The Kaluga region is famous for its many shrines. The most famous is Optina Pustyn, whose history begins in the 14th century. In the 19th century, the monastery became a real correctional shelter for the Russian intelligentsia. Wise confessors - the Optina elders - healed the ailments of the nobles here, lovingly comforting all pilgrims, regardless of their rank and position.
Where is Optina Pustyn located?
The monastery is located two kilometers from Kozelsk, on the banks of the Zhizdra River. They say that after spending several days in these places, a person changes and peace comes into his soul. Hundreds of people travel here every day. This is one of the most revered and prayed places in Orthodox Rus'. People think about where Optina Pustyn is located in moments of despondency, when they are overcome by a feeling of hopelessness. You can get to these places by train. From the Tupik station it is two kilometers to the monastery.
Background
What was previously where Optina Pustyn is located today? The history of the Kozelsky district tells about the Vyatichi tribe who once lived here. The city itself was mentioned for the first time in the chronicle of 1146. In 1238 it was taken by the Tatars. The battle lasted for a month and a half. Almost all the inhabitants of Kozelsk were killed, and two-year-old Prince Vasily, according to legend, drowned in blood.
At the beginning of the 15th century the city passed to Lithuania. After 50 years, the city became part of the Moscow Principality. The date of foundation of Optina Pustyn is unknown. But there is an assumption that previously the monastery was common to monks and nuns.
Wholesale
Optina Pustyn is a monastery located in the Kaluga region. In the old days, places of secluded monastic settlements were called deserts. Optina is a word that comes from the name of a repentant thief. Little is known about this man.
The robber Opta was the formidable leader of a large gang. It is industrial in a dense forest, where the city of Kozelsk is now located. One day, for unknown reasons, an inveterate robber left his gang and took monastic vows. In monasticism he received the name Macarius. That is why the hermitage was called Makaryevskaya in the 14th-15th centuries. It is unknown where the founder of the monastery is buried. Moreover, this story is just one of the legends. There are many blank spots in the history of Optina Pustyn.
"Once upon a time there lived twelve thieves"
Over the centuries, Russian character has been composed of components that are diametrically opposed in content. If we figuratively decompose it into its components, then at one end of the coordinate line there will be an ascetic monk, at the other - a robber. And in the “non-Euclidean geometry” of national folklore, the transition between these limiting points turns out to be short. The two images are combined in the archetype figure of the repentant thief.
In Russian folklore, the image of the repentant robber is so rooted that legends on this topic are born as if by themselves, reinterpreting specific historical facts and legends. These legends are, of course, based on the gospel story. But if the gospel thief’s repentance occurs on the cross, after which he dies, gaining eternal life, then the depth of repentance for an ordinary thief leads to the fact that he dies for the world - he becomes a monk. Moreover, folklore narratives are usually transformed in time until the legend paints a complete image of the former robber, who certainly became the founder of the monastery. You don’t have to look far for examples.
Optina Pustyn, according to legend, was founded by the robber Opta. Bobrenev Nativity Monastery in Kolomna, again according to legend, is the robber Bobrenev. Nikolo-Berlyukovskaya hermitage in the near Moscow region - the robber Berlyuk. Trinity Monastery in Lebedyan (Lipetsk region) - the robber Tyapka. Nikolo-Storozhenskaya monastery near Lake Ladoga - the robber Kozma (monastically Cyprian). In four examples out of five, it can be said with varying degrees of certainty that the legends were born from folk memories of how all these Berlyuks, Tyapki and others hunted with their gangs in the corresponding places. Even where there is accurate historical information (the Bobrenev Monastery was founded by the governor D.M. Bobrok-Volynsky according to a vow after the Battle of Kulikovo), folklore still, over time, depicts the favorite figure of the repentant robber, who became the founder of the monastic monastery.
Meanwhile, the repentant robber is only one hypostasis of the mythologized image of the robber. Over the centuries of the development of folklore in baptized Rus', this image has gone through several stages of transformation. And its roots stretch deep into the pre-Christian ancient Slavic era. And these pre-Christian roots still feed our “robber” folklore.
The most archaic image of the robber owes its origin to the secret military brotherhoods of the ancient Slavs. These brotherhoods of fighters (later zboyniki, robbers), associated with the pagan cult of the wolf, “lived separately from communities, often in forests, or led a semi-nomadic lifestyle. The source of their livelihood was hunting and the robbery of nearby communities, which more or less took the form of a ritual... The fighters sought to bring into their ranks everyone who, either by choice or by force, separated from the community - outcasts, “brave” loners, etc.” (S.V. Alekseev. “Slavic Europe V-VI centuries.”). Members of these forest brotherhoods supported the faith of their fellow tribesmen in their witchcraft and werewolf abilities. When going out for ritual fishing, the slaughterers dressed up in wolf skins. Bloody rituals were also supposed to support beliefs about the magical power of the “wolf claws”: rituals of staining weapons - killing the first person they met during the initiation of a new member of the brotherhood, human sacrifices and cannibalism - eating vital human organs.
