it. Lord, have mercy on us, watch over us for the day of Your Judgment! In this same desert God sent Elisha grace. It is impossible to indicate the place where Elijah was taken to heaven. The entire Jordan Desert is full of events. There is little vegetation in it. And the river is small, overgrown with bushes and small forests, there is no swimming pool, they just swim from the bank. There are many monasteries in the surrounding area. Like John the Baptist and other ascetics from biblical stories They performed feats of deeds by fasting and silence, and then monks lived near the Jordan, only the Greeks mutilated everything, but the desert itself remains in the heart. Gerasim Monastery. Here Reverend Gerasim He ate something unknown and lived with animals. The Greeks are friendly, but they do not preserve the events that took place here and do not pay attention to the biblical side. Here every pebble is consecrated as a shrine, but to many I cannot even say this: every soul lives by faith.

In Jericho house of zacchaeus which is spoken of in the Gospel. They found excavations there - a mosaic floor, found by an academician from the Panteleimon Monastery - I know him. You look at these places - everything is just as it was and you imagine that yesterday there were a crowd of people here and the Lord was lifting the burden of earthly connection. Indeed, it was not for nothing that the people crowded, this can be seen and the feeling says that just as before the world crowded in order to receive a gift from God and received it, so now.

There is a spring in the Jordan Desert prophet Elisha, but Kawas didn’t take us there and got angry. Here is the fig of the Gospel this fig our sins are unpurged, and we do not want to be cleansed and do not fear God and His words. The forty-day monastery is located on a high mountain, where the demon tempted the Lord. Marvelous temple and in it is a cell in which the stone on which the Lord was tempted by the demon is placed and they kiss it. Indeed, the spirit laments over Divine suffering. He wants to redeem us from the evil one, and now, right where His temptation was, they are selling “crawfish” cheaply, as we call it vodka. That's the cunning devil, how he catches everyone. Nearby is the monastery of George Khozevit, and then the Lavra of Sava in the mountains in a deserted place above the abyss. Springs flow, many bones are open, there are special, blessed bones. In some places above the abyss you feel that ascetics were saved here. There is a hotel on the way from there Good Samaritan , but now it is run by the Turks and they don’t give water.

Mamre oak! Great is the kindness and love under the Oak of Mamre. Here Abraham greeted the Lord with bread and salt, who appeared in the form of three strangers, and now this Trinity is glorified and depicted. And Sarah and Abraham serve as examples of their kindness. How nice it is to share a pint with a wanderer. Here lies the Wisdom that the Lord revealed Himself in the Trinity for the kind greeting Abraham and Sarah and their entire family. They fell to the tree, bowed to it, and served a prayer service. Half of the oak withered away great antiquity, from many thousands of years, and there are several parts of the tree that turn green under God’s judgment - this is the goodness of God and it will turn green forever and glorify God. One just wants to do good, so kindness grows green in this tree, so that the memory will not be erased that the Lord visited this oak and will remain in the memory of every Christian.

On the same road are Solomon's Ponds, where his cattle were watered and, according to his wisdom, they are so arranged that the water in them does not dry out at all, although there is a little of it. Bethany on the way to the Jordan near Jericho. We stayed in that place, saw the stone and kissed it, where Jesus said Marfa“You worry about a lot, but need a little.” These words have a strong impact on this place. A temple was built here and how these places caress and call the soul to the heavenly palace! Not far from here Lazarus's grave is as deep as his Sunday sounded in the Gospel. Driving past these places, you will sigh and think: "God, raise my soul from the abyss of sin. Every person imagines your resurrection throughout the entire earth and is transported there in spirit," - it is accessible to all believers." Let's think about how many wonderful events there are and how we must feel the resurrection of Lazarus for everyone throughout the entire earth.

Apostle Peter in Jaffa resurrected Tabitha. We visited the cave where he resurrected her and so her cave caresses the Russian pilgrim with love: and the Apostle Peter and his energetic prayer to the Lord are seen. Right there on the shore are the ruins of the ark, the Turks say. The Ark is an example of salvation for Christians and the words of the righteous Noah come true over us... Our salvation is the Church, and everyone who hears the cry of Noah will be saved! Our Mother Church!

There is a huge temple in Bethlehem, there are many thrones and nations and all sorts of amenities, but for Russian pilgrims there are always only inconveniences. But when you see the manger of the Savior Himself, you will forget fatigue and many different intrigues. We bowed down to His manger and couldn’t believe it with joy that God had shown His mercy to us. Where Christ was born, they bowed down and where they laid Him, that place was also kissed by wanderers and pilgrims, and everyone had joy in their faces!

Herod immediately beat the babies. What evil and envy influenced him that he decided to kill babies among his people and was not ashamed of the ridicule of his loved ones and did not take pity on the children. How insidious envy is. Here and Cave of all Battered Babies, many thousands of them. The Russian pilgrims looked with horror at Herod’s evil and his insidious envy, and cried about the innocent babies whose bones lie here! What was it like for the mothers to part with them! Evil and envy are still in us, between the greater and the greater, and intrigue reigns in the crown, but the truth, like a blade of grass on an autumn night, awaits the sunrise; as the sun rises, the truth will be found. In the same temple is the place where the angel notified Joseph when Herod began plotting to beat the babies. We kissed each other and all the Russian pilgrims lovingly caressed this place and looked at the same staircase, chained with bars, along which Joseph went out to perform further flight to Egypt. We looked with love and faith after this staircase, where Joseph left the Temple of Bethlehem, on the thorny path to flight.

On the road to Bethlehem, not far from the city there is Rachel's grave who “cries for her children” and does not want to be consoled. From Bethlehem we went outside the city and reached the shepherds' cave, where an angel announced joy to the shepherds and where they sang "Glory to God on high"All the pilgrims sang and bowed to the icon, which depicts an angel proclaiming great joy. They sang Easter, it was the second day of the holiday. The cave pleased us, because it contains the wondrous wisdom of the Magi, about whom history teaches. Lord, we lack wisdom, make us wise. Your power is both then and now.

We also need to remember in Jerusalem, not far from the Red Door, a small temple Anna the God-receiver and in it a cave where the bones of the great old man are buried Simeon the God-Receiver. How gratifying it is in his cave! How the Lord crowned him. What a wonderful event happened to him when he did not believe the saying of the prophets and wanted to cross out that the Lord would be born of a Virgin, but an angel held his hand, so he drowned his ring in the sea. What events and phenomena! The prophets themselves did not believe in His birth! And so, to ease his unbelief, the fish grabbed his ring in the sea and was caught by a fisherman, the fisherman brought it to the market, and the novice bought the fish, brought it home and found a ring in it, which he took to Simeon. Simeon said: “Truly the Son of God will be born” and said to himself: “When my eyes see my salvation, then I will give my spirit to the Lord” and so, then he died when he saw the Lord. They venerated the beautifully painted icon depicting a fish.

When we were traveling on the ship on the way back, we again approached the place where the whale threw prophet Jonah and sang the Easter song “For Jonah is from Keith, risen from the grave.” The entire crowd of people looked at the place where the miracle took place. There is a small stone pillar and a shallow quadrangular hole; the steamer stood opposite this place for half a day. The Cross Monastery is the most ancient of all.

It shows the place where the tree grew, the same thing on which Christ was crucified and which was planted by righteous Lot. In short, to say that when Lot was brought out of Sodom, he was tempted by temptation, and so the Lord, through one elder, blessed him to plant three firebrands and water them. He planted three firebrands and he carried water from the Jordan and watered them. The Lord heard his prayer and a tree grew from one firebrand. There is an image of this tree on the icons and how Lot waters and plants it, all this is depicted in the cave. How the Lord glorifies even sinners.

The Church itself glorifies this tree, from which the Cross was made, on which Christ was crucified. How the Lord crowned righteous Lot, he was righteous before, and then fell into great depravity, but he repented. This is the first salvation: if someone lives for the sake of God, then even though Satan tempts him, he will still be saved, as long as it is not out of selfishness, and whoever lives out of selfishness will be a Judas brother.

In the house Jokima and Anna They found a mosaic and the doe bowed her head at their feet. Lord, all animals are subdued by him. A lot of different nations and everyone is smart in their spirit, but everyone and in all nations has little faith and no love. You really need to be affectionate with them, they don’t understand, but they look at your love as a curiosity. And while we point to the sky, they look with love and a change occurs in their faces and now they talk about the prophets.

There are a lot of smart people, but there is no faith in them, you really need to talk to them, but not about faith, but about love, God save them. There is no need to criticize and point out how high your faith is, but you must first win them over, and then carefully and meekly sow your faith, but this takes years. We must show an example of love and have a bright love, then there will be Christians, as in the first years, and the Christian mission will not serve for money, but out of kindness. They understand very much when you speak and the words surprisingly reflect on them; now they sit up and look at you. It is imperative to know their language and the character of their nations, and, in short, to have love for God as for a friend, otherwise even though we fast and do not know how to talk with God, we will not have any effect on people. Just as a bell without silver sounds bad, so an inexperienced one always only spoils it. How much more valuable is one small piece of bread for the man of a large ship? How much money do you need for ships? He who understands, understands.

Indeed, a lot of people are traveling on the ship, several hundred, and in this crowd there is a hotbed of faith, only many have been confused by the devil, but there is a lot of gold and pearls in it - the secret support of the state. Everyone in his own corner has spiritual strength, they will tell the young men about Jerusalem, fear will appear in these young men and they will love the Motherland and the Tsar. I am sure that if there is more faith, no barbarian will undermine its root. We need to pay more attention to the pilgrims - transport them cheaper and arrange them in such a way that the mission does not take money from them for boiling water, rooms, for a barracks and would give them food once a day and would not transport them like cattle in the holds, sometimes up to seven hundred in total, and this year 500, less than always. Otherwise, the pilgrims are treated like cattle, and you give money for boiling water, and for barracks, and for everything. Pilgrims travel for the sake of the shrine, but they have to endure a lot. It's very good for the rich. And there is a lot of money, and the room is good. Yes, we must try to transport poor pilgrims more freely, they really support Russia with their simple faith, they will tell their people about the Tomb of Christ - this is a great kindness that is invaluable for the common people! There is a need for monasteries for the common people, let them behave like brethren, God is their judge, but among them there are those moved by the Holy Spirit and those who pray. The monastic charter greatly influences the Christian and serves as a great support for the state. The simpleton will bow to the shrine and go through the villages, talk with faith about the service and about the monastic rules in his simple language, it is clear that he is telling the truth and his simplicity will instill love for God in the family and the young men will listen to the old man and will remember his words when they go for military service. Love will infuse them, they will love the monastery, and in it is the very birthplace of love, and it is actually true that whoever reviles the monastery reviles everything else, but the monastery charter teaches love.

Here's another big event: Easter for Catholics in Jerusalem. I was an eyewitness and compared their Easter with ours - they had it a week earlier. What can we say about their Easter? With us, everyone, even the non-Orthodox, rejoices, the light plays in their faces and it is clear that all the creatures are having fun, but in the main church itself there is no joy, as if someone has died and there is no revival: they go out, but it is clear that they do not have Easter in their souls , like the chosen ones, but everyday life. What comparison can there be with the Easter of Orthodoxy. This is completely different. Oh, we are happy Orthodox! No faith can be compared with the Orthodox. Others have dexterity - they even sell sacred things, but it is clear that they have no joy in anything, this is a deception when even on Easter they serve and their faces are gloomy, therefore one can safely prove that if the soul is not happy, then neither is the face light generally darkness, a. among the Orthodox, when the bell rings and you go to church, you praise Easter with your feet, even your weights brighten in your eyes. I do not undertake to judge, but only reason and compare the Catholic Easter with ours, as I saw the Greeks serving Easter in the Holy City, but I do not undertake to judge the depth of wisdom!

I felt how our Orthodox Christians rejoiced, how much happiness we have, and I would like our faith not to be humiliated, but it blooms without spring over the righteous, for example, you can point to St. John of Kronstadt and how many luminaries we have - a thousand men of God .

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Cyril G.

sovsem-neduhoven wrote:

before Last Judgment God's

We may not know, but

Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church

Appendix No. 4 to the report of Metropolitan Juvenaly of Krutitsky and Kolomna, Chairman of the Synodal Commission for the Canonization of Saints. On the issue of canonization of Tsar Ivan the Terrible and G. E. Rasputin

Rethinking the past is a natural and fruitful process, but at the same time complex and ambiguous. Discussions and research at the end of the 20th century. about the historical past of Russia not only allowed us to overcome the stereotypes of communist ideology and significantly enriched our knowledge, but also caused deep crisis historical and national identity Russian society. Many, including church-going representatives of modern Russian society, are internally ready and very responsive to the most fantastic discoveries and sensations and at the same time do not trust any scientific argumentation, having become accustomed to both falsifications and their revelations. Numerous publishing houses and various social forces actively use this for their commercial and political purposes.
One of the painful manifestations of the modern crisis of historical identity in church and public life is the campaign for the “rehabilitation” and “glorification” of Tsar Ivan the Terrible and G. E. Rasputin, which began in the 1990s on the pages of popular science books and was picked up by a number of MASS MEDIA. Disputes about the activities of Ivan the Terrible have been going on for four centuries. But only in our days have there been fans of not only political techniques, but also moral character Ivan Vasilievich. Even his closest circle did not speak of Grigory Rasputin as one-sidedly enthusiastically as his current admirers.
Actually, the question of glorifying Ivan the Terrible and G. Rasputin is not so much a question of faith, religious feeling or reliable historical knowledge, but rather a question of socio-political struggle. The names of Ivan the Terrible and G. Rasputin are used in this struggle as a banner, as a symbol of political intolerance and a special “folk religiosity”, which is opposed to the “official religiosity” of the priesthood. It is no coincidence, apparently, that the symbols of this campaign were the laity, known not for their spiritual exploits, but for their political activity, and who were, at least, in difficult relations with representatives church hierarchy. In the person of the first king and “friend” of the last autocrat, they are trying to glorify not Christians who have acquired the Holy Spirit, but the principle of unlimited, including morally and religiously, political power, which is the highest spiritual value for the organizers of the campaign.
The initiators of the canonization of Ivan the Terrible and G. Rasputin cannot help but realize that the very idea of ​​​​the possibility of such glorification can cause confusion among Orthodox believers. But the purpose of this campaign is precisely to provoke a struggle, to find supporters in the struggle and thereby ensure known position and influence in society. Judging by the publications in the newspaper “Rus Pravoslavnaya” and, in particular, by the statements of its editor K. Dushenov, who demands that the issue of glorification be brought to Local Council, the threat of a split does not bother his like-minded people. Moreover, the entire course of the campaign testifies to the calculations of its organizers that, by threatening a scandal, they will force their political claims and personal ambitions to be taken into account.
In general, admirers of Ivan the Terrible and G. Rasputin are characterized by ignoring the complexity and inconsistency of historical reality, dividing figures of the past into “us”, “strangers” and “misguided” (“deceived”), amateurism, bias in the coverage of events and in the interpretation of sources. Naturally, their constructions are far from consistent with what is known about the lives of Ivan the Terrible and G. Rasputin.
...

