The founder and confessor of the Vvedensky Convent, Archimandrite Ambrosy (Yurasov), died on May 7 at the age of 82. The priest died in the Ivanovo hospital, where he was hospitalized with double pneumonia and suspected coronavirus.
Archimandrite Ambrose, in addition to his main activity, was a writer and one of the founders of the Radonezh organization. He hosted programs on the radio station of the same name and headed the editorial office of the newspaper “Word of Consolation.”
Without exaggeration, he is a large-scale and extraordinary personality. His spiritual children number in the hundreds: from the nuns of the convent he created 30 years ago to high-ranking influential officials and very wealthy people. Artists, doctors, military men... Just to talk, listen to a sermon, get advice and blessings, people from all over the country came to Father Ambrose in Ivanovo. I personally know several nuns who abandoned their former life and came here just for him: from Odessa, Western Ukraine, Moscow. If someone accepted it with their hearts, then immediately deeply and forever.
One of his closest assistants, who was with him until the very end, Father Eliozar, told Rabochy Krai about his spiritual father.
– Why did people love Father Ambrose so much?
– The priest had one secret that lay on the surface. He treated everyone with great love, without singling out anyone. He received and confessed everyone as if they were his loved ones. He was very simple and talked to a new person as if he had known him for a thousand years. The light of his love attracted people. This was not earthly love, but spiritual love. The fruit of his long labors, prayer and fasting. He himself endured many sorrows in life, having labored for the sake of Christ. He suffered a lot of slander, gossip and slander, but the Lord gave him the gift of love for his neighbor and for his enemies. Although the priest was generally sure that he had no enemies. But he had a lot of spiritual children, and very high-ranking ones, who were ready to move mountains for him. They suggested that he “somehow sort out” the ill-wishers who were interfering and plotting. But the priest always forbade them and said that we must pray for them, and always make friends out of enemies, and good out of evil. And he always had this position in life: no matter what people do to you, you must always thank God for it. And all this inexhaustible love attracted people to our priest.
“I heard that he attracted people with his special confession.”
- Yes it is. He confessed deeply, each with his own approach. He endeared himself to himself in such a way that a person trusted completely and cleansed his soul of sins. It was thanks to the grace that the priest had from God that people opened up to him. For years they remained silent about some sin, and after confession with Father Ambrose they came out with hot tears of purification and a feeling of forgiveness. We were grateful to him for this with all our hearts. Literally today a general, my father’s spiritual child, calls me and says that I had no idea that this loss would hurt so much. Many, many people loved him very sincerely. This is understandable, because the Gospel says that with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. After all, he loved everyone without exception: his enemies, his children, and the first people he met. That's what they paid him for. He proved to us by his example that everything in Holy Scripture is true.
Father Ambrose: “If you need 10 million, the Lord will send it to you, you will need a million, and this will give you. The main thing is to pray to God, the main thing is to serve Him. And everything will be added.”
– Father Ambrose was known as a very strong man. He had both opportunities and means. He built temples and monasteries. 30 years ago, with his direct participation and initiative, the first women's Orthodox monastery was created in Soviet Ivanovo (after a hunger strike by women demanding that the Red Church be handed over to believers). Why, from a material point of view, was everything going so well in his life?
“We talked about this with him in our last meeting, just before his death. He then told me this: “Remember, first of all you need to seek the kingdom of God, go to services, fulfill the prayer rule, bow, and the Lord will give everything else. If you need 10 million, the Lord will send it to you; if you need a million, it will be given. The main thing is to pray to God, the main thing is to serve Him. And everything will be added.” The secret is that the priest himself lived like this all his life. And everything that he had, the Lord gave him in fulfillment of the words of the Gospel. Unlike other people, he completely relied on the will of God. This is where all the opportunities, strength, great needed people, the monastery, construction sites and so on come from.”
- How will you cope without him now?