Over the centuries, wolf brotherhoods disintegrated and their rituals became a thing of the past. But the phenomenon of ostracism persisted—expulsion or free departure from the community. These outcasts, huddled in groups, settling in the forests, formed new “brotherhoods” of robbers and no longer lived by ritual robbery of the area. And folklore transferred all the witchcraft properties of the former werewolf fighters to them.
Since then, the robber in the popular imagination is a semi-infernal creature; he is associated with evil spirits and serves them. He, like evil spirits, is a murderer: having destroyed his own soul, he also destroys the souls of Christians, killing, leaving them without repentance and often without burial. The classic image is the Nightingale the Robber, something very little like a person. He whistles like a typical evil spirit, screams like an animal, hisses like a snake, there are human skulls mounted on poles around his home, and the Nightingale himself, by all appearances, is a cannibal.
Robbers and demons became images of the same type. Just as in reality temples were built on the sites of ruined pagan temples, so the monastery sanctified the area where robber gangs had previously lived. In the lives of the saints, thieves tempt the hermit monk just like demons: like demons, they attack them, torture them, and frighten them. Robber insurance is just as significant an element of testing an ascetic as is demonic insurance.
Finally, a robber is certainly a sorcerer. He buries the loot in the ground and seals the treasures with spells. Witchcraft helps him avoid danger and escape from his pursuers. Here the classic image is Ataman Kudeyar. In later popular folklore, Kudeyar is a magical creature: he sleeps with one eye closed, and watches with the other, and if he sees someone being chased, he throws a sheepskin coat into the river, which turns into a boat, and sails away on it.
In the Christian era, the folklore type of robber went through three stages of development.
On the first, the robber is a powerful personification of dark forces (including foreign enemies). This anti-hero (Nightingale the Robber) is defeated by an even greater heroic force (Ilya Muromets), precisely because she is good, sanctified by Christianity, serving God and people. But there is still a lot of paganism here, since the people themselves, barely baptized, remained dual-believer.
The second stage of image transformation is the repentant thief. The popular consciousness, already completely Christian, having forgotten the essence of pagan plots and motifs, applies the Gospel image of the thief crucified and saved by Christ to the mythologized reality. Obviously, the life of medieval Rus' gave many examples of this type of behavior, repentance and complete transformation of former villains. The spiritual turning point and the transition from the state of death of the soul with a full-blooded life of the body - to monastic death for the world with a soul revived for eternity, probably greatly struck the imagination of those who witnessed such a miracle.
These repentants could not necessarily be real robbers and murderers - but also those who, leading an ordinary lifestyle, were essentially robbers. Here you can remember Nikita the Stylite of Pereslavl (XII century). A princely tax collector (publican), he plundered the townspeople, apparently not shying away from physical reprisals. Repenting after a bloody vision (pieces of a human body in a cauldron with cooking food), he went to a monastery and took on an unusual feat: putting on iron chains, he began to pray day and night on a stone pillar.
Another “repentant robber” was from the Rurik princes. Prince Yuri Svyatoslavich of Smolensk (XIV - early XV centuries) often and generously shed the blood of Smolensk citizens and his boyars, considered traitors. His last crime was the brutal murder of Princess Juliana, the wife of the Vyazemsk prince who served him (St. Juliana of Vyazemskaya). Soon after this, Yuri was overtaken by severe remorse. Six months later, he breathed his last repentant breath in the monastery of the Ryazan hermit.
Of the historical figures, only one Russian saint known to the author fully corresponds to the image of the repentant robber who founded the monastery. This is Trifon Pechenga, educator of the Lapp Sami of the Kola Peninsula. In his youth, he was the leader of a detachment of either tribute collectors or prey hunters who plundered east of the Gulf of Bothnia (now Finland) and in Norwegian Lapland - in the border “no-man’s” lands. Such a northern analogue of the Zaporozhye freemen of Cossack robbers. According to his own story, recorded later by a Dutch merchant, he “was a formidable warrior for his enemies, he robbed and ruined many people on the border and shed a lot of blood, which he repented of and bitterly regretted.” In repentance, Tryphon went to the far north of the Murmansk land and eventually founded the Pechenga monastery there.
Of the folklore characters, the main one here is Kudeyar the Ataman himself. According to many legends, he robbed in central Rus' (from Tula to the Volga region), and northern legends supplemented his image with repentance and asceticism in the Solovetsky Monastery.
The third, later stage in the development of the image of the robber can be indicated by the dashing figure of Vanka Cain, a Moscow bandit of the 18th century. This “devil” carried out his robberies so deftly and cunningly, with jokes and jokes, and so brazenly deceived the guardians of the law that in the people’s memory he left behind almost nothing but admiration. This is already the stage of glorification and romanticization of the “knight of the high road”, from which it is one step to the literary “noble robbers”, whose adventures were read by the aristocratic public in the era of romanticism. But Vanka the werewolf, no matter how clever he was in avoiding punishment, eventually fell into the punishing hands of the law and sat in a fortress for the rest of his life. He escaped execution only because Empress Elizabeth vowed not to put anyone to death.
A heroic robber is also a person who opposes the colossus of state power, takes revenge on it for the lawlessness it commits and mocks it. In the series of these bandit heroes are Stenka Razin and Emelka Pugachev. In the same row is the colorful character of I. Okhlobystin’s black comedy “The Nightingale the Robber” (2012), who mixed in himself all the Russian folklore features of the robber.