I believe this is a reason not to attribute this distribution to traditional religions.
That's why I'm rescheduling.

lexij

Darknick wrote:

I share the opinion, based on many indirect and other data, that Grigory Rasputin was deliberately slandered by secret structures. With all due respect to the Russian Orthodox Church, there are many renovationist tendencies there that are destructive for our people and state.
I recommend reading the book by Tatyana Gracheva. Starting with "The Invisible Khazaria", a book by Yuri Vorobievsky.
Sincerely,

Grachev's "Invisible Khazaria" - a sermon about the Antichrist instead of Christ?
Associate Professor of Political Science, works in the defense industry. Printed with blessings. About Zionism, world government, incriminating evidence incriminating many politicians (Sarkozy, Obama...) in Freemasonry, connections with the Rothschilds, etc. I don’t want to get involved in this because... Already once I read something similar to the point of hatred towards all Jews and dissidents - which is what my Orthodoxy resulted in. Or is there really a Zionist war going on against Russia and we need to beat the Jews and save Russia? Are the facts in the book reliable? Does the Orthodox need an image of an enemy other than the devil?

sovsem-neduhoven

Mushok wrote:

55405589Who reads the text of an audiobook?

The performer is indicated.

stnlm

uncertainty wrote:

49271744Well... now Grishka Rasputin is a saint!)
Bravo!

The Lord annually glorifies Grigory Efimovich at the place of his burial, Pushkin Alexander Park. A worship Cross was placed at the burial site. On December 30, on the day of the murder of Elder Gregory, Christian believers read akathists, pray at the cross, and no matter how frosty it is, on this day the willow tree always blooms a few meters from the place of worship. Before talking idle talk, study the topic +79112761369 Sergey

Other books by the reader “John Nikolaev and the Moscow Orthodox Brotherhood in the Name of the Holy Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II”

Archbishop John of San Francisco (Shakhovskoy) - Judaism and the Church 128kb/s

At the beginning of 1932, Hieromonk John was appointed rector of St. Vladimir's Church in Berlin. In 1934, the second year of Nazism in Germany, he gave a pastoral response to his flock in the brochure “Judaism and the Church,” where directly Archbishop John of San Francisco (Shakhovskoy) - Judaism and the Church

Rasputin Grigory - Life of an experienced wanderer. My thoughts and reflections John Nikolaev and the Moscow Orthodox Brotherhood in the name of the Holy Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II

For the first time, the authentic notes and reflections of the wanderer Gregory are published in a separate book, so that one can judge him impartially. His thoughts are the voice of a person’s conscience, in which there is no falsehood."When I was a novice in Pskov Rasputin Grigory - Life of an experienced wanderer. My thoughts and reflections

Nikolai Kozlov - The Last Tsar John Nikolaev and the Moscow Orthodox Brotherhood in the name of the Holy Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II 128kb/s

The audio version of Nikolai Kozlov’s research book, written by him before the formation of the notorious “oprichnina” brotherhood, tells about the spiritual and military warfare of the Church of Christ (whose teachings before the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ

Birth

Born in the village of Pokrovskoye, Tyumen district, into the family of Efim Vilkin and Anna Parshukova. Russified.

Information about Rasputin's date of birth is extremely contradictory. Sources give various dates of birth between 1864 and 1872. (3rd edition) reports that he was born in 1864-1865.

Rasputin himself, in his mature years, did not add clarity, reporting conflicting information about his date of birth. According to biographers, he was inclined to exaggerate his true age in order to better fit the image of an “old man.”

Beginning of life

In his youth, Rasputin was sick a lot. After the pilgrimage he turned to religion. In the year Rasputin traveled to the holy places of Russia, visited Greece, then to. I met and made contacts with many representatives of the clergy.

St. Petersburg since 1904

November 1st. Tuesday. Cold windy day. It was frozen from the shore to the end of our canal and a flat strip in both directions. Been very busy all morning. Had breakfast: book. Orlov and Resin (deux.). I took a walk. At 4 o'clock we went to Sergievka. We drank tea with Militsa and Stana. We met the man of God - Gregory from Tobolsk province. In the evening I went to bed, studied a lot and spent the evening with Alix.

There are other mentions of Rasputin in the diaries of Nicholas II.

In 1912, a former hieromonk, an acquaintance of Rasputin, began distributing several scandalous letters from Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and the Grand Duchesses to Rasputin.

Copies printed on a hectograph circulated around St. Petersburg. Most researchers consider these letters to be fakes. . Later, on the advice of Iliodor, he wrote a libelous book “Holy Devil” about Rasputin, which was published in 1917 during the revolution.

Rasputin and the church

Later life writers of Rasputin (O. Platonov) tend to see some broader political meaning in the official investigations conducted by the church authorities in connection with the activities of Rasputin; but the investigative documents (the Khlysty case and police documents) show that all the cases had as the subject of their investigation very specific acts of Grigory Rasputin, which encroached on public and public relations.

By order of the Minister of Internal Affairs of January 23, Rasputin was again placed under surveillance, which continued until his death.

The second case about "Rasputin 1912"

Decree of Nicholas II

It should also be noted that Rasputin’s opponents often forget about another elevation: Bishop of Tobolsk Anthony (Karzhavin), who brought the first case of “Khlysty” against Rasputin, was moved in 1910 from cold Siberia to the Tver See for this very reason and was elevated to the rank of archbishop on Easter. But they remember that this transfer took place precisely because the first case was sent to the archives of the Synod.

Orgies

... the richest material for illuminating his personality from this side turned out to be in the data of that very secret surveillance of him, which was conducted by the security department; at the same time, it turned out that Rasputin’s amorous adventures did not go beyond the framework of night orgies with girls of easy virtue and chansonnet singers, as well as sometimes with some of his petitioners.

Daughter Matryona in her book “Rasputin. Why?" wrote:

... that with all his life, the father never abused his power and ability to influence women in a carnal sense. However, one must understand that this part of the relationship was of particular interest to the father’s ill-wishers. I note that they received some real food for their stories.

...Then he would go to the phone and call all kinds of ladies. I had to do bonne mine mauvais jeu - because all these ladies were of extremely dubious character...

Prophecies, writings and correspondence of Rasputin

During his lifetime, Rasputin published two books:

The books are a literary record of his conversations, since the surviving notes of Rasputin testify to his illiteracy.

The eldest daughter writes about her father:

... my father was, to put it mildly, not fully trained in reading and writing. He began taking his first writing and reading lessons in St. Petersburg.

There are 100 canonical Rasputins in total. The most famous was the prediction of death:

As long as I live, the dynasty will live.

Some authors believe that Rasputin is mentioned in Alexandra Feodorovna’s letters to Nicholas II. In the letters themselves, Rasputin’s surname is not mentioned, but some authors believe that Rasputin in the letters is designated by the words “Friend”, or “He” in capital letters, although this has no documentary evidence. The letters were published in the USSR by 1927, and in the Berlin publishing house “Slovo” in 1922. The correspondence was preserved in the State Archive of the Russian Federation -.

Assassination attempt by Khionia Guseva

On June 29, 1914, an attempt was made on Rasputin in the village of Pokrovskoye. He was stabbed in the stomach and seriously wounded by Khionia Guseva, who came from. . Rasputin testified that he suspected of organizing the assassination attempt, but could not provide any evidence of this. On July 3, Rasputin was transported by ship to for treatment. Rasputin remained in the Tyumen hospital until August 17, 1914. The investigation into the assassination attempt lasted about a year. Guseva was declared mentally ill in July 1915 and released from criminal liability, being placed in a psychiatric hospital in. On March 27, 1917, on personal orders, Guseva was released.

On June 21, 1915, Rasputin arrived in Pokrovskoye. He lived there until September 25, when he left for Petrograd.

Estimates of Rasputin's influence on the royal family

IN last years During his reign, many rumors circulated in St. Petersburg society about Rasputin and his influence on power. It was said that he himself absolutely subjugated the Tsar and Tsarina and ruled the country, either Alexandra Feodorovna seized power with the help of Rasputin, or the country was ruled by a “triumvirate” of Rasputin and the Tsarina.

The publication of reports about Rasputin in print could only be partially limited. By law, articles about the imperial family were subject to preliminary censorship by the head of the office of the Ministry of the Court. Any articles in which the name Rasputin was mentioned in combination with the names of members of the royal family were prohibited, but articles in which only Rasputin appeared were impossible to prohibit.

In the last months before the February Revolution, the image of Rasputin became an important part of the speeches of opposition deputies in the State Duma. On November 1, 1916, at a meeting of the Duma, he made a speech critical of the government and the “court party,” in which the name of Rasputin was mentioned. Miliukov took the information he provided about Rasputin from articles in the German newspapers Berliner Tageblatt dated October 16, 1916 and Neue Freie Press dated June 25, regarding which Miliukov himself admitted that some of the information reported there was erroneous.

The image of Rasputin was also used by anti-German propaganda. In March 1916, the Germans scattered a cartoon over the Russian trenches depicting Nikolai Romanov, leaning on the German people, leaning on Rasputin’s genitals.

According to the memoirs of A. A. Golovin, during the First World War, rumors that the empress was Rasputin’s mistress were spread among officers of the Russian army by members of the opposition. After the overthrow of Nicholas II, the chairman of Zemgor, the prince, became the chairman.

The first revolution and the counter-revolutionary era that followed it (1907-1914) revealed the whole essence of the tsarist monarchy, brought it to... its last line,” revealed all its rottenness, vileness, all the cynicism and depravity of the royal gang with the monstrous Rasputin at its head, all the atrocity the Romanov family - these pogromists who flooded Russia with the blood of Jews, workers, revolutionaries...

According to the recollections of courtiers, Rasputin was not close to royal family and rarely visited the palace. In the memoirs of a lady-in-waiting, it is said that Rasputin visited the royal palace no more than 2-3 times a year, and the king received him much less often. Another Maid of Honor recalled that:

“I lived in the Alexander Palace from 1913 to 1917, and my room was connected by a corridor with the chambers of the Imperial children. I never saw Rasputin during all this time, although I was constantly in the company of the Grand Duchesses. Monsieur, who also lived there for several years, also never saw him."

Rasputin's entourage

Rasputin's inner circle at one time or another included:

• Dmitry Rubinstein

Opinions of contemporaries about Rasputin

...oddly enough, the question of Rasputin involuntarily became the central issue of the near future and did not leave the scene for almost the entire time of my chairmanship of the Council of Ministers, leading me to resignation a little over two years later.

In my opinion, Rasputin is a typical Siberian varnak, a tramp, smart and trained himself in the well-known manner of a simpleton and a holy fool and plays his role according to a memorized recipe. In appearance, he lacked only a prisoner's coat and an ace of diamonds on his back. In terms of habits, this is a person capable of anything. He, of course, does not believe in his antics, but he has developed firmly memorized techniques with which he deceives both those who sincerely believe all his eccentricities, and those who deceive themselves with their admiration for him, having in fact only intended to achieve through it benefits that are not provided in any other way.

How did contemporaries imagine Rasputin? Like a drunken, dirty man who infiltrated the royal family, appointed and fired ministers, bishops and generals, and for a whole decade was the hero of the St. Petersburg scandalous chronicle. In addition, there are wild orgies in the “Villa Rode”, lustful dances among aristocratic fans, high-ranking henchmen and drunken gypsies, and at the same time an incomprehensible power over the king and his family, hypnotic power and faith in his special purpose. That was all.

An investigator in the case of the murder of the royal family writes in his book-forensic investigation:

The head of the Main Directorate of Posts and Telegraphs, Pokhvisnev, who held this position in 1913-1917, shows: “According to the established procedure, all telegrams sent to the Sovereign and Empress were presented to me in copies. Therefore, all telegrams that went to Their Majesties from Rasputin, I was aware of them at one time. There were a lot of them. Of course, it is impossible to remember their contents consistently. In all honesty, I can say that the enormous influence of Rasputin on the Emperor and the Empress was clearly established by the contents of the telegrams.

In the State Archive Russian Federation(GA RF) there are 1796 telegrams from Nicholas II to the family, Rasputin, ministers for 1904, August 1915 - March 1917, delivered from the Tsar's headquarters in.

However, it is important to know the fate of investigator Sokolov, who did not listen to Henry Ford’s entreaties to stay with him in the USA, just in case, and unexpectedly died in France at the age of forty-something in November 1924 (found dead in the yard of his house). The circumstances surrounding the publication of his book are unclear. The manuscript of the book and the investigation materials fell into the hands of the “benefactor” of the investigator, Prince Nikolai Orlov, who already in 1925 published a manuscript under the title “The Murder of the Royal Family. From the notes of forensic investigator N.A. Sokolov.”

Hieromartyr Archpriest, rector of the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg describes his meeting with Rasputin in 1914 as follows:

St. John asked the elder: “What is your last name?” And when the latter answered: “Rasputin,” he said: “Look, it will be your name.”

Schema-Archimandrite Gabriel (Zyryanov), an elder of the Seven Lake Hermitage, spoke very harshly about Rasputin: “Kill him like a spider: forty sins will be forgiven...”

Murder and funeral of Rasputin

Wax figures of Felix Yusupov and Grigory Rasputin. Yusupov Palace on the Moika. Felix's garconiere.

Wax figures of participants in the conspiracy against Grigory Rasputin (from right to left) - Sukhotin, Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, State Duma deputy Purishkevich

Rasputin's body recovered from the water.

One thing is certain - representatives of allied diplomacy and the press, in particular, were informed and involved.

The emperor and empress entrusted the forensic medical examination to a famous professor. The original autopsy report has not been preserved; the cause of death can only be speculated.

Photo of a corpse in the morgue

Rasputin's funeral service was performed by a bishop who knew him well. In his memoirs he recalls that the funeral mass (which he had no right to do) was celebrated by Bishop Isidore.

They said later that Metropolitan Pitirim, who was approached about the funeral service, rejected this request. In those days, a legend was spread that the Empress was present at the autopsy and funeral service, which reached the English Embassy. It was a typical piece of gossip directed against the Empress.

At first they wanted to bury the murdered man in his homeland, in the village of Pokrovskoye, but due to the danger of possible unrest in connection with sending the body halfway across the country, they buried him in Alexander Park on the territory of the temple under construction.

The investigation into the murder of Rasputin lasted just over two months, and was hastily terminated on March 4, 1917. Three months passed between Rasputin's death and the desecration of his grave.

Provisional Government Investigation

Attempts to canonize Rasputin

“Holy Devil” returned to the 90s of the 20th century, with “Rasputin” vodka. Some extremely radical-monarchist Orthodox circles have expressed thoughts about Rasputin as a saint. The supporters of these ideas were:

1. Editor of the Orthodox newspaper "Blagovest" Anton Evgenievich Zhogolev
2. Church of St. John the Evangelist and others.

The ideas were rejected by the Synodal Commission for the Canonization of Saints

and criticized by the patriarch:

There is no reason to raise the question of the canonization of Grigory Rasputin, whose dubious morality and promiscuity cast a shadow on the August family of the future royal martyrs of Tsar Nicholas II and his family.

Rasputin in culture and art

Rasputin and his historical meaning turned out to be big influence both in Russian and Western culture. Germans and Americans are to some extent attracted by his figure, like a kind of “Russian bear” or “Russian peasant”. In the village (now -) there is a private museum of G.E. Rasputin.

