Poetry has undoubtedly become one of the main achievements of mankind. Ability to put words into text. Which raises questions of the soul has always been revered. When Christianity began to spread across the earth, church poets already appeared.
A striking example is Saints Ambrose of Milan and Nicholas the Wonderworker. From their pens came many hymns and sermons that became part of the canon. Moreover, all currents of the Christian faith. But they lived a long time ago - they became legends. What is there now?
Photo of Hieromonk Roman Matyushkin, recluse of the Vetrovo monastery
In the Russian Orthodox Church you can find many holy fathers and monks who write poetry. Probably the most famous of them is Hieromonk Roman Matyushin.
This elder became famous for his gift and was personally noted by the Patriarch and blessed by the archbishops of his diocese. The monk's poems are used by famous pop artists in their songs. For example, Vaengi and Stas Mikhailov. Now the hieromonk has retired to the monastery and rarely leaves the monastery. But he continues to create and will show the world many more poems in his performance.
Hieromonk Roman Matyushin takes monastic vows
Roman was born into an ordinary working-class family, of which there were millions in the Soviet Union. I went to school and acquired knowledge, just like ordinary peers. However, already in his youth, young Roman begins to try himself as a poet.
His early work, although not distinguished by originality, already made it clear about the author’s talent. In addition, the young man’s poems often reflected the idea of taking monastic vows and entering church service. Considering that Matyushin was born in 1954, the desire was not entirely ordinary for a teenager.
Having successfully completed high school, young Roman entered the Kalmyk State University, the Faculty of Philology. Studying did not cause any problems for the young man, and he successfully passed all intermediate exams and coursework.
However, Roman did not take the diploma exams and was expelled. The reason for this action is not entirely clear. In addition to receiving higher education, I went to the karate section, where I showed excellent results.
Roman's contribution to Orthodox singing has been recognized with awards.
After unsuccessfully obtaining a higher education, Roman changed a number of professions. At first I worked as a carpenter. But this did not last long and soon he became a music teacher at school and even for some time served as artistic director at the House of Culture. All this time, the young man continued to hone his versification skills.
But more and more often Roman began to think about the meaning of his existence. And by 1980, thoughts had formed in his head about receiving a spiritual education and leaving civilization for a monastery.
Just at this time, Khrushchev’s grip began to slowly loosen and the policy of atheistic ideology allowed the Russian Orthodox Church to once again begin to recruit more applicants. In 1980, Matyushin entered the Vilnius Holy Spirit Monastery to study. Such an act radically changed Roman’s entire fate.
A year later, the young man went to study at the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery. Here he took monastic vows in 1983 and officially became a monk. Later he served in Pskov parishes and in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Three years later, Roman would be ordained as a hieromonk. A remarkable fact is that in the same year the monk’s mother, Zoya Nikolaevna, took monastic vows.
Roman Matyushin secludes himself in Vetrovo Skete
After the collapse of the USSR, the Russian Orthodox Church begins to straighten its shoulders. The possessions taken by the “reds” are being returned to her, the good memory of many priests is being restored and rehabilitated, and state support is increasing.
In 1993, John of St. Petersburg personally noted Roman’s talent and gave him the book “The Battle for Russia.” This undoubtedly inspires the poet to new achievements.
Pop singers begin to perform Father Roman's songs.
Archbishop Evseniy, head of the Pskov diocese, played an important role in the hieromonk’s biography. He sent Roman to serve in the Vetrovo monastery, which is located very close to the village of Borovik. This happens in 1994. Here the monk completely devotes himself to serving the Lord.
At the same time, he writes more and more poems and songs. The hieromonk’s poems gradually become known to an increasing circle of connoisseurs, who begin to read them at numerous poetry evenings.
Archbishop John of Pskov personally blessed monk Roman for versification
In the first half of the 90s of the 20th century, two books were published under the authorship of the hieromonk: “Russian Kuuol” and “Heeding God’s Command.” Both works were published with the blessing and encouragement of Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II. Then the biography of Roman’s father took an unexpected turn.
Is Father Roman alive?
On September 9, 2003, Father Roman makes an important decision. He decides to completely shut himself off from the world and immerse himself in vigils at the Vetrovo monastery. You can only get to the monk’s place of solitude by water transport or on ice in winter. But Matyushin does not stop writing and new works come out from his pen. Father is still in the monastery, this is the answer to whether he is alive.
Father Roman was presented with two honorary church awards for his work:
- Prize named after the Holy Blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky 2011;
- in 2015, gold medal named after Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin;
- laureate of the “Virgin Mother of Three Hands” award.