“The monastery unanimously decided that everything would remain as it was under the priest. His case will not be lost. Everything that he started and did not finish, such as the temple on the station square in Ivanovo, will continue as long as the Lord gives us strength. We will definitely finish it, we will complete everything in memory of Father Ambrose, as a monument to him. He always said: “It’s not me, but the Lord who takes care of you. And the Mother of God herself, the abbess of our monastery, too. Don’t be afraid, everything will be fine.” If he has the boldness to be before God now, then he will not leave his monastery. Everything is as it was, everything will remain so, and so will the priest. After all, monks, especially between a spiritual child and a spiritual father, have a continuous connection that cannot be interrupted by any event or death. And our monastery consists entirely of his spiritual children. So we all have this connection with him. He hears us all, prays for us, and especially now. Therefore, nothing has changed for us. Father is still with us, not in body now, but certainly in soul. We believe in it.
Chest of Spiritual Wisdom
What to do when you are offended and when you cannot cope with the offense? Once the Optina elder Nikon received a letter with insults and abuse. The elder thought: “Who could have written this? Who is the letter from? “But he immediately pulled himself together: “Nikon, this is none of your business, there is no need to find out who wrote it. If the Lord allowed it, then it must be so. This means you have sins for which you must suffer.”
If a person sets himself up this way, everything in his life will fall into place. And then there are those “Christians” who can become so offended that they begin to be indignant, make noise, and then stop talking and can remain silent for a week, or even a month - harboring evil and resentment. It happens that you need to make a remark to a person, suggest something, but in this case you must always remember the words of the wise Solomon: “Rebuke a wise man - he will love you, do not rebuke a fool - he will hate you.” One elder clergyman wrote about himself:
“I’m like a dog. Sometimes they will tell the dog: “Get out of here!” “—he will move away; he moves away and sits - waiting to see how the owner will behave further. And if the owner calls again: “Come on, come here!” “- he wagged his tail again and ran up to his owner with love, remembering no evil. When someone scolds me or drives me away, I move away from him. But if a person comes to me and repents, asks for forgiveness, I again accept him with love and do not take offense at him. I’m just glad that he came to me and repented.”
First of all, we need to understand that our life is a school, and everything that the Lord allows us - sorrows, temptations - are lessons, they are necessary in order to develop patience, humility, and get rid of pride and resentment. And the Lord, when He allows them to us, looks at how we behave: whether we will be offended or whether we will maintain peace in our souls. Why are we offended? This means that we deserve it, we have sinned in some way... In order for there to be no resentment or irritation, so that the soul can rest in God, we must endure a lot from our neighbors - reproach, insults, and all sorts of troubles.
You need to be able to face this without snapping at the offender. There is no need to say barbs if you are insulted. Just think to yourself: “The Lord gave me the opportunity to strengthen myself in patience so that my soul would calm down.” And our soul will calm down. And if we start: “Why is he slandering me, lying, insulting me? Me!..” And let's go peddling. It is the spirit of Satan that lives in man. We will never calm down if we do not learn to endure. Let's become hysterical. If someone insulted us, offended us, there is no need to collect information for a retaliatory attack, there is no need to obtain “compromising evidence” on this person in different corners:
“Here he is like this and like this...”; there is no need to wait for the right moment to pour this slop on his head. A Christian, if he finds out that this guy is speaking badly about him, must immediately humble himself: “Lord, Your will! Because of my sins, that’s what I need! It's okay, we'll survive. Everything will be crushed and ground! “We need to educate ourselves. Otherwise, someone said something, and we cannot calm down until we tell our neighbor everything we think about him. And Satan whispers these “thoughts” in our ears, and we repeat all sorts of dirt after him. A Christian must be a peacemaker, bringing only peace and love to everyone. There should be no nastiness - no resentment, no irritation - in a person. Why are we discouraged?
Not from holiness, of course! That’s why we get discouraged because we make a lot of fools, we take too much into our heads, we see only the sins of our neighbor, but we don’t notice our own. We sow the sins of others, but from idle talk, from condemnation, the grace of God departs from man, and he likens himself to dumb creatures. And here everything can be expected from a person. Such a soul will never receive peace and quiet. A Christian, if he sees some shortcomings around him, tries to cover everything with love. He doesn’t tell anyone, he doesn’t spread dirt anywhere. He smooths out and covers the sins of others so that a person does not become embittered, but corrects himself. It is said by the holy fathers: “Cover your brother’s sin, and the Lord will cover yours.” #Proverbs@ot_unosti
And there is a type of people who, if they notice something, immediately try to spread it to other people, to other souls. At this time, a person exalts himself: “How wise I am! I know everything and I don’t do that.” And this is the uncleanliness of the soul. This is a dirty soul. Christians don't behave like that. They don't see other people's sins. The Lord said: “To the clean all things are pure” (Titus 1:15), but to the dirty all things are dirty.