Okhlobystin, who played the “new Russian robber” Nightingale, combined in this image the infernal properties of the epic anti-hero, and the heroic-romantic daring with the graceful mockery of Vanka Cain, and the reflection of repentance (however, he did not go to the monastery himself, but “surrendered” before his own death) his friend and accomplice to the monastery for repentance). All three options for exiting the state of robbery are presented in one way or another in the film: collapse in the face of an even greater force, a monastery, a strong grip of the punishing hand of the law.
However, it is unlikely that such a combination would have been possible a century or two ago. The Russian Church of the Synodal era preferred to place far apart the figures of the robber, even the repentant one, and the ascetic monk. We will not touch on the reasons for this here; we will only say that Tryphon of Pechenga became a victim of this approach to creating the image of the holy ascetic and writing his life. His original life of the 17th century. was lost and forgotten or deliberately changed. Instead, a pious story appeared about Tryphon, who supposedly gravitated towards God and prayer from childhood. Only recently has it become possible to restore his true biography from the period of his stormy youth.
The romanticized image of the robber is alive to this day, which was facilitated by the Soviet regime, for which the criminal element was “socially close,” and the era of the “dashing 90s” with endless series about bandits, including those “restoring law and justice.” But the character’s options for exiting his abnormal life of robbery have narrowed to the absurd - to senseless death or going nowhere, to an open ending. The modern collective unconscious, creating cinematic and literary folklore, does not see any other way out, does not know what it should be. It does not want to hand over the villainous hero to the hands of the law, but it also cannot imagine him repenting. The characters of the cult films “Gangster Petersburg”, “Brigada”, “Boomer” die absurdly. The main character of "Brother 2" simply flies away on a plane and does not promise to return. If the filmmakers depict a gangster character who has left the path of robbery and leads the peaceful life of an ordinary person (for example, the series “Next” with sequels), it very soon becomes clear that past sins are not allowed into heaven and the hero must again harness himself to the gangster cart.
The birth of folklore images occurs on the basis of changing reality. And the repentant robber will again enter the “cage” of types widespread in mass culture only when the phenomenon of former murderers resurrected by their souls becomes more or less noticeable in real life.
The image of a robber is different for each time and from it one can clearly judge the moral state of an entire people. The two thieves crucified with Christ - the prudent repentant and the insane one who rejected spiritual healing - are the personification of all humanity and its choice between Christ and hell. Healthy people are those for whom the optimal way out of banditry is repentance, and not physical death, not the triumph of the law or anything else. Because this is also seen as a personal ideal path. This is a universal, vivid and most understandable image of repentance for anyone in general. Can a Christian have the illusion that before God he himself is not the same desperate robber as numerous characters in folklore and history? After all, if he can, then he is not a Christian.
Other versions about the founding of the monastery
There are various assumptions about who founded Optina Pustyn. According to one version, it was built in the depths of a dense forest thanks to Prince Vladimir the Brave and his heirs. These places were not suitable for arable farming; in the 14th century they did not belong to anyone. Therefore, according to another version, one day unknown hermits appeared here. They chose the most remote place for their spiritual exploits, far from settlements. These are the versions about the emergence of Optina Pustyn. The history of the monastery is presented below.
XVIII century
Peter's reforms did not have the best effect on the fate of the monastery. The monastery had to pay rent to the state. Funds were needed for the construction of a new capital and the war with the Swedes. By the second decade of the 18th century, the monastery found itself in dire straits. In 1724 it was abolished. The wooden buildings located on its territory fell into disrepair.
Restoration began in 1741. A wooden bell tower and a new temple with two chapels were built here. In 1764, by order of Catherine the Great, the monastery became one of the monasteries of the Krutitsa diocese. Five years later, construction of the cathedral church was completed. According to historical documents, in the seventies there were only two monks.
The position of Optina Hermitage began to change towards the end of the 18th century, when the Metropolitan of Moscow drew attention to the monastery. Already in 1797 there were 12 monks here. In 1799, the monastery became part of the Kaluga diocese.
Optina Pustyn on video in 4k:
Two robbers - Kudejar and Opta - lived in the impenetrable dense forests of the Kozelsky tree barriers. For many years, their raids terrified the surrounding residents, but by the action of God's grace, something unusual happened in the soul of the cruel leader of the gang - and the robbers parted with each other. Kudejar went to the Penza province and continued his predatory craft for a long time, but Opta repented and became a monk. He helped people strive for the salvation of their souls and brought worthy fruits of repentance.
There is, however, a second opinion, according to which the monastery received the designation “Optin” (which in this case means “general”) due to the simultaneous presence of schema-monks and schema-nuns in the monastery, since their names are recorded in the ancient monastery. Since the monastery from ancient times had neither land nor useful property, it can be assumed that it was founded not by princes or boyars, but through tears, fasting, vigil and the work of unknown ascetics.