The contribution of Father Roman to the culture of modern Russia is great and invaluable. This is recognized by everyone, both the archpriest and the ordinary layman. The latest news about the monk came in 2015, when he added his grandmother's surname to his father's surname. Now he signs himself Hieromonk Matyushin-Pravdin.
POEMS 1994-1999
- “Putting aside the worldly lyre...”
- Prophetic verbs
- “And I would like to sing differently...”
- “The linden trees are shaking steadily with dew...”
- "Jordan! Jordan! A small river!..”
- “After the Temple - no thoughts, no words...”
- “And my life is worthy of crying...”
- “Spring is a jubilant blue…”
- “And everything was written before us...”
- “Friends, and foes, and others...”
- “It’s not proper for monks to tease geese...”
- “In spiritual life everything is different...”
- “We say that we’re a little lame, dear...”
- “The bad weather yesterday seemed to have broken loose...”
- “Am I deprived in my distance?..”
- “The Lord said: “The eye is a lamp to the body...”
- “Like it was covered with wormwood...”
- "Oh my God! With Your Blessing..."
- “Lack of faith is the mother of sadness...”
- “God’s confidant preached good news…”
- “Do you remember the Pharisee prayed…”
- “He who desires honor will drink in sorrow...”
- “My land! Wheatgrass and weeds!..”
- “Russia is Light! Russia - Imminent!..”
- “I’ll end with joy in God...”
- “He complained in a deplorable voice...”
- “Unpretentious village life...”
- “Listen, Rus'! Snowy Rachel!..”
- “What are mountains without peaks?..”
- Wanderer
- Svaneti
- “I was young, like everyone else under the moon...”
- “I am a child of the Church and Russia...”
- “How empty it would be without You...”
- "Christ is risen! But are we with Him?..”
- Near the Kosovo field
- “Not a day, but a fairy tale! Sun and azure!..”
- “And I like winter more and more…”
- “The sun has risen. Fine!.."
- “And sweeps, and sweeps, and sweeps...”
- “What, soul, has the desert given you?”
- “A light from a wax candle...”
- “Blessed is he who dwells afar off...”
- “And we are walking on the edge of a knife...”
- “Outside the window there is fringe, fringe...”
- “The language of the people is beautiful with wisdom...”
- “Finally the snow creaked...”
- “Both in the soul and around - enlightenment...”
- "Wherever they look for yesterday..."
- “Lack of faith is the mother of sorrows...”
- "Why does everything sing like spring water..."
- Saved
- “But I haven’t found a place under the sun...”
- “Sadness is not forever, and grief is not forever...”
- “Who blames the times, who blames fate...”
- “How quickly the buds blossomed...”
- “He who does not know more cries for little...”
- “And in White Rus' there is snow...”
- Procession
- "Azure! Azure! Treasured azure!..”
- Parents
- “The twentieth century is almost on its last legs...”
- “And Herod has no hope of salvation...”
- “And what’s beyond your reach, you can’t carry...”
- “We are not good for a golden heart...”
- “Midnight is hallowed by the mystery of the universe...”
- “How important it is to know your boundaries...”
- “I am absorbing revelation...”
- “At least theological science...”
- “For what, for what, I don’t know...”
- “You can’t pray for the past path...”
- "Not everything that moves lives..."
- "Art. Creation. Two twin brothers?..”
- “Being jealous of the evil will...”
- “My dears! What have we done, what have we done?..”
- “Humble yourself. And God will forgive you..."
- “My dears, this is all!..”
- Pray, people!
- “I haven’t been hard to touch in life...”
- “I’ll go beyond the fields, into the copses...”
- “King of Heaven! Creative Power!
- “Know-it-all blinding glares...”
- “I wouldn’t inadvertently cloud my conscience...”
- “Oh, how the birds sing! You can’t sing like that in captivity!”
- "When the earth is filled with corruption..."
- Lilac dawn
- “How long to look for captivating happiness?”
- “Oh Serbia - driven to hell!”
- “I love looking at star clusters...”
- “And tomorrow is the Ascension of Christ...”
- “And the winter forest is especially solemn...”
- “Living life is not a field to cross...”
- “We are not supposed to die in bed...”
- "My old friend. When at the end of the day..."
- "Moon. Freezing. And no one around..."
- Gentlemen the actors
- "I'll go where the ships are..."
- “The moon has turned the earth blue…”
- “The candle is burning. Psalter on a lectern..."
- "Exhausted from losses..."
- "The earthly embodiment of purity..."
- “Apparently, until my death breath...”
- “My house is filled with uncleanness and darkness...”
- “May everything be done by the Grace of the Lord!..”
- “The village of Ryabchevsk! Fatherland without ringing!..”
- "When the clock strikes twelve..."
- “It looks like autumn has returned...”
- “I was sailing on an old barge...”