Sins and their consequences
Listen:
Novice Margarita Kulagina: - Today the Church honors the memory of Saint Philaret the Merciful, who throughout his life showed us an example of reconciliation, obedience and complete trust in the will of God. Unfortunately, not all of us have these qualities. We often grumble, fail tests, and make mistakes. And today we will talk on the topic “Sins and their consequences.”
Archimandrite Ambrose (Yurasov): - Good evening, dear brothers and sisters! When a person sins, this does not mean that the sin goes away and will never return. Sin is always with us, it goes into eternity if we do not repent. But if we have repented, then this sin, large or small, is removed from the soul. There are different sins. You can sin in thought, in word, or in deed. You can simply hit a person on the shoulder, or you can wound or shoot him with a knife and then the person will die. And in the same way, when a person commits a sin with a word, this is one thing, but when he sins mortally, he kills his soul, deprives it of grace. But mortal sins are especially terrible - murder, fornication, suicide. Let’s say a person killed himself, he passes into that world, into the spiritual world, he will no longer be able to repent of this sin and this sin goes with him to that world. Therefore, we must try in life to get rid of mortal sins, mental and verbal sins. I know from experience that if someone condemned someone for a sin, say, fornication, then not today, tomorrow, the person who condemned can repeat it, that is, he himself will commit this sin. Therefore, the Lord told us: “Judge not, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37). This was said not by an ordinary person, but by the Creator himself. Why? Because we are all defendants, and God is the judge and we all need God’s help and His forgiveness. Seeing that our neighbor is sinning, we do not condemn him, but we pray that the Lord will help him get rid of all sin. There is no need to judge. Why does a person judge? The Holy Fathers explain this way: because he who does not condemn himself does not see his sins, and therefore condemns his neighbor, and this is a disaster. And those people who often condemn their neighbor constantly live in mortal sins and it is very difficult for them to get rid of it. We must think well of every person and love everyone. It will be right. If we think and say bad things about a person, we commit a sin, mental or verbal, it goes into eternity, and there we will have to give an answer for everything. But it’s interesting, a person has committed a sin, sometimes he doesn’t even pay attention to it, but the sin affects his life. Let us recall an example from the life of St. Ephraim the Syrian. He was born not far from where the war is currently taking place - in southeastern Turkey near the Syrian border. When he was a teenager, he committed childhood sins, and these sins were later revealed as he matured. One day Ephraim the Syrian was going out of town, evening found him on the way, he saw a shepherd who was tending a flock of sheep and stayed with him to spend the night. At night, wolves attacked the herd and carried off several sheep. In the morning, the shepherd told the owners of the flock about the loss, and they accused Ephraim of bringing thieves who stole the sheep at night, and they brought Ephraim to trial. “When I appeared before the judge,” says Ephraim, “I justified myself, saying how the matter was. Following me was brought someone caught in adultery with a woman, who ran away and hid herself. The judge, postponing the investigation of the case, sent both of us to prison together. In conclusion, we found one farmer brought there for murder. But the one brought with me was not an adulterer, and the farmer was not a murderer, just as I was not a predator of sheep” (St. Ephraim the Syrian. Works. - Part 1. - P. 157). The monk was in prison for several days and asked the Lord to reveal to him the reason for what had happened: “Lord! How so? Why is that?" Suddenly an angel appears and says: “Remember, when you were a teenager, you played a prank, opened the gate of a widow, let a cow out, and the wolves ate this cow. And the housewife was left, poor, without a cow and children, she had nothing to feed. You have to bear punishment for this sin.” And the angel also told those people who were with Ephraim the Syrian who was to blame for what. It seems that he didn’t do anything special, but sin left its mark. This is how it happens in our lives. And there is no need to blame anyone, neither God, nor neighbors, nor the authorities... By the will of God, much is revealed.