List of literature about Rasputin

• Tsarism on the eve of its overthrow.- M., 1989. - ISBN 5-02-009443-9
• A.N. Grigory Rasputin-New. Series. - M:, 2007. 851 pp. - ISBN 978-5-235-02956-9
• Vasiliev A. T. Security: Russian secret police. In the book: "Security". Memoirs of leaders of political investigation. - M.: New Literary Review, 2004. Volume 2.
• Gatiyatulina Yu. R. Museum of Grigory Rasputin // Revival of the historical center of Tyumen. Tyumen in the past, present and future. Abstracts of reports and messages scientific-practical conference. - Tyumen, 2001. P. 24-26. - ISBN 5-88131-176-0
• (Trufanov S.) Holy damn. Notes on Rasputin. With a foreword by S. P. Melgunov. Printing house of T-va Ryabushinsky. - M., 1917 XV, 188 p.
• Memories. Volume I. September 1915 - March 1917]
• V.N. From my past. Memoirs 1903-1919 Volumes I and II. Paris, 1933. Chapter II.
• Adjutant of God. Chronicle novel. - M., 1927 “Worker” No. 98 - “Worker” No. 146.
• Fall of the Tsarist regime. Verbatim reports of interrogations and testimony given in 1917 in. - M.-L., 1926-1927. At 7 t.
• Novel « Devilry» (“At the last line”)
• Polishchuk V.V., Polishchuk O.A. Tyumen by Grigory Rasputin-Novy //Slovtsov Readings-2006: Materials of the XVIII All-Russian Scientific Local History Conference. - Tyumen, 2006. P. 97-99. - ISBN 5-88081-558-7
• V. M. Diary for 1916 (Death of Rasputin) // “The Life of the Prodigal Elder Grishka Rasputin.” - M., 1990. - ISBN 5-268-01401-3.
• Purishkevich V. M. Diary (in the book “The Last Days of Rasputin”). - M.: “Zakharov”, 2005
• Rasputin: Life and Death. - 2004. 576 pp. - ISBN 5-264-00589-3
• Rasputina M. Rasputin. Why? Memories of a daughter. - M.: “Zakharov”, 2001, 2005.
• The Rasputin theme on the pages of modern publications (1988-1995): an index of literature. - Tyumen, 1996. 60 p.
• Rene F.-M., Holy demon, Rasputin and women- Leipzig, 1927 ( René Fülöp-Miller “Der heilige Teufel” – Rasputin und die Frauen, Leipzig, 1927 ). Reissued in 1992. M.: Respublika, 352 pp. - ISBN 5-250-02061-5
• Ruud C. A., Stepanov S. A. Fontanka, 16: Political investigation under the Tsars.- M.: Mysl, 1993. see chapter 14 - [http://www.stepanov01.narod.ru/library/fontank/chapt14.htm Chapter 14. “ Dark forces"around the throne
• Holy devil: Collection. - M., 1990. 320 pp. - ISBN 5-7000-0235-3
• . Rasputin and the Jews. Memoirs of Grigory Rasputin's personal secretary. - Riga, 1924. - ISBN 5-265-02276-7
• . Spiridovitch Alexandre (Genéral). Raspoutine 1863-1916. D'après les documents russes et les archives de l'auteur.- Paris. Payot. 1935
• Chernyshov A. Who was “on guard” on the night of Rasputin’s murder in the courtyard of the Yusupov Palace? //Lukich. 2003. Part 2. pp. 214-219.
• Chernyshov A.V. In search of the grave of Grigory Rasputin. (About one publication) // Religion and the Church in Siberia. - Vol. 7. pp. 36-42.
• Chernyshov A.V. Choosing a path. (Highlights to the religious and philosophical portrait of G. E. Rasputin) // Religion and the Church in Siberia. - Vol. 9. P.64-85.
• Chernyshov A.V. Something about Rasputinia and the publishing environment of our days (1990-1991) // Religion and the Church in Siberia. Collection scientific articles and documentary materials. - Tyumen, 1991. Issue 2. pp. 47-56.
• Memoirs (The End of Rasputin) Published in the collection “The Life of the Prodigal Elder Grishka Rasputin.” - M., 1990. - ISBN 5-268-01401-3.
• Yusupov F. F. The End of Rasputin (in the book “The Last Days of Rasputin”) - M.: “Zakharov”, 2005.
• Shavelsky G.I. Memoirs of the last protopresbyter of the Russian Army and Navy. - New York: ed. them. Chekhov, 1954.
• Etkind A. Whip. Sects, literature and revolution. Department of Slavic Studies, University of Helsinki, New Literary Review. - M., 1998. - 688 p. (Book review - Alexander Ulanov A. Etkind. Whip. Bitter experience of culture. “Banner” 1998, No. 10)

Rasputin in cinema

It is not known for certain whether there were any newsreel footage of Rasputin. Not a single tape has survived to this day on which Rasputin himself was depicted. However, already in 1917, the image of Rasputin began to appear on the silver screen. According to IMDB, the first person to portray the image of the old man on screen was actor Edward Conelli (in the film “The Fall of the Romanovs”). The same year, the film “Rasputin, the Black Monk” was released, where Montague Love played Rasputin. In 1926, another film about Rasputin was released - “Brandstifter Europas, Die” (in the role of Rasputin - Max Newfield), and in 1928 three at once: “The Red Dance” (in the role of Rasputin - Dimitrius Alexis), “Rasputin - a holy sinner " and "Rasputin" are the first two films where Rasputin was played by Russian actors - Nikolai Malikov and Grigory Khmara, respectively. In 1932, the German “Rasputin - a Demon with a Woman” was released (in the role of Rasputin - the famous German actor Conrad Weidt) and the Oscar-nominated Rasputin and the Empress, in which the title role went to Lionel Barrymore. In 1938, Rasputin was released with Harry Baur in the title role. Cinema returned to Rasputin again in the 50s, which was marked by productions with the same name "Rasputin", released in 1954 and 1958 (for television) with Pierre Brasseur and Narzmes Ibanez Menta in the roles of Rasputin, respectively. In 1967, the cult horror film “Rasputin - the Mad Monk” was released with the famous actor Christopher Lee in the role of Grigory Rasputin. Despite many errors from a historical point of view, the image he created in the film is considered one of the best film incarnations of Rasputin. The 60s also saw the release of films such as The Night of Rasputin (1960, starring Edmund Purdom as Rasputin), Rasputin (a 1966 TV production starring Herbert Stass) and I Killed Rasputin (1967), where The role was played by Gert Frobe, known for his role as Goldfinger, the villain from the James Bond film of the same name. In the 70s, Rasputin appeared in the following films: “Why the Russians Revolutionized” (1970, Rasputin - Wes Carter), the television production “Rasputin” as part of the “Play of the Month” series (1971, Rasputin - Robert Stevens), “Nicholas and Alexandra” (1971, Rasputin - Tom Baker), the television series "Fall of Eagles" (1974, Rasputin - Michael Aldridge) and the television play "A Cárné összeesküvése" (1977, Rasputin - Nandor Tomanek)

In 1981, the most famous Russian film about Rasputin was released - Elem Klimov, where the role was successfully embodied by Alexey Petrenko. In 1984, “Rasputin - Orgien am Zarenhof” was released with Alexander Conte in the role of Rasputin. In the 90s, the image of Rasputin, like many others, began to deform. In the parody sketch of the show "Red Dwarf" - "The Melt", released in 1991, Rasputin was played by Steven Micallef, and in 1996, two films about Rasputin were released - "The Successor" (1996) with Igor Solovyov in the role of Rasputin and , where he was played by Alan Rickman (and young Rasputin by Tamas Toth). In 1997, the film “Anastasia” was released, where the role was played by the famous actor Christopher Lloyd, but he was re-voiced by the famous American voice artist Jim Cummings. In the new millennium, interest in the figure of Rasputin has not waned. The films “Rasputin: The Devil in the Flesh” (2002, for television, Rasputin - Olegar Fedoro) and “Killing Rasputin” (2003, Rasputin - Ruben Thomas, as well as Hellboy: Hero from Hell, where the main villain is the resurrected Rasputin) have already been released , played by Karel Roden. Filming is underway. , directed by Stanislav Libin, where the role of Rasputin is played.

In music

Rasputin in poetry

Statements about Rasputin

It seemed that the worst haters of the Russian monarchy could not come up with a plague as striking as the figure of Rasputin to punish her. Such an inventive combination, so that it is the Russian peasant who disgraces the Orthodox monarchy and precisely in the form of holiness.

For the first time, the authentic notes and reflections of the wanderer Gregory are published in a separate book, so that one can judge him impartially. His thoughts are the voice of a person’s conscience, in which there is no falsehood. “When I was a novice at the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, I was given the obedience to sort out an ancient library sent to the monastery.

In the history of mankind there are mysterious personalities about whom we will finally learn nothing until the Last Judgment of God. Sometimes it is necessary to abandon the study of these individuals - these studies are doomed in advance to endless and fruitless debates. But even more so must we refuse to seize God’s judgment on man.”

Among other books, I came across a brochure written by Grigory Rasputin about his pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Performer: John Nikolaev and the Moscow Orthodox Brotherhood in the name of the Holy Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II

Publisher: Audiobook with Your Own Hands

Among other books, I came across a brochure written by Grigory Rasputin about his pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

This book amazed me. Before me appeared a deeply religious, sincere and pure man, capable of perceiving the shrine and reverently conveying his impressions of it. Then, communicating with the last representatives of the first wave of Russian emigration, I heard many terrible stories about Grigory Rasputin.

In the history of mankind there are mysterious personalities about whom we will finally learn nothing until the Last Judgment of God. Sometimes it is necessary to abandon the study of these individuals - these studies are doomed in advance to endless and fruitless debates. But even more so must we refuse to seize God’s judgment on man.”

Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov)

Preface

Life of an Experienced Wanderer

(text)

When I first lived, as they say, in the world until I was 28 years old, I was with the world, that is, I loved the world and what was in the world and was fair and sought consolation from a worldly point of view. He walked a lot in the carts, did a lot of driving, caught fish and plowed arable land. Indeed, this is all good for the peasant! I had a lot of sorrows: no matter where some mistake was made, it was as if it was like me, but I had nothing to do with it.

In the artels he endured various ridicule. He plowed hard and slept little, but still in his heart he thought about how to find something, how people could be saved. I’ll look at the priests for examples - no, something’s not quite right; sings and reads briskly, loudly, like a man chopping wood with an axe. So I had to think a lot: even if it’s thin, Father.

So I went on a pilgrimage, and so I was quick to peer into life; I was interested in everything, good and bad, and I hung it, but there was no one to ask what it meant? He traveled and hung a lot, that is, he tested everything in life. During the pilgrimage, I often had to endure all sorts of troubles and misfortunes, so it happened that the murderers took action against me, that there were various pursuits, but for all of them the grace of God! then they will say that the clothes are wrong, then in some way the slanderers of untruth will be forgotten.

I left my lodging for the night at midnight, and the enemy, envious of all good deeds, will send some troublemaker, he will get acquainted, take whatever from the owner, and they will follow me, and I have experienced all this! and the culprit is immediately found. Wolves attacked more than once, but they fled. More than once predators also attacked, they wanted to rob, I told them: “This is not mine, but everything of God, you take it from me, I am your helper, I will gladly give it to you,” something special will tell them in their hearts, they will think and say : "Where are you from and what's wrong with you?" “I am a man, a brother sent to you and devoted to God.”

Now this is sweet to write, but in reality I had to go through everything. I walked 40-50 miles a day and didn’t worry about the storm, the wind, or the rain. I rarely had to eat, in the Tambov province on nothing but potatoes, I didn’t have any capital with me and haven’t collected it forever: if God sends it, they’ll let me in for the night, and then I’ll eat. So more than once he came to Kyiv from Tobolsk, did not change his linen for six months and did not lay hands on his body - these are secret chains, that is, he did it for experience and testing. Often he walked for three days, eating only a little.

On hot days, he imposed fasting on himself: he did not drink kvass, but worked with day laborers just like them; I worked and ran away to rest and pray. When I was tending the horses, I was praying. This joy served me for everything and about everything. He walked along the banks, found consolation in nature, and often thought about the Savior Himself, as He walked along the banks. Nature taught me to love God and talk with Him. I imagined in my eyes a picture of the Savior Himself walking with His disciples.

I often had to think about the Queen of Heaven, how She came to high places and asked God - “Will I soon be ready for You?” Nature can teach a lot in all wisdom and every tree and how about spring. Spring means great celebration for spiritual person. As the decorated bright May develops in the field, so whoever follows the Lord, his soul blooms like May, he has such a celebration as Easter Day, that is, it seems as if it resembles this day when he took communion, and how The whole spring develops, so those who seek the Lord develop and triumph. For an unspiritual person, spring is also a joy, but only as a lesson for the unlearned.

I also found one joy of all joys: I read the Gospel a little every day, read a little, and thought more. Then I learned to wear chains for three years, but the enemy embarrassed me - “You’re tall, you have no peers.” I struggled a lot and they did not bring me any benefit, but I found chains of love. I loved indiscriminately: I see strangers from the temple and out of love I feed whatever God sends, I learned a little from them, I understood who is following the Lord. I had to struggle and endure a lot. One fine time, I was walking around, thinking about everything, suddenly the thought came to me, I was perplexed for a long time, that the Lord Himself did not choose the royal palaces, but chose a wretched manger for Himself and thereby glorified glory.

It occurred to me, unworthy, to achieve this, I took it, dug a cave in the stable, like a grave, and went there between masses and matins to pray. When I had free time during the day, I went there and it was so tasty for me, that is, it was pleasant that in a cramped place my thoughts did not run wild, I often spent nights there, but the enemy-villain with all his fear got me out of there - with a bang, even beatings , but I didn’t stop. This went on for about eight years, and then the villain-enemy finally made people feel like the place was superfluous and I had to move to another place. In general, I didn’t believe in any visions, so God kept me from the visions.

The only temptation I found was that I grumbled at society. The vision does not need to be believed, it is not available to us. Even if it actually happened, the Lord will forgive for this, for unbelief, even with a small feat, he will forgive, but if you fall into delusion from an enemy, then it is asked how it doesn’t matter how you lost some things from some evil landowner.

You need to be very, very careful with these visions, they will lead you to such lowness, that is, to oblivion, that you will not remember either days or hours, and you will fall into such pride, and you will be a real Pharisee. It is difficult for wanderers to fight the enemy. When I went on a pilgrimage to Kyiv, I left in the morning without lunch, this was my charter. The evil enemy was jealous of all my good deeds; then he appeared in the form of a beggar, but still it is clear that he was not a beggar, but an enemy in the fog. I was on time at that time sign of the cross overshadow himself and suddenly disappeared like dust. Then he told me that the village was even more than 30 miles away, you looked from behind the fishing line and came out into the valley - here was the village. What a Satan! These are wicked thoughts, indescribable fatigue, unexpressed hunger, an indefinite thirst for drink, I guessed that it was again from the enemy, I often fell on the road as if sometimes over bumps - all this is a temptation! As you approach the village, a ringing sound is heard, and with my nimble legs and quick gait, I’m already heading to the temple.

So the enemy gives me the first thought: stand on the porch, collect sacrifices - the road is long, you need a lot of money, where can you get it; then pray that they take you to dinner and give you sweeter food. Grab your crazy head, they are already singing the cherubic verse, but I have not yet been, have not yet been, have not united with the Lord! Let me not do it again!