Monks in Optina Pustyn
However, nothing is known about the time of foundation of the monastery. Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich gave Optina a hermitage for incense and candles, “a mill area on the river not far from Kozelsk.” Lists of abbots of Optina Hermitage have been preserved since the 17th century. Many of them bore the title of abbot (abbot), which already indicates that the monastery is well known.
After being devastated by the Lithuanians in 1625, when Abbot Sergei was here, the monastery began to gradually recover. In 1630, there was a wooden church, six cells and 12 brothers under the leadership of the priest monk Fyodor. In 1689, with the help of the Chepelev brothers (local boyars), the Church of the Entry of the Blessed Virgin Mary into the temple was built. In 1724 (during the persecution of the monastery), the impoverished monastery was abolished as a “junior monastery” by decree of the synod and by decree of Peter the Great, and the monks were relocated to the Belevsky Transfiguration Monastery. But already in 1726, the monastery was restored through the mediation of the “Stolnikov” (supervisors of the tables, Truchse) Andrei Chelepov and Arlatov, and 10 monks who represented the brotherhood of the monastery began to repair it. In the following decades, the monastery hardly flourished, since it is known that in 1770 there were only three monks living in the monastery, one of whom was blind. In general, there was no construction manager at all. Only in 1795, when Moscow Metropolitan Platon drew attention to it, did the complete restoration of the monastery begin.
Optina Pustyn
Most of the monastery's buildings were built at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, when the monastery was reestablished as the center of Russian rule. In 1821, a monastery for beginners was built 400 meters from the monastery. The excitement attracted crowds of Christians to Kozelsk. Among other people, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Vasily Zhukovsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev and Vasily Rozanov visited Optina Pustyn. Leo Tolstoy also visited the monastery, although he did not approve of this rule. The monastery had a rich library, compiled with the help of the Slavophile brothers Kireyevsky, both of whom are buried within the walls of the monastery.
In 1993, on April 18, the murder of monks took place in Optina Hermitage. The murder was committed on Easter night from April 17 to 18. The killer came to the monastery during a solemn service. He went to the belfry and killed two monks who were ringing the bells. Both monks died immediately. And at 6 o’clock in the morning the killer attacked Hieromonk Vasily from behind.
19th century
Optina Pustyn is of considerable importance in Russian history. This monastery is a vivid example of the process of spiritual revival that occurred at the end of the 18th century. It is located at the edge of a pine forest, cut off from the world by Zhizdra. This is an excellent place for a contemplative hermit life, a spiritual oasis. They say that the elders of Optina Pustyn have the gift of healing.
At the beginning of the century, construction of a three-tier bell tower began. Outbuildings for cells were added to it on both sides. In 1804, construction ended. Three years later, construction began on the Kazan Church, and a little later on a hospital church with six cells. Councilor Kamynin allocated funds for construction materials.
The temples were consecrated in 1811. Ten years later, a monastery was established here. Hermits lived in it, that is, people who spent many years in absolute solitude. The elder was in charge of the spiritual life of the monastery. From all corners of Russia, people flocked to Optina Pustyn, striving to live in harmony with God. The monastery became the spiritual center of the country. After donations began to arrive, land, a mill, and stone buildings appeared here.
II. History of Optina Pustyn
At the end of the previous period, we already mentioned that Optina Pustyn owed its revival to the unforgettable for Russia archpastor Plato, Metropolitan of Moscow and Kaluga.
In the History of the Russian Hierarchy, this ever-memorable event for the monastery is described as follows:
«In 1796, His Eminence Metropolitan Platon of Moscow, visiting this Desert, recognized this place for desert community life as very convenient, which is why he decided to establish it here, in the image of the Pesnoshsky Monastery. And, in order to bring this assumption into fulfillment as successfully as possible, he asked the Pesnosha abbot, the builder Macarius, to give him a capable person for this purpose, which Hieromonk Abraham was recognized to be. When he came to this place, he found several monastics here, and the building, except for the cathedral church, was all wooden, and even dilapidated, etc.
»27.
Indeed, by appointing Hieromonk Abraham as rector of the converted monastery, the experienced elder Macarius fully justified the trust and God-loving desire of the Moscow and Kaluga archpastor. In this pious abbot, who ruled Optina Pustyn for twenty years, the brethren gathered by him saw an edifying father, the monastery saw a caring and skillful ruler, outsiders saw in him an example of a true Christian and an indicator of an active spiritual life.
I found Fr. in a disastrous and pitiful situation. Abraham, the monastery entrusted to him. Not to mention the internal disorder that we saw before, her most external state, hitherto still decent, after the death of the active treasurer Arseny, changed significantly. The building, except for the cathedral church, was all wooden; remaining for several years without support, it finally fell into complete disrepair, so that, with the exception of the abbot's cell, only one cell was capable of accommodating monastics. The brotherhood of the monastery consisted of only three people, and among them there was not a single hieromonk, and there had been no new laborers coming to obedience since time immemorial. Predecessor Fr. Abraham Joseph, of course, not hoping to introduce improvement in everything, refused, due to illness, from a construction position, so that at least not to be a witness to the final desolation of the holy place, which, apparently, was almost inevitable.