One monk prayed for a long time in a cave and said: “Lord, why is this? Some are rich, others are poor. There are scientists and non-scientists, noble and not noble, healthy and sick.” He was indignant and asked: “What is the will of God? Why is everything happening like this?” An angel appears and says: “You do not know the will of God, what it is. But the Lord sent me to you and I will explain it to you. You see, there is an oak tree by the river and a hollow in the oak tree, sit there and pray. See how God's will is done." The monk climbed up there and looked: a horseman arrived, took off the basket, and sat down on the river bank. He had a bag of gold with him, he counted how many coins there were, tied the bag and threw it into the basket. But this handbag did not end up in the basket, but fell out into the grass. The man ate, rested, mounted his horse, took the basket and rode away. The monk looks. Another person came ashore, also sat down, rested, and ate. Just got up and looked - there was a handbag in the grass. He takes it, opens it, and there is gold. The man started jumping for joy. The monk is watching everything. He sees a third person coming, he also stopped at this place, undressed, took a swim, the sun is shining, he feels good. He untied the bundle, he had bread there, ate it, and suddenly the horseman returned, having lost the gold. He asks: “Have you seen a bag here?” The man answers: “No, I didn’t see anything.” The rider does not let up and demands his bag. It got to the point that he began to whip this man and beat him to death. The monk keeps looking and is indignant: “What is this? How so?" An angel appears and asks: “Did you see everything?” The monk replies: “I saw it.” - "Understood?" - "Understood nothing". The angel said: “So I will tell you what the will of God is. The first man came and lost the gold, and the second came and found it. The first - the horseman forcibly took the land from this man, and the Lord returned to him what he had lost - he found gold. And the third killed a man and bore the sin on himself. And the rider whipped him to death. With whatever measure a person measured, it was measured to him, that is, he killed and he was killed. The sin of suffering was removed from him. The horseman began to lament that he had killed an innocent man, his conscience tormented him, and he went to the monastery, began to repent and cry. This is how the Lord saves the first, second and third.
Phone call: — My mother died nine years ago, and everything was done as it should be. But I still dream about her all the time. Although I order notes from monasteries and everywhere about her repose. I don't understand what's wrong?
Archimandrite Ambrose (Yurasov): - I think your mother knows your life and perhaps knows that you have unrepentant, secret sins. And she knows that when an unrepentant soul leaves the body, demons will surround her and show her everything, all her life. And then the person will cry tears of blood, tear out his hair, but no more time will be given for repentance. Maybe she knows this. This means that we must remember the sins of our youth and repent. After all, sometimes it happens like this: everyone is mired in sins, but we don’t feel or see them. And from the spiritual world, parents see this and mom feels sorry for us. That’s why she dreams in order to strengthen prayer for her and to repent of her sins. I think so.
Phone call: - I understand that everything is God’s will, you need to thank God for everything, but I have such a problem. My son had surgery on his spine 4 months ago. The operation was successful, but, unfortunately, the postoperative wound still does not heal. He is unchurched and his family is unchurched. I regularly visit the temple, take communion, pray, every day I read the canon for the sick and the canon of repentance - I took this rule after the blessing of my spiritual mentor. You know, I have a feeling that my strength is running out. Please tell me what else I can do to help my son so that he comes to faith, I can’t handle this myself.
Archimandrite Ambrose (Yurasov): - Yes, we cannot cope on our own, only with the help of God. The Lord is our Father, He is more concerned about our salvation, about our health, than we ourselves. We do not know the will of God, but we see that the Lord calls him. As they say: “Like anxiety, so does God.” Perhaps, through illness, through your prayers, your son will come to God, repent and ease his suffering. In our monastery there was one mother, Nektaria. The kingdom of heaven is hers. She was dying and they called me: “Father, come quickly.” I ran, and she was already suffocating, dying, her pulse was barely beating. We will tonsure her into monasticism, as she wished. They took the veil, and I told her: “Mother Nektaria, you’ll live another ten years.” She replies: “Father, bless!” - “God bless you.” She lived another ten years. Then Archbishop Ambrose (Shchurov) comes to the holiday, she approaches him and he asks her: “How old are you?” She replies: “Ninety-one. So my father blessed me to live for ten years.” And he replied: “Now I bless you to live longer.” She lived. She was interesting... They tell me: she is lying in her cell, her arms are crossed and she is no longer eating anything. I come to her: “Mother, why don’t you eat anything?” She answered: “I want to die.” I said: “You don’t eat anything, you’ll die - that’s suicide, you’ll go to hell. And then now the frost is severe, minus thirty degrees, and those who dig your grave will curse you.” She asks: “Why?” I answer her: “Because the ground is frozen, they will hammer it with a sledgehammer and scold you.” She asks: “What should I do?” I say: “We need to eat.” And she responded: “Well, then give me some wine.” She pours a little Cahors and adds boiling water to it, drinks it and feels more cheerful. She obeyed and then later went to be with the Lord in peace. The other sister, about thirty, was very bad. They also called me to urgently tonsure my hair. They sat her down and held her, but she couldn’t do anything—neither sit nor put on clothes. They cut her hair, and what’s interesting is that she came to life. For three years now he has been walking independently, taking care of himself, and goes to church every day, morning and evening. When a person becomes a monk, his sins are forgiven, the Lord gives him grace, and he enters into a new life. It's in the monastery. But in the world, if a person has repented of all his sins, he then gets rid of them, and the Lord gives him strength. A person begins to live spiritually, begins to study the holy mysteries and receives grace.