- “How did we live? They ruined themselves..."
- “My neighbors are rinsing me…”
- “I am not consoled by the fact that I am forced to leave...”
- “Tuning in to the high wave...”
- “Blessed is he who, filled with silence...”
- “As Eve disobeyed of old...”
- “What I have created in my own name, I will mercilessly destroy...”
- “Moon and snow. And rustling sounds in the distance..."
- “At the word “forty” something broke off...”
- “And all I have left is a turn, and only...”
- “When they kill me, rejoice with me...”
- “But I’m no longer drawn to my father’s house...”
- “Pechersk monk (I think Miron)…”
- “Two firebrands smoked pitifully...”
- “Great Russian! What height…"
- “I didn’t preserve God, I couldn’t...”
- “May this sorrow pass away...”
- “We are being carried somewhere into impenetrable darkness...”
- “All of Russia has become the Kulikovo field...”
- “And on this earth no one can make it in time...”
- “The day of death is better than the day of birth!”
- "Hearing God's command..."
- “My old elm, you are no longer…”
- “Any extreme is the road to destruction...”
- “Behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight...”
- “Do not remember either good or bad...”
- “Holy night! Bliss and peace..."
- “I want to remain silent, humbled for everyone and everything...”
- “The arrogant mind strives for the Truth...”
- "The color is blue and the color is green..."
Father Roman's songs and poems performed by him are available on the official website
Every year, print publications are increasingly giving way to their digital versions. This makes it much easier to find the information you need. The same goes for songs and poems by your favorite authors. Each has its own official website. Monk Matyushin also has one.
Official website of Father Roman
The site contains the texts of all songs and poems, the latest information about the fate of the holy father: what he writes, what he thinks about, where he is now.
Poems by Father Roman (taken from the official website)
God's sparks Just yesterday, listening to Heaven, Snowflakes lulled the valleys. And now a feast for the eyes - Beauty beyond the power of words! The groves and reeds are silvered by Caring Mother Nature. It contains everything to comfort the soul, any soul, at any time of the year. The God-created Temple shines with light, Linden trees and blades of grass are drowning in the azure. Oh, if only we listened to the Heavens, Like these sparkling snowflakes! I stand in prayerful silence, And only my heart beats gratefully... We are God's sparks in the sunny Paradise And we are dust without the rays of the Sun. Creation is obedient to Heaven, But you, soul, have not lived up to your dignity.
Vetrovo. Father Roman Matyushkin spends his retreat here
Predustye
And the river in the water lilies, and the holy azure above me, I would freeze in silence and look endlessly into the sky... But the current carries me, and the boat under the night star will bring from the sublunar beauties to the unearthly ocean. Maybe it’s better not to swim, but to go ashore for a dream And fall on the grass in the vast evening fog? But is it wise, soul, to say goodbye to living water, If the river is only a path, and the final goal is the ocean? Now the wind is fresher, and the sounds are like the surf, Has the wave cleared up or is rolling thunder rushing? Oh, to enter the ocean with a grateful song and prayer For the azure over the river and for the fact that You are in my heart...
Backwards
Let Cain's cause perish - To exalt himself as a redneck, to divide the people into red and white, and to threaten his brother with a sword! How long will we amuse ourselves with deception and sing of hard times? The one who censers will never stand before the image of Christ! A visit to the Temple is in vain, Until a pagan understands: The Pectoral Cross will not save those who wear a pentagram in their hearts. In order for the spark of God to flare up, Quench the frantic protest And tear out the star from your heart - Or take off your pectoral Cross. Where are you looking, you lying genius, Like Lot’s wife?.. Let everyone who calls for fratricidal war be destroyed! Neither with the Reds, nor with the Cossacks - I would like to stand between the enemy brothers at the Easter bell, a barrier to bullets from both sides.
All the last poems were written by the author in Vetrovo Skete, where he now lives.
POEMS 1985-1993
- “I dream about the same thing...”
- “And there is a lot of harvest. There are few doers..."
- I bless those who have comprehended the Truth
- Crying (“Oh, I feel sick, Oh, I feel sick...”)
- “I’ll shut up, shut up, shut up...”
- “The greatness of rivers lies in the stillness of the waters...”
- “Do not believe those who say: Here is Christ...”
- “It’s calm and peaceful in the cemetery...”
- “We sow rye and mow quinoa...”
- "You have to pay for everything..."
- “I won’t sleep today anymore...”
- Fog
- “Ryabchevsk! Ryabchevsk! Godless hole..."
- “But there was no place for me in Russia...”
- “I will wash my hands in Desna, in Desna...”
- “I no longer crave healing...”
- “From a young age, as I remember...”
- “Not all the places have been visited yet...”