But what is impossible with man is possible with God (Luke 18:27), and His help is close to all who call on Him in truth. Upon arrival in Optina Pustyn Fr. Abraham, in a few years everything changed for the better in her: overcoming difficulties with patience, he, with the help of pious people, quickly erected the monastery from its fall and gradually prepared it for real splendor.
Here is a story about the selection and appointment of Fr. Abraham, heard from the elder himself and recorded by us from the words of his former cell attendant, later, hieromonk of Optina Pustyn, Fr. Philareta. Father Abraham, being a member of the brotherhood of the Pesnoshsky Monastery, before his appointment as abbot of Optina Pustyn, was a gardener and calmly, in the simplicity of his heart, went about his obedience, not looking for or wanting anything else. When Hieromonk Joseph resigned from his position due to illness, and Metropolitan Platon began to ask Elder Macarius to give Optina Pustyn, for its establishment, a completely capable and completely trustworthy person, the elder answered with his usual simplicity: “Yes, I don’t have such, holy lord; But should I give you the gardener Abraham?” The Right Reverend, realizing that the elder wanted to express with such a reservation (i.e., that there is no perfection in the world, and it is difficult to respond otherwise to the demand: to give a person who is completely and completely capable and trustworthy), without asking anything more, ordered that the . Abrahamia. Archimandrite Macarius, after some time, calling Abraham to himself, ordered him to prepare to go with him to Moscow for some shopping, and upon arrival in the capital, introduced him to the archpastor. Then I just found out about. Abraham about his appointment. In vain, out of a sense of humility, he asked his elder, Fr. Macarius, imagining that the burden imposed on him is beyond his strength, presenting his weaknesses and painful condition. The advice of the Golutvinsky Elder Samuil and the Pesnoshsky Jonah convinced him not to persistently deviate from the calling of God, and he soon went to his destination, guided by the blessings of the Elder and the brethren who loved him.
Arriving at Optina Pustyn, he found, as was mentioned, extreme desolation: “ there was no towel for the employee to wipe his hands,
- was talking about.
Abraham; - but there was nothing to help the grief and poverty;
I cried and prayed, prayed and cried. Having lived in the monastery for two months, not seeing help from anywhere to correct its deplorable condition, and, moreover, missing my spiritual homeland and my former peaceful, carefree life, I went to Pesnosh, to open my soul to the elder (Fr. A. Macarius) and beg to remove I can't bear the burden. “But it turned out differently: the elder received me with fatherly love, and, having listened to my complaints about the poverty of the monastery entrusted to me, he ordered to harness his cart, and, taking me with him, he went to the landowners he knew. In a short time, according to his word, they provided me with everything I needed, so I brought a cartload of two different things to the monastery. Returning from the gathering, the elder invited me to serve with him, and after the service and a common meal, completely unexpectedly for everyone, he addressed his brotherhood with these words: “fathers and brothers! which of you would like to go with Fr. Abraham, for the establishment of the monastery entrusted to him, I not only do not interfere, but I also lovingly bless this good deed .”
As a result of such an announcement, several people from the brethren of the Pesnosh monastery voluntarily followed Abraham to the monastery entrusted to him. Over time, outside workers joined them, and thus a brotherhood was formed, which Optina Pustyn had not seen for a long time within its walls. Before being established on a solid foundation, these monks had to struggle with many difficulties and shortcomings. No one, however, complained about their fate, and all the companions of the valiant Abraham, strong in unanimity, endured the need with Christian selflessness. Soon, their constancy bore the desired fruits: times changed, and everything worked out for the good of the enterprise.
The first difficulties in improving the condition of the monastery were the troubles it suffered from Kozel citizens, disabled soldiers and peasants, who caused constant damage to the monastery, and constant grief to the brethren. This forced the humble Abraham (in 1797) to go in with a petition about this to the Eminence Plato, under whose patronage the Hermitage was being revived. This is how Fr. explains. Abraham these damages and concerns: “ 1) they steal the forest; 2) in the monastery dachas they fish hard; 3) they chop brushwood, which should be used for monastic needs; 4) they arrive at night and dig out that the best places are in the monastery meadows; 5) this May 7th, a couple of monastery horses were taken away, and, although the thieves had already been found, the Kozelsky government offices did not provide any assistance to the monastery, and what’s more, they protected the thieves; 6) this same month of May, these public places, while allocating other philistine meadows to the regimental cavalry, also allocated the monastery meadows, which were leased to the Kozel merchant for monastic needs, and, as you know, this Hermitage, apart from this, did not has no other income and lives on his own food; 7) just as in the winter they drive through our forest to a clearing near the monastery itself, and in the summer they walk around our dachas and sing songs that can be heard in the church during the Divine service... then it comes to our mind that the former builder refused not for physical illness, and even more so, mental illness that comes from this anxiety; therefore, many of the novices have left and others intend to leave, which is why this Hermitage cannot come into its proper order and structure, etc. May 30, 1797
».