Phone call: - Good evening, father! Tell me, please, what happens to the soul of a cremated person, a baptized person, an unchurched person, someone who died suddenly without communion, a young man?
Archimandrite Ambrose (Yurasov): - Mother, all the deeds that he did in his life, good and evil, go with him. And in the spiritual world, what will prevail: good or evil. Also, if there are relatives and if they pray intensely, contribute to the Divine Liturgy, give alms, pray for him and ask other people, then the Lord will gradually change his condition. Prayer must be intensified. The Orthodox do not cremate: “You were taken from the earth and returned to the earth” (Gen. 3:19), but pagans cremate, those who do not know the true God.
Novice Margarita Kulagina: - Father, we received a question. In the Gospel, through the mouth of the Apostle, it is said: “This is the will of God, this is your sanctification” (1 Thess. 4:3). How to understand the will of God if it takes a long time to find your other half to start a family, but you are overcome by sins alone?
Archimandrite Ambrose (Yurasov): - I would advise this. “This generation is driven out only by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:21). So that passions do not bother you, you don’t have to eat meat, don’t eat sweets, you can abstain from food on Wednesday and Friday, preserve your eyesight and hearing, so you don’t surf on television and the Internet, don’t look for anything, don’t disturb your soul. And ask the Lord for help. God help me! Lord, save me! You can ask the Lord to send a person, and God will say: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7).
Margarita Kulagina: - Father, the quotation from the Epistle to the Thessalonians is not fully given here. It says this: “For this is the will of God, this is your illumination, that you should abstain from fornication” (1 Thess. 4:3).
Archimandrite Ambrose (Yurasov): - As I said, abstain from fornication, do not give food to passions. Let's take a stove for example. If you throw a lot of wood in there, everything on the stove will boil, and when the wood burns out, everything will cool down. Refrain, and your body will be calm, then your thoughts will not disturb you and all your feelings will be safe. One novice comes to the elder and says: “I am overwhelmed by passions. Father, pray." The elder prayed. A novice arrives, and the elder asks him: “Well, how?” He replies: “Passion is disturbing again.” The elder intensified his prayer. A novice comes: “Father, the same passions are troubling me.” The elder prays and an angel appears to him and says: “When you prayed, the demons left, but this novice is intemperate in food, eats to his fill, sleeps and does not pray, so the demon excites him and causes all sorts of troubles.” A lot depends on us, especially if someone has a young body and is overwhelmed by lusts and passions, then we need to restrain ourselves. Sweets give rise to passions. How many people are used to it? You can eat a little at lunch and in the evening without being full. But some, I just know myself, ate in the morning, before lunch, ate at lunch, ate after lunch and ate in the evening, and after evening dinner ate again. They'll grab you there, they'll grab you here.
Phone call: - Hello! Father, I will have two questions. The fact is that I consider it a great blasphemy when a Christian is burned like Buddhists. They don’t bury in a Christian way, in the ground. And the second question is about my grandfather, a priest, who died early, even before the revolution, when my mother was still a teenager. He was a true Christian. I have this question: if I pray to the saints, to God and ask him: “Grandfather, help me in my prayers!” Can he intercede for me and my children there before God?
Archimandrite Ambrose (Yurasov): - Of course, it can. So pray while you have the strength.
Novice Margarita Kulagina: — The radio listener believes that burning the bodies of the dead is blasphemy. We had a question about what would happen to the soul of a cremated person.