So I had to fight with these thoughts for whole years. So I didn’t begin to think, but began to come to the temple to stand with the peasant peasants, then God gave me: they would give me something to drink and feed, and they would understand all the needs of my journey. This is the piety of pilgrims, that they do not need to gather and especially grumble about the weather, because good and bad weather, everything is from the Throne of God. You only need to wander for a period of time - for months, but for years or many years, then I went around a lot of strange places - here I found wanderers who not only for years, but for whole centuries, they all walk and walk and they got to the point, poor things, that the enemy sowed in them heresy is the most important condemnation, and such people have become lazy, careless, I found few of them, only one out of a hundred, in the footsteps of Christ Himself. We are wanderers, we can’t fight the enemy very well.

Fatigue is evil. It is for this reason that you don’t need to wander for years, and if you wander, then you need to have strength and strength of will and be deaf, and sometimes dumb, that is, a humble simpleton, especially. If you preserve all this, then your inexhaustible well is a source of living water. But nowadays it is difficult to preserve this source. Need still God is neither older nor younger, only the time is different. But for this time He has His grace and time will triumph.

The wanderer needs to receive communion all the more in every monastery, because he has great sorrows and all sorts of needs. The holy mysteries will delight the wanderer as the month of May does its land. I have visited many monasteries for the glory of God, but I generally do not recommend this kind of spiritual life - leaving your wife and retiring to a monastery. I saw a lot of people there; they do not live like monks, but live as they want, and their wives do not keep what they promised their husbands. This is where hell broke loose on them! You need to test yourself more in your village over the years, be tested and experienced, and then do this work. So that experience overpowers the letter, so that it is the master in you and so that your wife is as experienced as you are, so that in the world she can still endure all the needs and experience all the sorrows. So much, so much for both to see, then Christ will come upon them in His monastery.

It is difficult to obtain salvation in the world, especially at the present time. Everyone watches the one who seeks salvation, like some kind of robber, and everyone tries to ridicule him. The temple is a refuge and everything is a consolation, but here, as the clergy in general, at the present time, there is no spiritual life, they are especially watching who is looking for beads and looking with some surprise, as if they had come to commit sacrilege. But why should we be sad about this? After all, the Savior Himself said: “Take up your cross and follow Me.”

We are not going to the clergy, but to the temple of God! Well, you need to think - he’s thin, but Father. We are tempted, but he is ready, because his brother-in-law is at the balls, and his mother-in-law was flirting, and his wife spent a lot of money on dresses, and he will have a lot of guests for breakfast. But you still need to read it! He is the priest - our prayer book. So in the monastery they were put in charge of salvation and went to save themselves, that is, what kind of landowner sent his slave for peas, and he brought him radishes so that he could finish eating with them? However, I would punish him! Whoever is unlearned in the world, but life has pushed him to salvation, will in all likelihood receive more talents: whatever he does, let him succeed!

Here's an example about this. It would be possible for one owner to hire two workers, and two would come running from outside and work for glory. The owner would remember for a long time and give thanks. Those two were hired and called, and these two came running to glory - they will receive all the more so because they were not assigned to the work, but did more than those who were called. More than once I have seen how they are persecuted, where, having gathered in the name of the Lord, they conduct a conversation, that is, they live as brothers from the love of God and love not according to one letter, but according to the word of the Savior, and do not dig into a person, that is, they do not find any mistakes, but they find only in themselves, talk about love and how to unite with the Holy Mysteries and sing various psalms and read a chapter from the Gospel, although for this you will be expelled and they will suspect you.

Because they (the persecutors) have earned their ranks to the letter, but they are far from the Lord and the spiritual organ is like a foreign language for them. Let us try and pray so that the Lord does not scatter us! They demand; from us what they themselves will not understand. We will not ask God to punish them. The Lord Himself will show them the way - the truth. Their laughter turns into mourning at the word of the Savior. Let us not look at their various reproaches: “let us not fear the hearing of evil,” “let us continue to sing psalms and love one another with all our hearts,” according to the words of the Apostle: “greet one another with a holy kiss.” Just don’t make everyone big, you need to listen and heed the one who leads us on the true path, lest the enemy scatter us and sow insignificant nonsense in us. In general, we will become afraid of the charm of all visions. Let us not believe in dreams other than the Mother of God and the Cross.

The enemy presents many, many slander and shows his brother many shortcomings; sometimes he will tell his brother, through someone else’s lips, against his brother, as if that brother actually spoke, but he didn’t even think about it. This is where you need to be careful in your spiritual life. The enemy will slander each other as it really is and what will happen next - they don’t even want to see each other until death and forgive each other when they die. Then there will be a great crop failure in the field - the owner will not pour it into the granary, but we will be saved.

Just as a bag with holes will not retain its life, so if we do not forgive each other, but will notice mistakes in each other, we ourselves will be angry towards him, that is, judge. We should humbly notice his mistakes and caress him like a mother’s angry child: she will try on everything and will not let him scream with all kinds of deceit and caresses. It would be nice for us to find an example from this mother. Find and caress the fallen, and most of all, be careful yourself and, having gone through all the experiences, be close to God and show your example and not from just one letter, but actually be yourself.

Oh, how the cunning enemy catches those who are escaping in general: one fine time I was traveling in winter, it was thirty degrees below zero, the enemy taught me: “Take off your hat and pray in the valley for the horses, because all the workers, whatever they don’t do, will have time.” I really took off my hat and let’s pray, and then it began to seem to me as if God was very close. What happened? I got a head cold, then fell ill; I had a strong fever, 39 degrees. So I worked here, and when I came to my senses, I prayed and fasted a lot for it. You can pray in the valley, but without taking off your hat in 30 degrees below zero.

He who is saved and seeks the Lord not out of any self-interest will lead him, no matter what, to sin, but to experience. It is only after this temptation that you need to add more strength and act with reason. Don’t worry too much and go to heaven, but little by little, as it comes to your heart, and not as a zealot. You need to be careful and remember God when you work, especially when fishing, think about the disciples of the Lord, who also spread their nets. When you plow, think that work is for salvation. You need to occasionally read prayers to the Mother of God, and in the dense forest think about the desert where previous fathers were saved. During the harvest, think generally about doers of good deeds, workers of God. When you are driving or walking alone, you need to realize that all the hermits were alone. If the crowd overtook you, then think that thousands of listeners of His word followed the Lord Himself.

Although we are all sinners as humans, we are still the creation and image of God. Especially if there are any carnal passions, then imagine the picture in your eyes - the Cross of the Lord and shout loudly at the enemy: “Come with me to the cross, you were like an angel and appear at the right hand, and then I will be a saint and we will both not suffer, otherwise you And you’re torturing me and yourself.” When no one is visible, then loudly shout out from the enemy: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner, and through the prayers of the Mother of God save me.”

And if you see that someone is close to you, then secretly say the Jesus Prayer in spirit. Then take communion as often as possible and go to church, no matter what the priests are. Consider the priests good, because you are like someone who is being saved - the enemy tempts you, but he also has a family and he is also a person. He should have become a police officer, but he became a priest. After all, he would be glad to ask, but we don’t have such living people to give him good advice. Currently, whoever can give advice, they are driven into corners.

This is also how the enemy is envious of those who seek the Lord and whom he cannot tempt in any way - he directly sends illness. Who is praying bows to the ground the backs of those who wander, the legs of wanderers, and all because of the enemy’s delusion: the fasters are crushed by such a thirst, no matter what you say, it sends women from the humble sex with any kind of displeasure, it suggests to those who do not love silver that they will die of hunger tomorrow, those who are baptized have their hands taken away , the eyes often become blurred, and sometimes there are convulsions.

At night, the enemy even orders you to sleep, otherwise he will show you a crash, all sorts of fear and all sorts of things. He will show mercy that everyone sees with all his enemy’s cunning obsessions, and especially in the forest he tries with all his might to win. He tries to make the hardworking people become lazy. What is it like to win!

You need to hit everything: pray a little, but hit yourself when no one is there, firmly, correctly and physically, so that even the floor shakes, just try so that no one sees - then it will all be great and will pass and you will be experienced and accept it all with joy, because that the enemy taught you, not tempted you - most importantly, he taught you to love God. Here's your enemy! Grab and grab, but there is no benefit.

Take the bad Jew as an example: he deceived, he deceived, and suddenly he was finished (he was ruined), and the enemy was working on the wrong thing. My whole life has been illness. Every spring I didn’t sleep for forty nights. Sleep seemed like oblivion, and I spent all my time from the age of 15 to 38. That's what pushed me to a new life. Medicine didn’t help me, I felt like a little kid at night, I wet my bed.

Kyiv relatives healed and Simeon the Righteous of Verkhoturye gave strength to learn the path of truth and healed the disease of insomnia. It was very difficult to survive all this, and it was necessary to do it, but still the Lord helped me work and did not hire anyone, I worked myself, and slept little at night with the arable land.

When I started walking to holy places, I began to feel pleasure in another world. I did not always go to holy places temporarily; experienced a lot of things; I saw how God was served in the holy monastery and thought that in the world whoever does with the fear and blessing of God is also an even greater participant, because the Autocrat Tsar himself lives as a peasant, feeds from his hands as workers, and all the birds take advantage of the peasant, even the mouse and that feeds on it. Let every breath praise the Lord and pray everything for the peasant - if only he does not use foul language! Great, great is the peasant before the Lord: he doesn’t understand any balls, he rarely goes to the theater, he only remembers: the Lord Himself brought the tax and ordered us - God’s laborer! Instead of organs, he has a scythe in his hands; instead of entertainment - a plow near the heart; instead of lush clothes there is some kind of hard yoke; instead of a dashing troika, some tired horse. He rides and remembers from his heart to the Lord: “carry me from this valley to your refuge or to the city.”

This is where Christ is on it! and he himself is a pawn with tears. He is here with Christ, and there has been paradise on him for a long time, that is, he has prepared the Granary of God. Often, with the words of God, you have to beg both Frol and Laurus to remember, but still with God and here he is happy! And without God, even though you may be racing in a troika, the crew is full of despondency. Why envy them! They, like a bad Jew, have some kind of rotten product, but they have been touched up or adjusted. Grab it, but it’s not there, that is, you paid the money, but didn’t get any benefit. This is their joy - like hopes for spring ice. They only wear a fluffy dress, but their souls are in darkness. But it really doesn’t happen to everyone: “purple will not destroy, and rags will not exalt,” but everything requires skill and experience. You should always humiliate yourself in your clothes and consider yourself low, but not in words, but really in spirit. Diamonds are also God's creation and gold is the decoration of the Queen of Heaven - revered beads, but you just need to be able to preserve them.

We dress in pearls - we become higher than the cities, we raise our spirits and the vice of pride and disobedience to everything is born. Do you know who did not submit to us? One Satan! He was trembling, he had not slept and had not eaten since birth, but do you know where he is? All you need is humiliation and love - that’s where the joy lies! Love is a big number! prophecies will cease and knowledge will fall silent, but love never will. Not as they strictly say, but let’s save a little, a little - the rest will all follow. There is no need to seek honor and learning, but to follow and seek the Lord, and all the learned will listen to your word or your sayings.

I had to visit the bishops a lot, I talked with them a lot, and they tested me in every possible way. You will come with a contrite soul and a humble heart - their teaching remains insignificant and they will listen to your simple words, because you will not come with a simple spirit, but from the mercy of God. You utter one word, and they will paint a whole picture for themselves, as long as you do not go for the sake of vile self-interest. Although they want to experience and are looking for something, but you are not with simple words, that is, in fear - this is where their lips freeze and they cannot contradict. So I visited a lot of theological academies: in Kyiv, in Moscow, Kazan and more in St. Petersburg. At the present time, in such turmoil in 1907, you really cannot influence everyone. And the Lord Himself did not influence everyone and prepared hell and darkness for some who follow the Lord; I had to talk with them about all the troubles. I talked with them more about love, but they were much amazed at love more from the experience that I had experienced. So you need to be prepared for everything and not in a scientific mood.

If you do not seek self-interest anywhere and strive, as it were, to console, you call upon the Lord spiritually, then the demons will tremble at you, and the sick will recover, as long as you do not do everything out of vile self-interest. And if you look for any opportunities for the belly, for glory, for the love of money, you will not receive anything here or there, that is, neither heavenly nor earthly, but you will try, the Lord will truly give you what you need and you will receive what you need. The enemy Satan is always waiting and looking for an opportunity to tempt him and says, talk louder for your glory and be more eloquent for your belly! And ah - Satan is like a fox, there are many, many packages.

I have experienced all this! No, you don’t need to ask and talk for your glory - it will only be anxiety - they won’t give and you won’t receive, you won’t gain either earthly pleasure or heavenly joy. If you buy for yourself, you will not decorate either the temple or yourself, but you will be a living dead, as the Gospel says. Here is learning for piety - nothing! that is, I do not criticize the letter - it is necessary to study, but a scientist does not have to cry out to God. He has gone through everything to the letter and does not have to cry out to God. The letter has entangled his head and twisted his legs, and he cannot walk in the footsteps of the Savior. Indeed, they exist and walk in the footsteps of the Savior, but the present time has greatly hindered them.

All of Russia is confused and the flock does not recognize its shepherd in it, that is, in the homeland one must love the homeland and the Father installed in it - the Tsar - the Anointed of God. I visited many, many places: I visited dignitaries and officers and even princes; I got to see and be with the Father Tsar of the Romanov generation. Preparation and humility and love are needed everywhere. So I appreciate that Christ abides in love, that is, there is always grace on you - so long as love is not eradicated, but it will never be eradicated if you set yourself low and love more.

All learned and noble boyars and princes listen to the word of truth out of love, because if you have love in you, lies will not come close. Not as it is written, but in reality, to get to the High-ranking people you need to be very careful and prepared for everything, then from your faith the Lord will influence them with his beauty. They will tremble and take your simple word as the most high education, because they will have an effect that cannot be described, that is, the Lord Himself will influence with His grace.

I’ve been here, a sinner, I can’t say it, I’ve seen everything and everyone and a lot of things. One main thing: whoever lives with Christ, poor and wretched, has joy greater than his hut, and in palaces and among the High-ranking, as there is no God, despondency is greater than huts. Indeed, there are many among the aristocrats who have higher grace than palaces and the ability to piety. Those who know how to humiliate themselves among those and grace is higher than palaces, do not achieve this glory, but achieve the highest grace for them and sorrow like oatmeal for the wind. And those who expect honors and rewards from the Tsar, but have not earned it themselves, their foundation is on sand.

The water came and took everything away, that is, a small mistake, and they are already choking, then shooting, then pouring, because they were not looking for heavenly glory, but were looking for earthly pleasure. They even bought God in a store - an emerald. And then their emerald rusted and the rust served as a witness. Whoever served God and the King and did not seek glory, worked - merit. I didn’t sleep day and night, did the truth, served God and brought peace to Father. To the king, even if a mountain falls on him, he will not crush him, he will endure everything with joy and will receive pleasure even more than before.

I remembered another experience and test in my life. I went to Petrov's post to the islands and collected bast there; dragged it more than half a mile into the lake to wet it. He ate a little bread, but did not drive away the gadflies and mosquitoes. At five o'clock in the evening I took off my shirt, bowed a hundred times and said the Jesus Prayer. The enemy, the hater, was very jealous of this, he became despondent, and even became displeased. I could barely bear it, but I realized that I had annoyed him. Then he himself made another mistake and slandered him, but then he got me a second time, that is, he taught me more experience and remained wickedly ridiculed with his tricks.