From the signatures under this petition, it is clear that the brotherhood of Optina Pustyn at that time consisted of 12 people, namely: the builder Abraham; hieromonks: John and Pimen; Hierodeacon Athanasius: monks: Parthenius and Ignatius; novices: Maxim, Gabriel, Michael, Onesimus, Evstigney, Matvey.28 The Reverend Plato, having received the petition of Fr. Avraamiya, approached the governor of Kaluga, A.D. Obleukhov, according to whose orders the local authorities were ordered to take appropriate measures to protect the integrity of the monastic possessions, and to confirm to the Kozel citizens so that they would maintain the reverence due to the monastery: and, meanwhile, for the spiritual edification of the brethren of the monastery, Metropolitan Plato set forth the following resolution, worthy of his spiritual wisdom: “The holy life of monastics will either ward off all these misfortunes, or overcome with patience, and God, seeing the patience of his servants, will invisibly protect
».
Soon after this, the builder Abraham came to this archpastor with a new petition: “ to allow Lieutenant F.I. Rachmaninov in the chapel of St. The Great Martyr Theodore Stratelates on his kosht iconostasis again carved, and gilded, and wrote St. image with iconic Greek scripture
"
His Eminence Plato granted this request with the following resolution: “ God bless!
“Behold, you see that others insult you, but God stirs up others to your consolation .”
This is how the unforgettable Plato acted, supporting, on the one hand, the monastery that was being revived, according to his will, with his archpastoral authority, and on the other hand, comforting the monks with spiritual and edifying advice.
The year 1797 was memorable for all Russian monasteries due to the merciful attention paid to them by Emperor Pavel Petrovich, of blessed memory. As a result of the Highest Decree of December 18 of this year, Optina Pustyn, among others, received 300 rubles a year as a gracious alms for eternity. In addition, Pustyn was granted a flour mill with two stations on the Sosennaya River and a pond for fishing at the Mitino Iron Plant. This royal mercy greatly contributed to the initial improvement of the monastery, ensuring its brotherhood from the first needs of life.
In 1799, Optina Pustyn became part of the newly opened Kaluga diocese. Respecting the works of Abraham, His Grace Theophylact, the first bishop of the new diocese, paid special attention to the revived monastery. Proof of his power of attorney and affection for Fr. Abraham, by the way, is served by the fact that in 1800, during the restoration of the Maloyaroslavets Chernoostrog Monastery by the Moscow merchant Terentiy Tselibeev, the Right Reverend entrusted the initial structure of this monastery to Abraham, “as if he were a man well-versed in the community and knowledgeable in the management of the construction of communal monasteries.” The order was carried out successfully, and the hieromonk of Optina Pustyn, Methodius, was made a builder in the restored monastery; Later, Methodius was moved to the Tikhonova Kaluga Hermitage, and his place was taken by the hieromonk of the Optina Hermitage Parthenius.
In 1801, “for excellent services to the monastery for the common benefit,” Abraham was promoted to abbot of the Likhvinsky Pokrovsky Good Monastery, with control, at the same time, of Optina. But soon, weakness, and, partly, fear that the improvement he had established in the Optics of the Desert would not be disrupted, forced Abraham to abandon his new dignity. The Right Reverend respected the elder’s request, and he was still left in charge only in Optina Pustyn, but already in the rank of hegumen.
Having introduced approximate internal order into the monastery, Fr. Abraham earned her the respect and respect of the entire surrounding population, and, as his funds increased, he took up the material arrangement of the monastery, with the help of willing donors who sympathized with him. Abraham was, at the same time, both the founder and the architect. In 1802, opposite the cathedral church he had renewed, the construction of a new three-tier bell tower 30 fathoms high began. A stone outbuilding was attached to it on both sides for fraternal cells. This bell tower, which makes up the beauty of the monastery, and the left wing were completed in 1804, and the right one in 1806.
The first stone of the three-aisle Kazan Church was laid in 1805, and in 1809, construction began on a hospital church with six cells attached to it, using material donated by the court councilor Kamynin. Both of these churches were completed at the same time in 1811, and consecrated at the same time by His Grace Evlampius, Bishop of Kaluga and Borovsk: the hospital one - on August 26, and the present one, in Kazan - on October 23. The entire wooden monastery structure was repaired; and, in addition, two stone two-story (wooden top) outbuildings, a fraternal meal and an abbot's outbuilding, were built again, and an orchard was planted inside the monastery. In a word, Abraham did not forget about anything: everything was thought out and executed in the most zealous manner.