Archimandrite Ambrose (Yurasov): - If the children are not Orthodox, and the mother was Orthodox and died, then they can cremate her against her will. This does not depend on her, but there will be no damage to her soul. Where will the soul go? She will receive from God what she has earned. One scientist was asked: “How can God resurrect those who have drowned? Who was burned and its ashes scattered? And he said: “If God called the world from non-existence into being, it costs nothing to God.” This scientist took metal dust, mixed it with earth and said: “Try to separate the metal dust from the earth.” People say, "We can't." He took a magnet, passed it along the ground and separated all the dust: “If a person can separate metal dust from the ground, then how much more the Lord. Nothing is difficult for God.” If a believer died and was burned, his soul will still be in the abodes of heaven, and when the General Resurrection occurs, then all souls will enter bodies and stand before God at the Last Judgment. And everyone will receive what they deserve.
Phone call: - Hello! Please tell me, now many people believe in reincarnation, the rebirth of souls. Explain why this is a fad?
Archimandrite Ambrose (Yurasov): - This is paganism, mother, they believe in it out of ignorance. Do not believe that the soul passes from one person to another, to a dog, to a horse, to a cat...
Novice Margarita Kulagina: - Father, they ask for prayers for the health of God's servant Irina. She has run out of strength to care for her mother, a seriously ill 91-year-old Nadezhda, who screams, especially at night. What should I do?
Archimandrite Ambrose (Yurasov): - You need to sprinkle with holy water and smear with holy oil, ask the Lord, call on the Mother of God, the healer Panteleimon, St. Sergius of Radonezh, Seraphim of Sarov and other saints for help. And say: “Lord! I’ve run out of strength, help me!” But the Lord said: “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). As in our morning prayers we read: “God, cleanse me, a sinner, for I have done no good before You” (prayer of St. Macarius the Great). I've never done anything good. "God help me!". The Lord is nearby, He sees and knows everything. Perhaps you need to suffer for your sins while caring for your mother. Perhaps the time will come when we too will go to bed, and someone will look after us. “With the measure you use, it will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:38). If we looked after our neighbor and did good to him, then people will also look after us with love.
Phone call: - Good evening! Father, I’ve been lying down for 6 years, my legs can’t move at all, I pray lying down and I don’t fast, because if I fast, I’ll fall into a coma. Father, I have four very serious sins, but I don’t remember whether I confessed them or not. Can't you name them again?
Archimandrite Ambrose (Yurasov): - It’s possible. The Lord loves us and is waiting for us to be cleansed. The Monk Paisios of Athonite was a visionary, a man of holy life. He asked the Lord that the Lord would give him illnesses and the Lord would give him cancer. I visited him in 1993, they sat next to him. He was sick and did not complain to anyone about anything, and in 1994 he died. Now he has been canonized.
Margarita Kulagina: - Father, we have received a message - a cry for help. Tell me what to do? My daughter was raped several years ago. Now she doesn’t want to live, she doesn’t need anything, she is studying at the institute through force. Since childhood, she has been going to church and receiving communion.
Archimandrite Ambrose (Yurasov): “We need to support and help our daughter, pray for her, surround her with love and care. Why this happened, we don’t know. Perhaps the Lord allowed this for humility, for salvation. This will be revealed later, but now she needs to help strengthen her faith and confess. Anything can happen in life, for example, and this: one mother brought her daughter, 18 years old, and said that my daughter is chaste, good, not friends with the guys, I keep an eye on her. And my daughter has already had three abortions, and mommy doesn’t even know...
Phone call: - My name is Tatyana. I have a head injury, I almost lost my sight 16 years ago, and I would really like to start a family with my only loved one. But now, given that I have almost lost my sight, it is difficult to meet my lifelong friend, because I spend most of my time at home.