His role was blasphemy, and it came from the miracle I asked for. So, I don’t advise you to ask for miracles or to take great feats, but to take deeds according to your measure. I really benefited from gadflies and mosquitoes, an unwritten number, and learned all kinds of patience, generally hitting or exhausting the body. If you have to sleep on a soft one, then it’s good in an intelligent society, but in a field on a hummock it’s sweeter, and there’s a birch tree at your side and you won’t sleep through the dawn, and all this is an experience. Even in the nights of Peter the Great, I plowed, I also removed the gadflies from myself - let them eat my body and drink bad blood. I thought: they are God’s creation, so I was created by God.

If God had not given summer, there would have been no mosquitoes. Oh, what a man’s work is golden and he does everything with reason. So he will feed the mosquitoes, and then for the Glory of God. The guy is wise and experienced. He has a living soul and has experienced a lot. However, it is a pity that his mind is asleep, because he was not in the gymnasium. It is not known, however, what would have happened to him if he had learned. One thing is known, the teaching to God and in God in the temple and in the temple to unite with the Lord, to receive the Holy Mysteries three times a year. If you keep all this to yourself, then there will be attacks on you, various persecutions and in general the priests will torture you, everything requires strength and God will give you a gift - their letter will remain a cheap price. When there is a priest in the temple, you need to honor him; if he dances with young ladies, then remind yourself that it is not he, but a demon for him, and he himself serves somewhere at the Throne. And you see that he collected sweet dinners and called his dear godmothers, it’s because he has a young lady sister-in-law and a gentleman brother-in-law, and the priest’s wife feels sorry for them, he is still a priest of Christ and not himself, but felt sorry for them, Just imagine the picture in your eyes.

I want to talk more about doubt. I found many people doubting themselves from the age of 16 to 33 and I had to talk about the doubt. And so this doubt reaches such depths of oblivion that in the end it seems that he is not even worthy to go to church, to receive the Holy Mysteries and to look at icons, that is, to look at the face of God. There is such depth here that it is completely impossible to understand. The Holy Lives say: you need to check and examine yourself everywhere. You really need to always check yourself, I agree with this, only in the middle of the point of view, and not to the extremes. From extremes, a person thinks, for example, that there is no true love in him. I don’t love from the heart, but I see a person’s lack of something and I regret it, but love is far from me, I am not worthy to love and God did not give me love like a brother, for example, loves. What happens? But it turns out that they blaspheme God because He did not give love.

After this, it is reflected that the person considers himself truly unworthy. In this case, you don’t need to think about yourself that there is no love in me, but ask most of all the Almighty, so that He would punish me with true love and teach me. So He will teach! You can sometimes think that, Lord, do not take away from me pure love and I love enough and let this love triumph in me for the glory of Christ and trust in the Higher Powers. And you can’t strive for love to the extreme anymore! And let it be what God has given! And so you can’t advise anyone that “love more,” you have to look at everything strictly, because a person loves with a sincere soul, and the enemy is cunning in this regard and will present the picture: “you haven’t learned to love yet, you’re not a worthy sinner, they love not like that, but you love God alone, walk with your head bowed, don’t rejoice!” No, God did not deny the cheerful people from heaven, but loved them most of all, but you just need to have fun in the Lord.

Here’s another cunning enemy who asks the following phrases and teaches: “The desert people prayed and fasted, and the Lord Himself fasted for 40 days, but you, what kind of person, what kind of man of prayer and fasting person, fast and unite with the Lord.” So we begin to nurture and pray for weeks, not asking any elder, but on our own. What will happen? The result will be conceit and a picture in the eyes that one of the ascetics is an ascetic and there will be a vision and a voice from the icon and then what? the enemy will be able to approach from the divine side in such a way that it is impossible to copy. From a long post, from physical fatigue, the back hurts and the nerves are upset and the person does not want to talk to anyone.

Everyone seems to be a sinner in his eyes, they often feel dizzy, fall to the floor from weakness and often become abnormal. This is where the enemy finished us off, where he set nets for us: in fasting, in prayer, he finished us off as miracle workers and all the charm appeared to us. It was then that we forgot both the days and the hours, and the Gospel word is far from us. We need to take the easiest example, from animals, from horses. Look: if you ride a well-fed horse, it won’t kill you; when hungry - gets tired; stay in the middle, then he won’t kill you, won’t pester you, but will just run to the machine. So you need to pray a little, but think more, especially during Great Lent to think: “Remember me, Lord, in Your Kingdom.” It is as if to withdraw in spirit as if into the desert.

Most of all, say the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Where you go or go, how you keep it in yourself, you will be with God both a schema-monk and a hieroschemamonk. The Hieroschemamonk is forced to pray, and you will do it of your own free will and you will receive the Holy Mysteries twice into the great fast. So you need to stand in church when the joy of praying comes. if laziness comes, beat yourself in the chest, call names, slander the heart of the lazy, but in general there is no need to be ashamed in the temple, because it is a house of prayer. After all, if some merchant were to be lazy in weighing out the goods, he would not leave the basket and it would arrive in his pocket. We wouldn’t have stayed either, that is, we wouldn’t have come out with a holey bag in which nothing that was supposed to be preserved was preserved. And you don’t need to show yourself, but lead the middle, especially since it’s better to pray.

But whoever leads a spiritual life is even more so always abused. This is where you don’t need to be ashamed, but do as God directs and pray. Otherwise the enemy will say: “don’t go to church, the psalm-readers, the deacon and all the priests are laughing at you, the whole world is tempting you, pray at home 200 bows.” The Temple is an ark, as it will not tempt the enemy, because sins are forgiven there in the Temple. One fine time a thought penetrated me and sank deep into my heart. As they say in the words of the Apostle Paul, “Whoever builds a temple, the gates of hell will never prevail against him.” So I began to persistently ask the Queen of Heaven and I had to physically work, more than once I had to hold my head tightly and think deeply, deeply about the temple.

I myself am an illiterate person, and most importantly without funds, but the temple is already in my heart before my eyes. How to arrange this? and most importantly, praying to the Queen of Heaven, so that she would give me strength and not to lose heart and hope for His generous mercy, and under the protection of the Queen of Heaven. It’s easy to say: “give 20 thousand for the temple,” but how to give it and where to get it? I need to think, communicate with the Lord, talk with Him, ask Him not to reject His merciful generosity and show me His joy. I will speak briefly about benefactors: if I start in detail, it will be too long. It’s not for nothing that he says that Holy Scripture that prayer will not be lost for God, but service is for the Tsar.

And so God's joy happened on me, a sinner. I was a simple peasant, when I was looking for benefactors in general, I was traveling from the Tobolsk province with one ruble, watching on the way to the Kama how the gentlemen dumped cakes into the water, but I didn’t even have a seagull to spare. What a experience it was! I'm coming to St. Petersburg. It’s the same as being blind on the road, so am I in St. Petersburg. I came first to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra to venerate the relics and behind the porch I had a large bag of black linen. He served an orphan's prayer service for 3 kopecks and 2 kopecks for a candle. I leave the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and ask a certain bishop of the Theological Academy, Sergius. The police approached, “what a friend you are to the bishop, you’re a hooligan, buddy.”

By the grace of God, I ran through the back gate and found the doorman with the help of the gatekeepers. The doorman showed me the mercy of punching me in the neck; I knelt before him, he realized something special about me and reported to the bishop; the bishop called me, saw me, and then we began to talk. He told me about St. Petersburg, introduced me to the streets and other things, and then to the High-Ranking People, and then it came to Father the Tsar, who showed me mercy, understood me and gave me money for the temple.

I happily went home and turned to the priests about building a new temple. The enemy, as a hater of good deeds, before I even got there, seduced everyone. I am helping them build a temple, but they are looking to accuse me of a destructive heresy and they are blaming such nonsense, it is impossible to even express it and does not come to mind. This is how powerful the enemy is to dig a hole for a person and reduce good deeds to nothing. They accuse me of being a champion of the lowest and dirtiest sects, and the bishop rebels in every possible way. Where it is difficult to make out love. As a person had no experience. Regarding pity, this is straight forward nature. Yes, and it’s a pity. Have pity and this is pity.

And love is such a treasure that no one can describe its value. It is more valuable than anything created by the Lord Himself, no matter what in the world, but it is only little understood. Although they understand love, it is not like pure gold. Whoever understands this golden love, this man is so wise that he will teach Solomon himself. Many - all of us - talk about love, but we have only heard about it, but we ourselves are far from love. It resides especially with experienced people, but by itself it will not come to the person who is at peace and lives well, even though he is a priest. After all, the priest is twofold - there is a mercenary of the flock, and there is one that life itself pushed him to be a true shepherd and he tries to serve God - but the mercenary denounces and criticizes him in every possible way.

God's chosen ones have perfect love, you can go and listen, they will speak not from a book, but from experience, so love is not obtained for nothing. This is where the enemy gets in the way, he tries in every possible way to make sure the person doesn’t capture love, and this is the enemy’s biggest problem. After all, love is a kind of millionaire in spiritual life - there is not even an estimate. In general, love lives in exiles who have experienced everything, everything, but everyone has pity. It’s even difficult to talk about love; you need to talk to someone experienced. And those who have not experienced it will turn it around in every possible way.

In general, where there are elect in spiritual conversations, they understand love more and talk according to the New Testament and live unanimously, with one spirit. They have sincere love and they pray day and night together for each other. This is where they have the untold gold of love. Here, brothers, beware of your enemies and, sisters, think about pure golden love. You need to sing more psalms and spiritual songs. The villain enemy is looking for every opportunity - he incites the priests to be “champions - they are other sects, they don’t have brotherhood,” otherwise he restores the family in every possible way. But let us not be afraid of hearing evil, let us continue in the Lord, let us sing to Him and glorify Christ, and above all let us love the temple and receive communion more often.

Martyr for Christ and for the Tsar Gregory the New (VIDEO) (10 episodes)

Year of manufacture: 2009
Country: Russia, Studio TRINITY.
Genre: Documentary, historical, biography.
Duration: 10 episodes ~ 00:58 minutes

Director: Victor Ryzhko, Elena Roganova.
Cast: Vladimir Petrovich Zamansky, Albert Filozov, Elena Stepanova.

Description: The Christ-loving Elder, friend and prayer leader of the Royal Family - Grigory Efimovich Rasputin - New - acquired the gifts of prophecy, healing, insight into the future and fiery prayer. The august family deeply revered the people's righteous man and was sincerely convinced of the holiness of Grigory Rasputin.

The film tells about the life spiritual Elder, slandered and tortured, but who found favor with the Lord in the kingdom of heaven.

Viktor Ryzhko about the making of the film:

This is my most complex and difficult film,” the director said. I worked on it for 7 years. Firstly, the material itself is heavy. Secondly, the means to create a painting have to be obtained with difficulty. The film is not finished yet - eight out of ten episodes have been filmed.

- What prompted you to take up this topic?

I was blessed to create the painting by Father Nikolai Guryanov, an elder of our time. I asked myself: if an Orthodox person was not under anathema, then why should we blaspheme him? I consider it my duty Orthodox man- tell the truth. It is necessary to cleanse the image of Rasputin from the taint of lies. I researched the material in Pokrovskoye, in Verkhoturye, in St. Petersburg... in a word, in all the places where Grigory Efimovich was. For me he is a holy man.

The film is based on the word of Grigory Efimovich. Most often, historical broadcasts contain his prophetic revelation about the future of Russia. It is usually distorted. In “Gregory the New” I voice spiritual scripture - "The Life of an Experienced Wanderer". Everything I do is based on authentic documents. I am a lawyer, and it is impossible to catch me in a lie.

The film is hard to watch. I don’t even mean the tragedy itself, but the language in which it is told. Will the potential viewer be put off by some complexity of the form?

This is a spiritual language, this is a different syllable. Yes, it is difficult to understand, but one cannot speak about holiness in plebeian language. This demeans both the topic and the author. TV has lulled our consciousness, we are weaned from thinking independently. I always struggle with lyrics for a long time. I try to make the word charge, to have a rhythm - you say a phrase, and it begins to charge.

- Tell us about your previous works...

Many forgotten values ​​that I once pointed out in my films have now returned to their place. “The Cathedral of Christ the Savior” (1991) prompted the reconstruction of the temple. In 1992 he made the film “The Romanovs”, then the film “Valley of Dreams”, the film “Return of the Prophet” - this is the prophecy of F.M. Dostoevsky about Russia of the XX century. Films about the spiritual symbolism of the Moscow Kremlin, about Father Nikolai Guryanov, about Peter and Fevronia.

- What, in your opinion, are the prospects for Orthodox cinema?

Orthodox cinema began less than 20 years ago with Boris Karpov’s film “Under the Cover of Grace,” dedicated to the millennium of the baptism of Rus'. I am his student, I worked at his Fatherland studio for seven years. It was he who set such a high bar for professionalism. And God forbid you stay on it. In our life, Orthodox cinema is an alternative to what is shown to us on the TV screen. I believe that Orthodox cinema is the future, because it leads to salvation, it helps to find the path to God. And the fact that there are more and more centers of Orthodox culture in Russia convinces me of the need for such cinema.

Among the numerous names of Russian prophets and clairvoyants, there is hardly one that would be as widely known in our country and abroad as the name of Grigory Rasputin. And it is unlikely that another name from this series would be found around which an equally dense network of mysteries and legends would be woven.

At the end of the 20th century, many secrets of Russian history were revealed to us, however, most of them belong to the so-called Soviet period. But the threshold of this period, and Rasputin’s life, as we know, ended at the very end of 1916, appears before us more and more clearly today. And, of course, without the personality of Grigory Rasputin, without revealing the true essence of his prophecies and prophetic gift, the picture of that relatively recent era will be incomplete. Documents, their careful analysis, comparison of a variety of evidence and other sources make it possible to dispel the fog that hides the image of Rasputin from us.

Grigory Efimovich Rasputin was born on January 10, 1869 in the village of Pokrovskoye, Tyumen district, Tobolsk province. Subsequently, he deliberately concealed the year of his birth, fearing one mystical prediction.

Grigory's father, Efim Yakovlevich, (according to other sources - Andreevich), lived until the end of 1915. According to the stories of fellow villagers, he was a smart and efficient man: he had an eight-room hut, twelve cows, eight horses and was engaged in private carriage. In general, I was not in poverty. And the village of Pokrovskoye itself was considered in the district and in the province - relative to neighboring villages - to be a rich village, since Siberians did not know the poverty of European Russia, did not know serfdom and were distinguished by their self-esteem and independence.

A few hours before his death, feeling that his hour was near, Efim asked to call his son. Grigory was then in Pokrovsky and arrived immediately. Watching with suffering the agony of the dying man, he, terribly worried, said: “Nothing, father, nothing... Soon, father, I’ll be there too... We’ll meet soon...” Thus, Rasputin foresaw his imminent death, which would come through a year after the events described.

Very little information has been preserved about Rasputin’s mother. She died when Gregory was not even eighteen years old. After her death, Rasputin said that she often appears to him in a dream and calls him to her, foreshadowing that he will die before he reaches her age. She died barely over fifty years old, while Rasputin died at the age of forty-seven.

As his father's only assistant (his brothers, the elder and the younger, died in childhood under very mysterious circumstances), Grigory began to work early: he helped herd cattle, participated in various agricultural work, and fished in Tours and surrounding lakes. There was no school in Pokrovsky, and Grisha, like many of his fellow villagers, was illiterate.