- “And I loved it. And I was loved once..."
- “Go away, go away, sadness, sadness...”
- “And I visited a great city...”
- Father Leonid's house
- “So much pain all around, so much pain...”
- “I will come to you from the northern lands...”
- “And the first snow, and the first snow will melt...”
- “In my father’s house, old and abandoned...”
- “The soul is filled with sorrow, like water with midnight darkness...”
- “What a vastness, and nowhere to run...”
- “I say goodbye without having time to find...”
- “We are going to our death. Both old and small..."
- “What’s all that noise? It’s far away to hear..."
- “I put the Future in the verse...”
- Jerusalem
- “And the Milky Way and the gentle crescent...”
- "I was born on an autumn night..."
- “I am known in the world as unsociable, gloomy and proud...”
- "Thirty-seven is a good number..."
- “Oh, the hayloft, my hayloft...”
- “And the Church is something more than us...”
- “And they passed by...”
- Ninth Wave
- A drop of truth
- “If I had not learned the secret of Communion with God...”
- “Do not judge a tree by the leaves that fall from the tree...”
- “My day of sorrow! Day of cleansing!..”
- “Oh, how I swam for a long time...”
- “The earth is a haven of imperfection...”
- "When the water closes itself..."
- “How I longed for a monastic destiny...”
- “Doubt is the child of lack of faith...”
- “The soul longed to partake of the Cup of prayer...”
- “Prelest is deviation from the Truth...”
- “The fear of the Lord is the Abba of abstinence...”
- “Blessed is he who has not sold the Truth...”
- “Eh, dear! And we have already arrived..."
- Don't tear the Truth apart into opinions
- House of Sorrows
- “Have pity, darling, pity...”
- “I will die, but not now...”
- “My white temple. The hour of farewell is sad..."
- Lullaby
- “Without God, a nation is a crowd...”
- “You say, contorting your face in suffering...”
- “The autumn day was shrouded in drowsiness...”
- "Always like this. Under the rustle of falling leaves..."
- “But I can’t cling to the damp earth...”
- “I will walk on a land defiled by deception...”
- “The White Night has prepared a bed in the Pskov region...”
- “The nightingale sang, oh, how he sang...”
- “And the pain of deception will touch me...”
- “And again I’m alone, like a tree in winter...”
- "On someone else's side..."
- “Get away from me, get away from me, every single one...”
- “A lot of knowledge comes with a lot of sadness...”
- “Come, soul, to the Young Lady...”
- “I’ll throw on my mantle...”
- “Oh death! We can't stand your look..."
- “No one is holy like You...”
- “What is needed for salvation? A little…"
- Funeral
- Stones of holy altars
- "Come, let us please Joseph..."
- “And they’re already knocking on me, and they’re knocking again...”
- "From dawn to dawn..."
- “Leaving home, relatives, my inheritance...”
- “I’ll spend the night in a haystack, dig a hole like an animal...”
- “I see myself gray-haired in a dream...”
- “I’ll light a lamp in the cell”
- “The death knell. The deacon censes indifferently..."
- “This night, this night I can’t sleep, I can’t sleep...”
- “I’ll draw an old house...”
- "White Temple over the River..."
- "Evangelist by Divine Hand..."
- “Pilate watered Christ and His bi...”
- “The blind man sang what he had learned from childhood...”
- “The lamp is glowing, the candle light is cheerful...”
- “I will disappear from the face of the earth...”
- “Oh All-Singing Mother! O All-Singing Mother!..”
- “Receive your guests, Moscow, with bread and salt...”
- "I said that somewhere..."
- "Oh my God, my God..."
- "Midnight, lunar midnight..."
- “Mount Golgotha. I see three crosses..."
- “This is the song of the captives, persecuted by the enemy...”
- "Bells ringing..."
- “The earth will turn from light into darkness...”
- “Why are you sleeping, arise, my soul...”
- “I thought a lot about my fate...”
- “Blessing of the air...”
- Sister of Sorrow
- "Blessed Virgin Mary..."
- Let us stand before the Queen of Heaven
- “My joy, the time of repentance is coming...”
- "Looking back at my life..."
- “The night envelops the roads in darkness...”
- “Mother punished Dobrynyushka...”
- “Everyone knows this for sure...”
- “I have a great dream...”
- "Rome rejoices in pagan joy..."
- “Fasting with prayer will warm the heart...”
- "Thank God, I'm alone again..."
- “At this hour, the midnight hour...”
- "Everything on earth is for us living..."
- “Bom, bom, bom - the morning is disturbed...”
- “I will open the Holy Psalter...”
- “Let’s put aside care...”
- “What, Adam, are you sitting opposite Paradise...”