Archimandrite Ambrose (Yurasov): - Mother, since I have been confessing for 46 years, I would tell you this: you need to be patient. If you have kept yourself pure, then God will give you a great reward in Heaven. Because if you find a person, we don’t know what state you will be in with this person, maybe you will only accumulate sin. A husband and wife recently came to see me. The girl constantly confessed. Then she found herself a groom - “raw, unprocessed material.” For her sake, he began to go to Church and learned the “Our Father.” I tell her: “Mother, you will suffer from him, because he is not a church member.” She replies: “Well, I’ll endure it.” Six months have passed, we’ve arrived. So many mortal sins have accumulated, and now she doesn’t know what to do. I say: “Mother, I warned you, he is raw material, useless.” Only if the Lord sends a person who will tolerate us, and we will tolerate him, then it will be good. And so surrender to the will of God. Perhaps it is God's plan for you to remain a virgin before the Lord. We wish you to be patient, fast, pray, don’t eat sweets, don’t eat meat, and maybe don’t eat on Wednesday and Friday.
Telephone call: - What advice do you give, father, to two sisters if they are assigned to the same obedience, but they themselves are very different and do not do things together, but each in their own way. And one is trying to subordinate the other, but it is impossible to agree and give in here, because the views are fundamentally different. How do you reconcile the sisters in this case?
Archimandrite Ambrose (Yurasov): - We need to talk to each one individually. For such people, you can say: “You be the abbess for a week, she is your novice. And then change, she will be the abbess, and you will be the novice.” And endure. The only way.
Margarita Kulagina:
— Father, very often people ask how to understand whether a sin has been forgiven or not?
Archimandrite Ambrose (Yurasov):
“Suppose one person came, repented and said: “Father, I feel that God has not forgiven me.” And the priest answers: “Yes, God has not forgiven you. And why? When you confess, you must believe that God has forgiven you, and every time you must come to confession and repent like the last time.” Then the person leaves relieved after confession. And many come up, repent, begin to blame their neighbor, saying that our neighbor is to blame, that we did all this because of him. Of course, then the soul leaves unrepentant and restless.
Phone call: - Hello, father! My husband has been suffering from epilepsy for more than 30 years after a head injury. Now the disease is getting worse. My husband joined the church about a year ago, goes to confession and receives communion. Maybe you can recommend something else, what else can be done?
Archimandrite Ambrose (Yurasov): - A general confession is needed here. Maybe he repented superficially, but there is a whole sinful foundation laid, he needs to repent from his youth...
...Today I was asked about Protestants. Recently, some monks I knew came to see me. One is ordained, then the second. Now one has already served forty days. I asked them this question because I was writing my PhD thesis on the history of Baptistism, an analysis of the doctrine. “Look, chapter 10 of John, where the Lord speaks about the sheepfold where the sheep are. Christ says: “I am the door to the sheep” (John 10:9). The doorkeeper opens the door and lets the shepherd in to the sheep. I say: “Tell me, here is the sheepfold, and who are the doors?” They answer: “Christ.” I ask: “Who is the doorkeeper?” They say: "The Holy Spirit." And I say: “No.” They continue: “John the Baptist?” I say "No". They give up: “Tell me, who?” I say: “Think. You have to think about how fast you are.” He held it like that, explained everything, I wanted to know who the doorkeeper was who opened the door. I say: “Bishop. He ordains and sends sheep into the temple to tend, and the sheepfold is the Church.”
Once I was in Sukhimi. And next to the house where I was staying there was a Baptist house. I went to see the pastor, the main preacher, speaking. He saw that I was with a cross and said: “Orthodox Christians visited us. Maybe you have something to say? I walked out of the pulpit and a woman with a video camera came up and pointed it at me. I say: “I would like to ask you this question. In the Holy Scriptures, Christ and the Apostle Paul say that the Church is the Body of Christ, the Head of this Body is Christ Himself (Eph. 1:23). I ask: “Who saves us: Christ or the Church?” And everyone answers in unison: “Christ.” I ask them: “Isn’t the Church saving us?” They answered: “No.” I say: “Look, the Apostle Paul says that the Church is the Body of Christ, the Head of this Body is Christ Himself. If the Church does not save us, but Christ saves us, we take the head, tear it off from the body and want to be saved with the head without the body.” They didn't understand. I repeat: “The Church is the Body of Christ, the Head of this Body is Christ, if the Church does not save us, but Christ saves us, then we take the head, tear it off from the body and want to be saved with the head without the body. What is the Church? It includes the Mother of God, angels, saints. If we do not honor the Mother of God, the angels, the saints, then we do not honor the Body of Christ. Protestantism is religious atheism."
How did this book come about?