Sometimes on endless winter evenings, his father read the Gospel aloud by the light of a torch, and the greatest drama of centuries-old human history unfolded before the peasant boy: faith, love, betrayal, hypocrisy, injustice, lust for power and the burden of power, suffering, cruelty, sin and redemption, poetry and truth - whoever heard or read the Gospel in childhood can imagine its power for a soul inclined to accept and generate a miracle.

According to Rasputin’s stories to his daughters, already in childhood he had the gift of clairvoyance: he always knew if one of his comrades stole something and where he hid it, so he himself never stole, thinking that others would also know about him . When a horse disappeared in the village, he pointed to the thief.

There is a lot of evidence left about this incident, which allows us to reconstruct the picture. On a dark and stormy September night, a crime was committed that alarmed all the residents of Pokrovsky. One of the villagers, Ivan Fedorov, had his horse stolen. Young people and old people had been looking for the thief and the stolen horse since the morning, but to no avail. Tired, soaked to the skin in the rain, they gathered at Efim Rasputin's and talked about their fruitless search. Everyone was extremely outraged by this crime.

Efim’s wife, looking at the guests, asked them to calm down: they were making a lot of noise, and little Grisha was sick. Suddenly the sick child got out of bed and walked over to the table. He was dressed in a long white shirt that reached the floor, his face was unnaturally pale, his wide open blue eyes sparkled strangely. While the guests were recovering from surprise, Grisha was already standing between them, looking around at them with a strange, frightening look. Suddenly he jumped up to the hefty man, grabbed him by the legs and, climbing onto his shoulders, sat on his strong neck, and then shouted shrilly: “Ha, ha! Pyotr Alexandrovich, but it was you who stole the horse! You... You are a thief! ”

Those present felt somehow uneasy. They did not know what to think, because Pyotr Alexandrovich enjoyed great respect among his fellow countrymen and was rich. It was he who was especially indignant when it became known about the theft, and insistently demanded to catch the villain. It seemed that no one believed Gregory, not even his parents.

But when the men went home late in the evening, a spark of doubt ran between them again: Yefim’s guests could not forget the words of the sick boy. Some of them secretly entered Pyotr Alexandrovich's yard at night. And there they suddenly saw Pyotr Alexandrovich, who, trying not to breathe and keeping close to the wall, headed towards the fence at the very end of the yard. A few moments later, the surprised men saw him take the stolen horse out of there and disappear with it in the pitch darkness.

Early in the morning, the men, one after another, knocked on Efim Rasputin’s door and, as soon as they crossed the threshold, vying with each other to tell how they had been watching the villain, how they had captured him and beaten him until he lost consciousness. And now it seemed to them that God himself was speaking through the mouth of the sick boy.

From that time on it went: Gregory could indicate where a long-lost thing lay (he was especially successful in finding horse harness), predict the birth of a boy or girl, determine when it would rain, whether there would be a harvest, whether it was worth selling bread at the market or holding it until better times.

At the age of nineteen, Grigory Rasputin married Praskovya Dubrovina, a fair-haired, dark-eyed girl from a neighboring village. She was four years older than her husband; they were not married, despite their life full of adventures! Gregory turned out to be happy. Rasputin constantly took care of his wife and children - two daughters and a son.

However, worldly passions and vices were not alien to Gregory. According to fellow villagers (who, however, must be treated very carefully), Gregory had a wild and riotous nature: along with charitable deeds, he drove horses while drunk, loved to fight, used foul language, in a word, his marriage did not calm him down. “Grishka the thief” they called him behind his back. “Stealing hay, taking away other people’s firewood - that was his business. He was very rowdy and carousing... How many times they beat him: they pushed him in the neck, like an annoying drunkard, swearing in choice words.”

But internal, hidden forces still outweighed sinfulness. Moving from peasant labor to peasant revelry, Grigory lived in his native Pokrovsky until he was twenty-eight years old, until an inner voice called him to another life, to the life of a wanderer. Wandering for Rasputin was not an end in itself, not a means of escaping life, but introducing a spiritual principle into it, giving it higher meaning through ascetic service. Gregory condemned wanderers for whom pilgrimage became a kind of profession, who avoided physical and mental labor. He categorically did not accept this.

His wanderings began, and with them - new meetings, new discoveries in the amazing Russian life, in himself... In 1892, Gregory went to the provincial town of Verkhotursk (Perm province), to Nikolaevsky monastery, where the relics of Saint Simeon of Verkhoturye were kept, and pilgrims from all over Russia came to venerate them.

On the way to Verkhoturye, Rasputin met a student at the theological academy, novice monk Malyuta Soborovsky. In a conversation with a young peasant about faith and the Church, Malyuta was surprised to realize that this simple man was well versed in the most complex religious issues.

The young theologian tried to convince the perky peasant that it was a great sin to waste such abilities and inclinations on a wild life. The monk’s words sank deeply into Rasputin’s soul. Subconscious feelings and thoughts about God and faith, which once passionately excited little Grisha, flared up in him again.

Rasputin returned home three months later as a completely different person: he stopped drinking, smoking, rowdy behavior, eating meat, began to avoid people, prayed a lot, and learned to read Church Slavonic. He was often seen bending over the Gospel, a black and frayed volume of which he placed on the windowsill and carefully studied.

According to the recollections of Matryona Rasputina, Grigory’s eldest daughter, her father told her how one day he was plowing not far from home and suddenly heard a beautiful and ever-increasing singing behind him. Turning around, he dropped the plow from his hands in surprise, because in front of him he saw “the most beautiful bride - the Mother of God, swaying in the golden rays of the sun. The solemn singing of a thousand angelic voices thundered in the air, joined by the Holy Virgin.”

This vision lasted only a few moments and then suddenly disappeared. Shocked to the core, agitated, Gregory stood motionless on a deserted field, his hands were shaking, and he could no longer work.

Impressed by what he saw, Gregory erected a wooden cross right on the unplowed field. He told about the vision only to his mentor, Elder Macarius, and his closest friend, deciding to keep everything a secret from his fellow villagers. Only at the end of his life did Rasputin tell about the miracle to his daughter.

Rasputin considered himself to be among those people who in Russia have long been called “elders”, “wanderers”. This is a purely Russian phenomenon, and its source is in tragic story Russian people.

Hunger, cold, pestilence, and the cruelty of a tsarist official are the eternal companions of the Russian peasant. Where and from whom can we expect consolation? Only from those against whom even the all-powerful government, not recognizing its own laws, did not dare raise its hand - from people not of this world, from wanderers, holy fools and clairvoyants. In the popular consciousness, these are God's people.

In suffering, in grave torment, the country emerging from the Middle Ages, not knowing what awaited it ahead, looked superstitiously at these amazing people- wanderers, wanderers, who were not afraid of anything or anyone, who dared to speak the truth loudly. Often, wanderers were called elders, although according to the concepts of that time, a thirty-year-old person could sometimes be considered an old man.

Russian deep life changed over time towards European civilization, but old age and wandering, as a phenomenon, overcame the turn of the 20th century. By this time, the elders were already followed by a meaningful historical tradition, and the halo of ancient holiness was already hovering over them. Perhaps nowhere else, except in Russia, has antiquity stood so firmly against newness. And this was felt not only among the lower ranks of the people, but to some extent at the top of society too.

By the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, the craving for antiquity in some court circles even, perhaps, intensified. There were many reasons for this... In aristocratic spheres, there was growing anxiety about an unpredictable future, which gave rise to longing for the “Russian originality” that was fading into oblivion, a craving for historical roots, the traditions of grandfathers and great-grandfathers. It seemed that one should look there for the sources that fed and are still capable of feeding the sovereign the power of Russia.

Having visited the Nikolaev Monastery for the first time and returning to his native village, Rasputin set off on a new journey a month later. And his path again lay towards Verkhoturye. Twelve miles from the district center, in the so-called “Perm forests,” lived a schema-monk, Father Macarius, with whom Gregory spent most of his new - more than three-month - pilgrimage and whom he revered all his life as his only mentor.

The monastery of Macarius was located in the very depths of the forest, and the path to it was not close. It was an extremely wretched hut in which the old man spent almost his entire adult life, in renunciation of everything earthly. Heavy chains entangled his weak, withered body. But these chains did not burden the weak old man.

Entering the elder’s cell for the first time, Gregory fell to the ground, kissing the withered hands of Saint Macarius, clad in iron. Then he confessed his entire sinful life, his evil thoughts, base passions, talked about the phenomena that happened to him, about the gift sent to him by God. Rasputin spoke about his weaknesses and doubts that sharpened his soul, about the inner voice punishing him to devote himself to serving the Lord.
“Rejoice, my son,” Macarius said in response, “after all, among many thousands, the Lord chose you!” You will do great things. Leave your wife and children, your home and father, leave your horses and go into the world, wander! You will hear the voice of the earth and understand its words, and only then will you return to the people and bring them the words of our holy land and the Orthodox faith!

Having secluded himself in a forest hut on the advice of the elder, the young novice exhausted his body with fasting and long prayers, hoping to strengthen his fragile spirit. Macarius taught Rasputin to read and write, helped him understand Holy Bible. In an emotional outburst, Rasputin told Macarius about his vision of the Virgin Mary.
“God has chosen you for great deeds,” Macarius repeated his words and, making the sign of the cross over Gregory, sent him on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Before parting, the young wanderer said that he had seen the fate of the schema-monk: that Macarius would live to a ripe old age, that they would honor him only during his lifetime, and after death no one would throw even a handful of earth on his mortal remains. Macarius only smiled humbly: everything is God’s will. But Rasputin turned out to be right. When the elder died, his name was forgotten.

Having visited two more northern schema-monks, Ilya of Valaam and Andrian of Kyrtym, Rasputin and his fellow countryman and friend Mikhail Pecherkin went to Athos, and from there to Jerusalem. They walked most of the way, enduring many hardships. But the suffering, spiritual and physical, paid off handsomely when they saw with their own eyes the Garden of Gethsemane, the Mount of Olives (Eleon), and the Holy Sepulcher, and Bethlehem.

Returning to Russia, Rasputin continued to travel. I was in Kyiv, Trinity-Sergiev, Solovki, Valaam, Sarov, Pochaev, Optina Hermitage, Nilov, the Holy Mountains, that is, in all places somewhat famous for their holiness.

“During the pilgrimage I often had to endure all sorts of troubles and misfortunes,” wrote Rasputin, “so it happened that murders were undertaken against me... and more than once I was attacked by wolves, they scattered, and more than once predators attacked, they wanted to kidnap and rob me He told them that it is not mine, but everything that is God’s, you take it from me - I will give it to you with joy. He will say something special in their hearts, they will think and say: where are you from and what is wrong with you, this man? , a brother sent to you and devoted to God.”

At the same time, his mystical gifts developed. Wandering through cities and towns, he preached gospel sermons and told parables. Little by little he returned to prophecies, to conjuring demons, to witchcraft; rumors spread that he “performed miracles.” He either healed the sick, then pointed out a thief, or predicted a fire or a flood.

Thanks to continuously repeated prophecies and sermons, the rumor about his holiness increased every day. But the boundaries of the rural world became increasingly narrower for him. Gregory was again and again attracted to large, noisy cities. And in the unbearably hot summer of 1904, the roads brought him to the Russian capital.

He was dressed in old trousers, already torn in places and clumsily mended, in a faded cotton shirt with a slanted collar, a thin knapsack was slung over his shoulder, and worn boots with worn-out heels and numerous patches were attached to the front. Gregory walked barefoot. In order not to knock his feet, he tried to step only on railway sleepers hot in the sun.

St. Petersburg then thirsted for new names, loud sensations and violent scandals. And he waited: Grigory Rasputin’s star soon rose in the capital’s sky. The number of admirers and followers of the prophet grew rapidly, as did opponents, hidden and overt. Grigory meets representatives of the Russian nobility, the doors of aristocratic salons, poetry cafes, and professorial circles open before him. He is invited to pray and give spiritual advice, to predict who is destined to live in this world and how many years. As a rule, he did not refuse anyone. In that difficult, troubled time, once here and there terrorist bombs exploded and shots rang out, the Russian average man needed spiritual support more than ever, separating a person from the cruelties and horrors of the world around him.

People came to Rasputin with various religious questions and everyday problems. As eyewitnesses say, after an early mass in some church, pilgrims gathered around him, listening to his instructions and listening to simple prophecies. For many representatives of high society, after court intrigues, conversations with him served as a natural consolation. And he gave small gifts to commoners. His passionate admirers claimed that all these objects received from the hands of Rasputin had a secret (prophetic) meaning: “Whatever gift each parishioner receives, so will his future life.”

Rasputin easily spoke to strangers - on the street and on the train, in a hotel and on a country road, in the center of Moscow and St. Petersburg or on the outskirts of a remote Siberian village. Such sociability, however, often caused dull irritation among those whom he considered “closest.” He himself, with the exception of rare outbursts of anger, was friendly and even with everyone: there was not a single mention of his arrogance or deliberate rudeness. Gregory was outraged precisely by the fact that “the dirty man behaves with them as an equal.”

At the first meeting, Rasputin shook hands for a long time, peering intently into the eyes of his interlocutor, forcing him to lower his gaze. This simple trick, which allows one to remember Rasputin even after a completely random meeting, usually worked. Almost always, meeting him brought excitement, interest, and into a sorrowful soul - cheerfulness, hope, consolation and even joy. How smart and sensitive person, Grigory Rasputin knew how to understand someone else’s suffering and sometimes with a few questions, well-timed words, with some barely noticeable comparison, weaken or even completely “remove it from the soul.”

Gaining influence, Rasputin almost never refused help. He did not demand, but accepted the money and gifts offered to him - with indifference large amounts from the rich man and with gratitude the little ones from the poor man. But “he accepted money only in those cases if he could help someone with it,” wrote one of his friends. He also said that if a rich man came to Rasputin’s house with a request, the owner would say: “There is a rich man who wants to distribute his money among the poor.” “Rasputin was neither a lover of money nor a money-grubber,” one of his enemies noted. “He could get as much money as he wanted... he received a lot, but he gave away what he received with a generous hand.”

Rasputin donated a lot: for the construction of churches, for the treatment of a sick child, for the “pension” of a forgotten old man. This does not mean, of course, that he did not care about his family and himself: for his family he built a two-story house in Pokrovskoye, he strived for his daughters to be admitted to the best metropolitan gymnasiums and found an apartment for myself almost in the very center of St. Petersburg.

The number of Rasputin's admirers grew day by day, and at the same time his fame grew. Many - including Rasputin's ill-wishers - believed that he was fluent in the skills of hypnosis. His future killer Felix Yusupov said that he once complained to Rasputin about getting tired too quickly. He immediately “put me down on the sofa, stood in front of me and, looking intently into my eyes, began stroking my chest, neck and head. Then he suddenly dropped to his knees and, as it seemed to me, began to pray, placing both hands on my His forehead was not visible - he bowed his head so low. He stood in this position for quite a long time, then with a quick movement he jumped to his feet and began to make passes... The power of Rasputin’s hypnosis was enormous. I felt how this power covered me. warmth spreads throughout my whole body. At the same time, I was completely in a daze. I tried to speak, but my tongue did not obey me, and I slowly fell into sleep... Only Rasputin’s eyes shone in front of me with some kind of phosphorescent light, growing larger. and merging into one bright circle...”