But, while dealing with the external structure of the monastery entrusted to him, Fr. Abraham grieved for a long time, seeing in her many who wished and were worthy to accept monastic orders, but who did not have the right to do so, because according to the state of 1764, it was determined that no more than seven monastics and with an abbot should be kept in Optina Pustyn. After consulting with the unanimous brethren, Fr. Abraham decided to bother the Sovereign Emperor Alexander Pavlovich of blessed memory with a request, so that he would deign to increase the number of monks in Optina Pustyn. Here is the content of this request:
«Since ancient times, this Hermitage has been based on its subsistence, near the city of Kozelsk, near the Zhizdra River, in which there is the Church of the Entry of the Blessed Virgin Mary and two chapels: Paphnutius of Borovsky and Theodore Stratelates, fraternal cells and a stone fence, and a warm church with three altars and a bell tower have been re-erected; and with it there are eight fraternal cells, made of stone, and all this was built with the support of willing, God-loving donors; in the same Desert there are seven brethren and with a superior, who can barely perform the divine liturgy, and others, by the visitation of God, are overcome by illness; why the priestly service is performed with extreme need, and through it, people flocking to the brotherhood of different ranks, as well as pilgrims coming from different places, are inflicted with palpable grief; why am I driven by zeal for God, although I would like to diligently provide those flocking listeners with soul-saving pleasure through the daily celebration of the Divine Liturgy, but sometimes it is not possible to fulfill it, due to the small number of brothers. In considering what, there is an urgent need for staffing; and those living in this Desert, among the brotherhood, want to take on the monastic rank, but due to the lack of idle vacancies, they leave with great regret, and, for all that, there are still up to fifty people in the said Desert, and they persistently ask me about their installation in the monastic order, for which I most humbly ask, so that the Most High, Your Imperial Majesty, by decree, ordered in the Most Holy Governing Synod, to accept this request of mine, and, due to those significant circumstances, to favor in this Desert, to a better structure and splendor in the performance of the service God and for the pleasure of the flocking people, as well as the brethren who want to be monastics, add 23 people to make thirty people, a set for the brotherhood, leaving them on the same food as this Hermitage is now maintained. July 21, 1808
».
At the request of His Grace Theophylact, Bishop of Kaluga, the pious Monarch most mercifully deigned to agree to the request of Abbot Abraham. By a decree from the Holy Synod of 1809, January 18, it was allowed: “ to the current, in Optina Pustyn, regular position of monastics, add twenty-three more people, so that the number of them and the abbot would be out of thirty
».
Having thus filled the most important deficiency in the Optina Hermitage, Abraham in the following time did not weaken in his labors and care for its welfare. He did not beg, either, but the favor he deserved from the Kaluga archpastors increased even more. Thus, the successors of the Right Reverend Theophylact, bishops Evlampius and Eugene, showed special favor to Optina Pustyn. The first of them even wanted to spend the rest of his days in the monastery in prayerful peace, which is why a special cell (now the abbot’s cell) was built for him for this purpose.
Thus, the monastery of Optina flourished in serene silence, reassured by the care of its abbot. When the terrible twelfth year came, the monastery received with contrite hearts the news about the disasters of the fatherland, the capture of Smolensk, the occupation of Moscow and the wickedness of the new Amalek, who did not spare the Moscow shrine. The temples of the monastery were open from morning until late at night and were full of people who, recognizing the strong hand of God over them, cried and prayed that the Lord would deal with temptation and excess.
Despite the imminent danger, the diocesan authorities did not make any order about the removal of the monks and the removal of church property, because the field marshal, Prince Kutuzov, assured the Kaluga city head and the deputies from the merchants that he would not allow Napoleon into Kaluga; and the words of the Archangel of our forces were then accepted by everyone as the words of a prophecy, the fulfillment of which, as everyone was sure, would not slow down. However, Abbot Abraham took some necessary precautions, especially those that depended on him, namely: he ordered church utensils, the sacristy and the library to be placed in chests; candles and other church things were placed in a tent under the cathedral church. The brothers found a desert in the dense forest surrounding them, an inaccessible ravine with a cave, 15 miles from the monastery, in order to retire to it in the first case when an enemy appeared.
Meanwhile, the enemy hordes, having set out from Moscow, rushed onto the Kaluga road, thinking of breaking through to the south of Russia; but Kutuzov warned their insidious plans: he stood near Tarutin, and Russia, relying on Kutuzov, stood firm. Maloyaroslavets, as one of the inscriptions on his monument says, “became the limit of attack and the beginning of the flight and death of enemies.” The last battle on Russian soil was fought here, on October 12, 1812. The stubborn battle lasted the whole day: the city changed hands six times: out of 200 philistine houses, 180 were burned. The streets were covered with corpses, burnt and crushed by the passage of French guns. Hundreds of wounded and dying lay amid the stench of smoking houses. Within the walls of the Maloyaroslavets Chernoostrog Monastery, traces of the rage and wickedness of the enemies who did not respect the shrine of the House of the Lord have been preserved29, and so, the God of vengeance poured out the cup of His righteous wrath on the blasphemers: the Russians remained victorious, and Napoleon, seeing the impossibility of getting to Kaluga, was persecuted and pursued by our troops, retreated along the Smolensk road; but this path of his proud march to Moscow had already turned for him into a path of sorrow, despair and death.
Now let's see what happened in Optina Pustyn on that victorious day, when one of its spiritual children, the Maloyaroslavetsky Monastery, took the blows of the enemies of the fatherland on the shield of its shrine? Encouraged by daily church services and the admonitions of its valiant and experienced abbot, Elder Abraham, Optina Pustyn remained in the firm hope of ambulance from God and from the faithful sons of Russia. The news was joyfully received in the monastery that through the prayers and intercession of St. Nicholas of Christ, the enemy fled from Maloyaroslavets, disgraced in his pride. On the third day after the Battle of Maloyaroslavl, i.e. October 14, a thanksgiving service was performed in Optina Pustyn, with kneeling, and the vaults of the Kazan Church resounded with songs of praise to the zealous Intercessor, who has an invincible power. The prayer service concluded with a religious procession around the monastery in front of a large crowd of people.