I am Alpha and Omega
the beginning and the end, says the Lord,
Who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
Open 18
Once, answering questions from radio listeners on the air of the Orthodox radio station “Radonezh”, I heard the question: “There is such a book “For God is With Us,” you wrote it, didn’t you? And the Old Believers say that this is their book.” I had to explain how this book appeared, why I came up with the idea to publish it.
The book “For God is With Us” consists of 3 parts: 1st part “Dispute”, 2nd part “About God”, 3rd part “The Path to Salvation”. Part 1 – “Dispute” – is based on the work of the Old Believer writer F.E. Melnikov “Where did faith in God come from (a public debate in Soviet Russia),” written in 1920.
In the forties, one of the magazines of the Moscow Patriarchate published a short story about how an atheist lecturer spoke in the village of Pokrovskoye. The story was called "Bee". He came to us in 1978. One astronomer professor (now the rector of the cathedral) brought several sheets of photographed text, which had neither a title page nor an end, so the author was unknown. I read them. I really liked the story, and I kept thinking about how to revive it, bring it closer to modern times - after all, many years have passed, everything has changed: both science and people. When I was on vacation, I took up the remodeling. In those years, there was no literature that simply and clearly told about faith and salvation, and this story could become a small outlet for Orthodox Christians. We took the “skeleton” of the story as a basis, expanded it, and made our own changes. In our version, the atheist Matyunin turned into Matyukhin (I wanted to tease him with irony, I remembered “tyukha-matyukha”), the mute Trofimushka spoke: dialogues were specially composed for him, texts were written for Matyukhin, Demyan Lukich, and other participants in the debate. Much was included from the holy fathers, from modern writers and researchers.
They composed a preface in which there were two characters - boxers in the spiritual ring, chapters in the book turned into rounds (these images were close to me, as a former boxer). They came up with a cover: death-atheism has raised its scythe over the village of Pokrovsky. They gave the book to the author - S. Lavrov. Since I lived in the Sergius Lavra for several years through the prayers of St. Sergius of Radonezh, I decided to give the author the name S. Lavrov - Sergius Lavra, the place of my spiritual birth.
The first book was called “How atheism was buried in the village of Pokrovskoye.” The book was copied using photocopiers. Many began to retype it, some on typewriters, some, like us, copied. Some kind people were found who published a brochure abroad. We didn't sell it, we gave it away. The brochure immediately spread throughout Russia. Then the idea came to write the second and third parts, explaining what faith in God is, what the meaning of the Church Sacraments is, and how to live as an Orthodox Christian. The book gained volume and began to be called “For God is With Us.” Why?
When our family lived in Siberia and I worked in a mine, persecution began. Atheism was then in full swing. Local authorities tried their best to “reason” with our family through meetings, radio, and newspapers. The local newspaper published an article: “Not a single person lagging behind on the way.” It wrote that a home church had appeared in our house. Representatives from the authorities came to look at this church and at the same time talk with us. There was no one at home, the police looked through the window and saw the words “For God is with us” written in white paint on the doors.
God is with us. “God is with us, understand the pagans and submit, as God is with us,” these words sounded in my soul since childhood, they reminded me of Christmas, instilled confidence: God is with us. “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
Now this book has sold millions of copies; few church people do not know it. She, like a bee, spread her message about God throughout our vast country.
Many years later it became known that the text of those pages belongs to the Old Believer religious publicist Fyodor Efimovich Melnikov. Since then, when reprinting the book “For God is With Us,” we always indicate the authorship of the 1st part of the book: “based on the book by F.E. Melnikov "Where did faith in God come from."
Archimandrite Ambrose (Yurasov)
Among the countless celestial bodies, planets and stars, our Earth is a tiny, unnoticeable speck of dust, and on this speck of dust man lives: here his fall occurred and here his salvation took place. The Creator of the world Himself, having assumed human form, descended to earth and lived under human cover for thirty-three and a half years, but the creation rebelled against its Creator and put Him to death on the cross.
What is man compared to God? Nothing! But now, as once upon a time, he poses a daring challenge to Heaven; in his madness he denies his Creator and thereby condemns himself to eternal destruction.
However, faith in God cannot disappear. She lived and will live among the people as long as the world exists. She lives in the hearts of such pure people as Demyan Lukich, a wise old man whom you, dear reader, will meet on the pages of this book.