Hypnosis was generally cited as the simplest explanation for all of Rasputin’s talents. He is “an amazing hypnotist,” the Minister of Internal Affairs A.N. Khvostov used to say. “He doesn’t work on me, because I have some kind of irregularity, or something, in the structure of my eyes. But his influence is so strong that he Even the most seasoned detectives succumb, for which, you know, these people went through fire, water and copper pipes...”

“But when I saw him, I felt completely depressed,” he reasoned later, contradicting himself. “... Rasputin put pressure on me, he had great power of hypnosis.”
Rasputin’s eldest daughter Matryona, on the contrary, repeatedly repeated that her father “had not only disgust, but simply horror for such things. I remember how one day a famous hypnotist came to my father with the words: “My dear colleague.” His father, in irritation, threw him out of the house.”

Judging by Grigory Rasputin’s attitude, his daughter’s words are closer to the truth. It is possible that with his amazing gaze, smooth and mysterious movements of his hands, he suppressed the will of those who turned to him for help. It cannot be ruled out that Rasputin had the rare ability to generate the so-called “biological field.” His daughter Matryona repeatedly mentioned “nervous force, vitality emanating from her father’s eyes, from his exceptionally long, beautiful hands.”

With great confidence we can say that Rasputin’s inner strength relied on the strength of his faith and the strength of his will. True, Rasputin did not have enough education to create some semblance of a belief system. He himself saw the only explanation for his own strength in the fact that “God’s will acts through him.”

Rasputin felt his patient, believed that he could cure him, and through the effort of his will, through prayer, he conveyed this faith to him. In essence, his treatment of “bodies” was no different from the treatment of “souls” and required trust and submission from the patient. If his will met someone else’s, then most of his inner strength could simply be spent on overcoming it.

The power emanating from Rasputin was felt not only by those who knew him closely, but also by complete strangers, many of whom had never heard of Grigory Efimovich. Anna Vyrubova told the Empress how “at one of the small stations in the Urals... there were two trains of freight cars with Chinese workers... Seeing Grigory Efimovich at the carriage, the whole crowd of Chinese rushed towards him, surrounded him, and everyone tried to get to him It was in vain that the foremen tried to persuade them to return to the carriages. Our train started moving. The Chinese saw him off with exclamations and waving their hands.”

Rasputin did not waste time, the circle of his acquaintances grew day by day: people and destinies, destinies and people. A unique passage of time and life. What brought people to Grigory Rasputin? Not only illness, grief, love, admiration, loneliness, thirst for consolation, but also self-interest, meanness, the ineradicable search for an answer to the eternal questions of life, which no one can definitively answer. Tens, hundreds, thousands of visitors and petitioners. They walked in a continuous line. People of all strata, nationalities, conditions and classes - from the last beggar to the prime minister.

Early in the morning, there was a cautious knock on the door of the room Rasputin was renting. There were two guests: a tall and thin priest and a squat, strong-built, well-dressed gentleman with a cane. The first is Georgy Gapon, then an unknown student at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. The second is a professor at St. Petersburg and Moscow universities, Doctor of Economics, writer and entrepreneur, publicist and adventurer Ivan Khristoforovich Ozerov.

The purpose of their early visit to Rasputin was the desire to consult with Grigory Efimovich about the creation of independent workers' societies in St. Petersburg and Moscow, the main task of which is to distract the capital's proletarians from the armed struggle with the authorities and turn them to purely peaceful means of protecting their interests and rights.

Rasputin, after listening to Professor Ozerov’s almost half-hour monologue, replied:
- Your intention is laudable. Human blood is precious. It’s a sin to spill it, oh, it’s a sin. We are not Cains... But lazily gawking from the sidelines at the murder of our brothers is even worse... Do a good deed, do it... God will help you. - Rasputin hesitated. - I hope that your concerns will find a response in the souls of our brothers. But I sense that you will have a lot of enemies, oh a lot... As if everything would end in new blood... (Rasputin looked into the water: it all ended bloody on January 9, 1905, when troops opened fire on the peaceful march of workers to the Tsar’s palace.)

In the summer of 1905, Grigory Efimovich became closely acquainted with Countess Sofia Sergeevna Ignatieva (nee Princess Meshcherskaya). The salon of Countess Ignatieva was something like a “shadow cabinet of ministers,” it was often visited by the Grand Duchesses Militsa and Anastasia (Stana) Nikolaevna with the latter’s husband, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, as well as prominent political and government figures, journalists, writers, and servants of Melpomene. The Countess sought to surround her salon with an aura of significance and democracy, so “people of the people” were invited here - simple village men or clergy from God-forsaken corners of Russia. They were surrounded by everyone's attention, asked all sorts of questions, but never argued, keeping their opinions to themselves.

The appearance of Elder Gregory in the salon was a real shock for many. Countess Rasputin predicted that she would outlive her children (they would die during the Civil War), and Anastasia and Militsa that they would die in exile, first the youngest, and then the eldest, to Marshal Alexander Taneyev - the favor of the emperor and promotion, to Baron Stolz - death from an accident, Princess Belozerskaya - fire in the estate.
Grigory Efimovich amazed everyone with his deep knowledge of the Gospel.

Stana and Militsa were already crazy about him after their first meeting with the elder. What struck them most was Gregory's answer to the question of when their father would become king of Montenegro. Rasputin, thinking for just a few moments, replied: “... in five years.” (Note that this happened in the summer of 1905, and five years later Nicholas I, their father, became the Montenegrin king).

At the same time, Rasputin met the queen’s maid of honor, Anna Alexandrovna Vyrubova. At the first meeting with her, Rasputin allegorically remarked that life path it is strewn not with roses, but with prickly burrs; her cross is very heavy, but all difficulties are only for the good, for in trials and blows of fate a person improves.

Grigory turned out to be right in many respects: Vyrubova’s personal life did not work out, her husband turned out to be a scoundrel, her friendship with the Tsar and Tsarina turned into a tragedy for her (after the revolution she faced a mock investigation and imprisonment in the Peter and Paul Fortress), due to an accident she became disabled person on crutches. Soon, thanks to the Montenegrin princesses, their enterprising relatives and Vyrubova, the road to Tsarskoye Selo, the residence of the Russian monarchs, opened for Rasputin. His appearance there was to some extent facilitated by the death in July 1905 of the French fortuneteller and healer Philippe Nitzier-Vacheau. Three years earlier, the same Montenegrin princesses introduced him into the royal family, and since then he often visited Russia, enjoying the exceptional trust and favor of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. In one of their last meetings, Dr. Philip predicted to the imperial couple that they would soon have “a dear friend who would talk to them about God.”

True, even during Dr. Philip’s lifetime (and especially after he stopped visiting St. Petersburg), new “miracle workers” began to appear at court, supposedly capable of helping the empress fulfill her cherished desire - to give birth to an heir (before that she had given birth to four girls). However, unlike the French occultist, the new “miracle workers” were not doctors and “salon magicians”, but holy fools, Russian “possessed”.

It was at the beginning of the 20th century that the Tsar and Tsarina met “Russian mystics”: “Sandless Pasha” - in the words of the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, “an evil, dirty and crazy woman”, blessed Daria Osipovna, “the wanderer Anthony”, “Sandal Vasya” , tongue-tied Mitya Kozelsky, aka “Kolyaba”, aka “Gugnivy”.

These people are much less pleasant to talk to than “Monsieur Philippe” with his radiant and kind eyes, graceful manners and quiet, insinuating voice. They could often be found in any Russian village, be it near Moscow or St. Petersburg or in the deepest provinces These were mostly feeble-minded men, much less often women, most often suffering from epilepsy. The feeble-mindedness of these rural idiots was perceived in the eyes of the people as a sign of God, and epilepsy gave them additional “holiness”.

The rural population and even city dwellers have long believed that the defective, deaf-mute, epileptics and idiots are especially loved by God and that the spirit of God is manifested in their incomprehensible mooing, meaningless sounds, wild cries and convulsive shaking. These “poor in spirit” were considered the chosen ones, to whom miraculous powers were attributed and exceptional honors were given.

However, none of them were able to help the empress. And yet a miracle happened. In July 1903, the imperial couple was in Sarov in connection with the canonization of Seraphim of Sarov. Late at night, the empress swam in the pond, where even in winter Saint Seraphim bathed. And 12 months and 12 days after praying at the saint’s tomb and swimming in the pond, she gave birth to a son, named Alexei.

But parental happiness, as it turned out, was short-lived. Already on September 8, 1904, the tsar wrote in his diary with alarm: “We are very concerned about the bleeding of little Alexei.” It soon became clear that the heir had hemophilia, a mysterious blood non-clotting disease that affects men and is transmitted through women. Alexei received the affected genes from his mother, and she through his mother from his grandmother, Queen Victoria of Great Britain. The slightest bruise could cause internal bleeding and end in death - from now on, the father and mother were destined to live in constant fear for the life of their only and long-awaited son, the heir to the Russian throne. Fear for the life of their son, who could die from it. his incurable illness became their obsession.

Given the inclination of the emperor and empress to mysticism, most of all they would have liked a person alien to political and court dirt, but close to God and the people. More than a year after the heir’s first bleeding, Nicholas II wrote in his diary: “We met the man of God Gregory from the Tobolsk province.”

Shortly before this, the heir’s illness worsened sharply. The best Russian doctors could do nothing to help him. And then Stana, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, came to the already desperate empress. She began to whisper in a whisper about a strange man from Siberia, about a holy pilgrim whom she and Militsa had recently met. He is an extraordinary man, wiser and more endowed with God's power than Mr. Philip. She, Stana, does not want to blaspheme, but she believes that with his holiness this man exceeds the holiness of even Father John of Kronstadt. Not only she and her sister Milica think so, but also Father John himself.
“Do you remember, dear Alyx,” continued the Grand Duchess, “what Doctor Philip told you before he left?” He predicted that God would send you and Nicky a new friend who would be your support! Trust me, Alyx! He will be the friend Philip spoke about! He will save Russia for Nika and cure your son! God sent it to you!

And soon Rasputin appeared in Tsarskoye Selo. Entering the heir's room, Rasputin immediately knelt down in the corner in front of the icon and sang a prayer in a low voice. Having finished, he stood up, approached the sick man’s bed, bent over the boy and crossed him.

Alyosha, unexpectedly opening his eyes, fixed his gaze on an unfamiliar bearded man, who smiled meaningfully and friendly at him. At first, the boy was even scared, but immediately felt that the stranger would not do anything bad to anyone; the bearded man radiated warmth.
- Just don’t be afraid, Alyosha, everything will be fine! - the stranger told him in his kind and at the same time strong voice.

The boy, who had a high fever, thought that some kind of God's voice was speaking to him.
- You see, dear Alyosha! - the stranger continued, stroking the boy from head to toe. - You no longer have unbearable pain! Nothing hurts you anymore, and tomorrow you will be healthy! Then you will see how fun you and I will play!

The somewhat emboldened boy liked the rough caress of those hard, calloused hands. He smiled. And Grigory Efimovich told Alyosha about the noisy games that he played in his native village with other peasant children. Then he told about the vast, untrodden expanses of Siberia, about the desolation of snow-covered spaces beyond the Urals. And this whole region belongs to Alexei’s father and mother, and one day it will belong to him, but for this he needs to grow up, get healthy and be strong.

The boy listened to these stories with increasing attention, his body straightened, and a sparkle appeared in his eyes. He forgot about the pain, stretched out his leg and sat higher on the pillows to better see the dark-bearded stranger and hear his leisurely story. And he continued to talk about Siberia, and then switched to fairy tales. With great attention, the boy listened to tales about the Little Humpbacked Horse, a knight without legs and a knight without eyes, Alyonushka and brother Ivanushka, an unfaithful princess who turned into a white duck, about Ivan Tsarevich and Elena the Beautiful.

It was already late, the clock struck midnight, and, smiling, Rasputin said:
- Tomorrow, Alyosha, I’ll tell you even more! Now go to sleep, sleep and gain strength!
When Rasputin left the emperor's office, the queen, deeply moved, kissed his hand with gratitude.
Rasputin crossed her and said:
- Believe only in the power of my prayer, and your son will live!

A few days later he was again in the room of the sick Alexei, and a week later the heir recovered. But it was not enough to please the imperial couple; the royal court lived by the saying: the king favors, but the huntsman does not favor. His “colleagues in occultism” took up arms against Gregory, who did not want to lose their position in the royal palace.

The emperor did not know about the confrontation that had arisen among the holy fools, clairvoyants and miracle workers: the competition among them was no less fierce than in the royal circle.
Grigory Efimovich needed to defeat several formidable opponents. These were clairvoyants and miracle workers who tried to defend their positions at court. And in this struggle, victory remained with him.

Rasputin differed from dubious personalities, “sandals”, clairvoyants and soothsayers and the like by his amazing willpower, amazing predictions and the absence of even a hint of any external effect. He did not suffer from epilepsy, did not wander barefoot in the snow, and was not disabled. In addition, he predicted to each of his “colleagues” future fate. He prophesied a terrible death on a remote island for Mitya Kozelsky, a serious illness for Daria Osipovna, and death under the wheels of a train for sandaled Vasya. At court, he immediately established himself as a person with the gift of predicting events, although sometimes dressing his predictions in a mysterious form.

“He often visited the royal family...” Vyrubova recalled many years later. “The Grand Duchesses and the heir were present at these conversations... The Emperor and Empress simply called Rasputin - Grigory, he called them “dad” and “mama.” They kissed at meetings, but neither Nikolai Alexandrovich nor Alexandra Fedorovna ever kissed his hands. Their Majesties always talked about the health of the heir and the worries that worried them at that moment. When he left after an hour-long conversation with his family, he always left them. The Majesties are cheerful, with joyful hopes and hope in their souls.”

Alexandra Fedorovna treated him with reverence: in conversation with him she called him Georgiy, and behind his back - Father Georgiy, in correspondence with Nikolai - friend. In conversations with Vyrubova, she said that she believed in the power of his prayer.

Rasputin gave the Tsar confidence, especially at the height of the revolution, when the Tsar and Tsarina were frightened not only by the terror that was sweeping the country, but more so by the preaching of the Volyn Archbishop Anthony about the “end times.”

“And for a long time I persuaded them to ignore all their fears and reign,” Grigory Efimovich himself later recalled. “Everyone did not agree. I started stamping my feet and shouting at them so that they would listen to me. The first empress surrendered, and the tsar followed her... ”

In May 1916, Grigory Rasputin assured Alexandra Feodorovna that when Alexei turned twelve years old, his health would begin to improve... And in fact, in the second half of 1916, Alexei began to recover. His terrible illness receded more and more, and by 1917 he looked better. But the last period of Alexei Nikolaevich’s life, from March 1917 to the summer of 1918, turned out to be one of the worst, with repeated attacks of hemophilia caused by bleeding. It got to the point that he could no longer move independently, and his father or mother took him for a walk in a wheelchair.

“Now they treat me and pray, but there is no benefit,” the heir himself said when Rasputin died. “And he used to come, bring me an apple, stroke me on the sore spot, and I immediately feel better.”

And let us return again to 1905, at the time of revolutionary unrest. Cossack patrols galloped along the alleys of the Tsarskoye Selo park, the royal court languished in anxiety and expectation of something terrible. The inhabitants of the imperial chambers calmed down only with the appearance of Rasputin. But one day he added to their concern.
- Stop! - Rasputin exclaimed, barely crossing the threshold, and suddenly began to rush around the rooms among the furniture.

The royal couple were speechless, watching him. Grigory Efimovich approached the emperor and empress and said in one breath:
- Come on, mom, show me where your son plays.

He was taken to Alexei’s “playing” room - a large and bright hall, which housed a huge arsenal of all kinds of toys, and a massive crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling.

Rasputin only glanced at the room:
- Tell your people not to let Alyoshenka into this room. No matter what sin happens. And you, dad, believe me. That's how I see it.
The hall was immediately sealed.

A few days later, the palace was shaken by a terrible roar - a chandelier fell from the ceiling of the “playing” room. When it hit the floor, it was smashed to pieces. There were conflicting rumors about this incident, some said that this was an assassination attempt that was being prepared against the heir to the throne by the Socialist Revolutionaries. Others claimed that the fall of the chandelier is the result of the deformation of buildings in Tsarskoe Selo. Popular rumors can give rise to the most incredible versions, but the fact remains: Rasputin’s prediction saved Alexei from imminent death.

Kyiv, end of August 1911. The city was preparing for the arrival of the Tsar for the opening of the monument to Alexander II. On August 25, Prime Minister Stolypin arrived, and on the 29th, the Tsar and his family arrived.
Driving along the main street, Alexandra Fedorovna saw Rasputin in the front rows of the crowd shouting “hurray.”

“The Empress Grigory Efimovich recognized her, nodded to him... And he baptized her,” a member of the Union of the Russian People, who was entrusted with the secret care of Rasputin, later said. But when Stolypin’s crew appeared, “Grigory Efimovich suddenly began to shake all over... Death is behind him !.. Death is coming for him...” As you know, two days later Stolypin was mortally wounded by a terrorist.

Rasputin’s apartment, located at 64 Gorokhovaya Street (almost in the center of St. Petersburg), was visited not only by ladies of Balzac’s age, who wanted to at least touch the elder or hear his speech, but also by statesmen, “burdened with thoughts about the most important matters”...

Politicians and dignitaries of all ranks visited him not without hidden interest and intent: some - to understand for themselves what the phenomenon of Rasputin is, others - with a desire to reduce Rasputin’s influence to nothing, others - in an effort to get the old man as an ally, and others - in hopes of , apparently, in his memoirs in his old age, to mention this incident for the edification of descendants... For many of them, Rasputin predicted their fate or their loved ones with amazing accuracy.

Grigory Rasputin learned about the beginning of the First World War in the Tyumen infirmary. He ended up there after a certain mentally ill Guseva wounded him in the stomach with a soldier’s cleaver in his native village of Pokrovskoye. And soon Rasputin sends the Tsar an amazing letter of prediction. Let's quote his text: “Dear friend, I’ll tell you, there’s a terrible cloud that’s scattering, there’s trouble, there’s a lot of grief, there’s a lot of darkness and there’s no light, there’s a sea of ​​tears and there’s no measure, and there’s no blood? What can I say? There are no words, indescribable horror, I know everything the warriors want from you and the faithful don’t know what for death, God’s punishment is heavy, when will the beginning of the end take place here. You, the Tsar, the father of the people, do not allow the madmen to triumph and destroy themselves and the people, so they will defeat Germany, but it was truly impossible to think so from the ages of the bitter sufferer, all drowning in the blood of the great destruction of endless sadness. .

Later, Rasputin said more than once that the outbreak of war would lead to the collapse of the Romanov monarchy. He, Vyrubova emphasized, often told Their Majesties that with the war everything would be over for Russia and for them. The only salvation was a quick exit from the war, at least at the cost of a separate peace - in general, “as for the various alliances there, the alliances are good as long as there is no war.” Let other nations fight for themselves - “this is their misfortune and blindness. They won’t find anything and will only kill themselves more quickly. And we, lovingly and quietly, looking into ourselves, will again become higher than everyone else”...

“If Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich had listened to Rasputin and concluded that same Brest-Litovsk Peace, then there would have been no revolution in Russia,” Russian exiles of the so-called “first wave” of emigration lamented many years later.
- This war is not pleasing to God! “All this portends great disasters for the peasant,” Rasputin constantly repeated.

Grigory Efimovich not only foreshadowed enormous disasters for the warring peoples, but tried with his advice to warn the command against reckless military operations that threatened to turn into rivers of blood. By the way, many of Rasputin’s military advice, which he was always accused of, were, as a rule, very successful.

In a letter to Nikolai Alexandrovich in November 1915, the Empress reported:
“Now, so as not to forget, I must convey to you an order from our Friend, caused by his night vision. He asks you to order an offensive to begin near Riga, says that this is necessary, otherwise the Germans will sit there firmly for the whole winter, which will cost a lot blood, and it will be difficult to force them to leave. Now we will take them by surprise and make them retreat. He says that now this is the most important thing, and he urgently asks you to order ours to advance. He says that we can and do. must do this, and asked me to write to you about it immediately...”

But the offensive began on the Southwestern Front, and in the Baltics, Russian troops suffered a series of serious defeats, which subsequently led to the fall of Riga, the central link of the Russian defensive line in this region.

From a letter dated October 12, 1916, Rasputin, according to Alexandra Fedorovna, begs to “stop the useless bloodshed” - attacks in the Kovel direction. But the offensive continued (Niki’s stubborn uncle Nikolai Nikolaevich, having learned that the advice was coming from Rasputin, “bombarded” Nicholas II telegrams, urging not to give in to the advice of a “rude and uncouth man”), the losses of the Russian army amounted to hundreds of thousands of killed and wounded. But there were no results.

Few people listened to the prophecies of Grigory Efimovich: wartime developed its own system of values, in which human life occupied one of the last places. For the first time, the elder feels unnecessary with his sermons and predictions. Even Nicholas II seemed to be trying to avoid meeting with him, citing urgent matters at Headquarters. Many former followers of Rasputin refused to understand his speeches about the evil and suffering caused by war. For ordinary people, the cries of the yellow press about the need to conquer the Bosporus and Dardanelles turned out to be more significant.

During these years, Grigory Efimovich often left Petrograd; he sought peace in his native Pokrovsky, but wherever he was, his telegrams to the Tsar and Tsarina came from everywhere. Surprisingly, but true: once you carefully read the text of some of the messages (original stylistic miniatures) and compare them with a number of historical facts, you are amazed at the subconscious insight that Rasputin was endowed with.

Tyumen - Petrograd, July 13, 1914: “It doesn’t exist and it’s not necessary; the left wants diplomats to know how to do it, try so that it doesn’t happen, they found out that we have unrest, it’s a shame that I can’t come.” The speech, let us explain, was about the question Russia's entry into the war: is it worth it, and who benefits from it?

Tyumen - Petrograd, July 20, 1914: “Oh, dear dear, we treated them with love and they prepared swords and acted on us for years, I am firmly convinced that I have experienced all kinds of evil and the attacker will receive deceit a hundredfold, the Grace of the Lord is strong under her we will remain as a cover in greatness.” This telegram is about relations with the Germans, about which the Russians had the best ideas until the very beginning of the war.

After the outbreak of hostilities Russian society a wave of chauvinism swept over us. Not only Germans were persecuted, but also Jews and Crimean Tatars. Rasputin warned that such actions would backfire. After 1917, a surge of national revolutions followed; entire districts, provinces, principalities and khanates separated from Russia. And most of all Russian blood was shed where at one time the surge of Russian chauvinism reached its highest point.

Pokrovskoe - Tsarskoe Selo, August 3, 1915: “Remember the promise of the meeting, it was the Lord who showed the banner of victory and children against or close friends of the heart, we must say let’s go up the stairs, there is no reason for our spirit to be embarrassed by the banner.” At this time, family squabbles flared up with renewed vigor in the imperial family: children blamed their parents, uncles blamed their nephews, and brothers blamed each other. The war did not unite, but, on the contrary, intensified the contradictions between the great princes.

Tyumen - Tsarskoe Selo, September 11, 1915: “The time has come, they envy living dead, the earth will immediately ask the earth if it passed through you, don’t you have a king and I have a king, the Lord will look at us, with cheerful eyes, let us have reason.” The Russian army left the fortresses of Rovno, Grodno and Brest-Litovsk, its losses were more than one and a half million people killed, wounded and captured.

In 1915, Rasputin’s book “My Thoughts and Reflections” was published. It contains the following insights: “It’s time to scatter stones, and time to collect them. The holy graves will soon be desecrated by the invasion of the barbarians, who still found peace in faith. The demon has taken possession of their souls, and it covers their eyes with red - the color of blood. I see the ashes and dead bodies of our brothers and sisters, desecrated Orthodox shrines... Many years will pass, and the grandchildren of those who desecrated their parents’ graves will shake off the defilement and take the true path. Their prayers and labors and with God's help the Orthodox faith will once again take its place in the hearts of those who suffer worthy place, And the barbarians will be left with the curse of their great-grandchildren, lies and violence, may they be punished...”

In the spring of 1916, while attending Easter service with his two daughters and the imperial family, Rasputin felt strangely dizzy. Groaning quietly, he left the temple and sat down on the cushions of the carriage in which he had arrived. Having calmed down, the elder said to the upset Alexandra Feodorovna, Matryona and Varvara, who bombarded him with questions: “Don’t worry, my little doves. I just had a vision, a very terrible vision... My body hung on this bell tower, and I celebrated my death... “What agony. Lord... Pray for me, my dear ones, my hour is near...”

On the night of December 17, 1916 (old style), Rasputin was killed. They found a note in his old sheepskin coat (Matrona wrote, according to her father): “I feel that I will pass away before the first of January. I want to tell the Russian people, Dad, Mom and the children what they should do. If I am killed by ordinary murderers and my fellow peasants, then, Tsar of Russia, you will not have to fear for your children. They will reign for many more centuries. But if the nobles destroy me, if they shed my blood, then their hands will be stained with my blood for twenty-five years. they will leave Russia. Brother will rise up against brother. They will hate and kill each other, and for twenty-five years there will be no peace in Russia. The Tsar of the Russian land, if you hear the ringing of the bell, which will tell you that Gregory has been killed, know that one of them. yours orchestrated my death, and none of you, none of your children will live more than two years. They will be killed... I will no longer be among the living. Pray for your blessed family!

Shortly before his tragic death, Rasputin spoke to Alexandra Feodorovna, and she conveyed this to the Tsar in a letter dated December 8, 1916. “Our Friend says that the turmoil has come, which was supposed to be in Russia during or after the war...”

And the turmoil came... In the large and small Petrograd factories, in weaving factories and tiny workshops, in the Baltic shipyard, in the port, in the working-class suburbs of the capital, in the soldiers' barracks and in the sailors' quarters, there was restlessness. Dissatisfied townspeople held meetings, went to demonstrations and rallies, quit their jobs, speakers openly called for a riot, a struggle against the high cost and shortage of bread and fuel, against the government and against the tsar. The police asked for help from the military, but the army units and Cossacks that appeared refused to shoot at the rioters and dissatisfied people.

“What terrible times we are going through now!” Alexandra Feodorovna wrote to her husband on February 22, 1917. “I sympathize with you and worry with you much more than words can describe. What should we do? I can only pray. Our faithful friend Rasputin is praying for us in heaven. Now he is even closer to me. With what desire I would listen to his soothing and comforting voice now!”

IN last days February, tensions increased every hour and minute. There were severe frosts in Petrograd, Moscow and many provincial cities, but there was no firewood to keep the cold apartments warm. This made the situation even worse. The population was starving, the supply of bread was decreasing. Crowds of people stood in front of the grain warehouses. It happened more and more often that the masses lost patience and, having lost control of themselves, destroyed grocery stores and bread shops, and beat up their especially hated owners.

During these stormy days, the queen often recalled how Rasputin, before his death, told Nicholas II that the main thing for him, the Russian emperor, was the delivery of bread to the capital center, “so that the people would not lose faith in the love of their king,” for “revolutions are not accomplished by the hungry, but those who have not been fed at least for a day.”

But Rasputin was no longer among the living, no one remembered his advice. And the situation in Russia kept getting worse. Powerful demonstrations literally shook the capital, demonstrators demanding bread and peace. On Nevsky Prospekt there were bloody clashes every day with the few units still loyal to the government and the emperor trying to maintain order. Russian army officers and police officers died from a knife or a terrorist's bullet. The number of victims grew every day.

General discontent and rebellion soon turned against the government and the Romanov dynasty. The slogans changed, instead of demands for bread and peace, dissatisfied inhabitants chanted: “Down with autocracy!” - they sang “La Marseillaise” and demanded the immediate resignation of the cabinet of ministers and the abdication of the tsar. The government could no longer control the situation; ministers almost voluntarily refused to fulfill their duties.
Soon the capital's garrison rebelled and even the guards, accompanied by an orchestra, went over to the side of the rebels.

During these critical times, Nikolai Alexandrovich was at Headquarters, far from rebellious Petrograd. Having heard the first reports of unrest, he, apparently under the impression of these alarming news, informed his inner circle that he would willingly abdicate the throne in favor of his son if the people really wanted this. Nicholas II was ready to leave for Livadia and devote himself to his family. But when increasingly alarming telegrams began to arrive from the capital, he, as had happened more than once in his life, changed his mind and ordered military units still loyal to him to be sent to Petrograd, ordering to suppress the rebellion by force.

But this attempt also ended in failure. On March 15, at the stop between Headquarters and Tsarskoe Selo, in the saloon car of his train, the Russian Emperor presented Duma deputies V.V. Shulgin and A.I. Guchkov with an act of abdication in favor of his brother Mikhail.

On March 22, the former emperor, already as a prisoner of the new - Provisional - government, returned to Tsarskoye Selo, where his entire family, his wife, four daughters and son (the children had just recovered from measles), were under vigilant control revolutionary soldiers and Petrograd commissars.

On the night of March 22-23, 1917, literally three months after the death of Grigory Rasputin, after the first days of all-intoxicating freedom, the coffin with his body was secretly transferred from the Tsarskoye Selo chapel to the Pargolovsky forest, to a large clearing, fifteen miles from the outskirts of Petrograd . There, in a clearing, several soldiers, under the command of a sapper officer, built a large fire from resinous pine branches. Having beaten off the lid of the coffin with rifle butts and bayonets, they pulled out the corpse with fire hooks, “since they did not dare to touch it with their hands due to its decomposition,” and with some difficulty they dragged it into the fire. Then they added so much kerosene that it was impossible to approach the fire. The burning continued. for more than six hours, until dawn. When the flames had done their job, the soldiers collected the ashes and mixed them with snow.

So who exactly was Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, did he really have a visionary, prophetic gift? Numerous documents, including what came from the pen of Rasputin himself, testimonies and memories of his contemporaries and a comparison of all this with real events Russian history allow you to give a clear answer. Yes, Rasputin was endowed with an amazing gift of insight and the abilities of a preacher. He also had the gift of healing, which manifested itself many times, and not only in relation to the heir to the throne, as is sometimes believed.

When you hear every now and then that Rasputin allegedly besotted the royal family, subjugated it to his will, and turned the emperor and empress as he wanted, the question arises: what would have happened if Nicholas II had actually listened to Rasputin’s advice and prophecies? How would the course of the First World War unfold (at least for Russia), would the February Revolution have occurred, not to mention the October Revolution, when demons covered the eyes of the Russian people with “red, the color of blood”?

Now such questions can only be asked. No one will answer them...

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