In this way, under the shield of its shrine, the city of Kozelsk, which once held out against the half-million-strong horde of ancient Batu, defending its young prince, was saved, under the shield of its shrine, from the invasion of the new Batu and the hordes of all Europe!
God destined Elder Abraham to enjoy the fruits of his endeavors and hard work. After the memorable year of 1812, he lived for several years, beloved and respected by everyone in the monastery, which he had renovated and established.
Soon, after the danger had passed, Abraham asked His Eminence Evlampius, Bishop of Kaluga and Borovsk, in order to give him the help of the management of the monastery of the same Hermitage, Hieromonk Markell, who had previously been the steward in the house of his Eminence, so that he would have supervision , both for the order and decorum of the brethren, and for everything related to the economy and organization of the monastery.
In response to the elder’s request, the following resolution of the bishop followed: “ I am aware of the abbot’s illness, which is why I consider it necessary to approve this request, and to let the brethren know about it, so that in all this they show due obedience to this assistant, in accordance with the spirit of the Gospel, with humility and meekness of a truly fraternal nature, monastic, so that everyone glorify God with their lives and build spiritual salvation, praying for us who care for their souls
».
In 1815, the chapels of the Kazan Church were also completed; consecrated, Vozdvizhensky - by the Right Reverend Bishop of Kaluga and Borovsky Evgeniy30, and St. George, Novospassky Monastery - by Archimandrite Ambrose. These spiritual celebrations were the last joy that crowned the labors of the God-loving elder. His bodily strength was noticeably weakening, his constant illness made the burden of his leadership unbearable. This forced Fr. Avraamiya should go to His Eminence Eugene with a petition, which is, as it were, a short biography of the petitioner, drawn by him himself, and therefore deserves to be included in full:
«I initially entered, named, from a lay rank, the Moscow diocese in the Nikolskaya Pesnoshsky Monastery, in 1790, where I was tonsured a monk, and, equally, ordained as a hieromonk; and from this monastery, in 1796, by the resolution of his Eminence, Metropolitan Platon of Moscow, he was assigned to the designated Optina Pustyn as a builder, and in 1801, by the former Most Reverend Theophylact, Bishop of Kaluga, he was promoted to the Likhvensky Pokrovsky Good Monastery as abbot, and in the same year , November 25th day, at my request, and, again, from there he was moved to Optina Pustyn for a construction vacancy, and during my abbot, in this Hermitage, with the help of God, through my diligent efforts a considerable amount was added to the income of the holy monastery, namely: church utensils, a sacristy and various church decorations, and, equally, a considerable amount, again, of various monastic buildings were built, which is known to all the brethren, and to all nearby benefactors; and besides, it is not unknown that I am obsessed with stomach cramps, and this illness of mine creates a considerable obstacle and inconvenience for me in carrying out the necessary monastic concerns, regarding the establishment of communal images; and, besides, I often feel faint, due to my illness, from unexpected grief, and prevents me from being in the Church of God every day, which, according to the social institution, is a significant omission for the well-being of the brethren, which is why I feel incapable to the management of the rectorate.
For this reason, Your Eminence, my most gracious father and archpastor, I most humbly ask: to dismiss me, the most humble one, from my position as abbot and allow me to live in this same Hermitage in a secluded cell, so that I can be content with the contents of the monastery, such as meals , clothes and shoes, as well as firewood for my cell; and for my diligent care and management of the monastery and for the enduring of my labors for the nineteenth year, would you please, Your Eminence Bishop, to determine for me after my death and in the public, this Desert, income, for the most necessary needs, due to my illness, for expenses, one hundred rubles each year, that is, half the amount of the granted amount allocated for the salary of the abbots in their places.
For this reason, I most humbly ask you to accept this request of mine, and accordingly to make your Eminence the most merciful archpastoral resolution... August... day 1815
».
So moderate were the desires of this man, who at the age of 19 accomplished what is often the work of centuries, that is, he recreated and placed on a solid foundation a monastery that was already close to final desolation, and, despite all this, guided by Christian humility , sought to transfer his abbot's staff to another, because his health, upset by his labors, obviously prevented him from devoting his activities to the benefit of the monastery, which he always preferred to his own. Humbling, he called himself incapable, while others recognized him as necessary, and, as a favor, asked to be given to himself, impoverished for the sake of Christ, the most necessary things from the funds of the monastery, one might say, created by him... However, the modest desire of Fr. Abraham was not fulfilled. His Eminence Eugene convinced the venerable elder to postpone the search for prayerful peace for a little longer. But already his days were numbered: his naturally weak health, upset by incessant labor and struggle with circumstances, like a lamp, was noticeably fading, and his life forces were becoming more and more depleted.
At the end of 1816, he fell mortally ill, and, feeling that the time was coming for him to appear before the court of God, to whose service his whole useful life was devoted, a few days before his death he called to him all the brethren of the Desert, inconsolable from his imminent loss. In touching terms, this good shepherd said goodbye to his spiritual flock, bequeathed to them harmony, peace and unanimity, and, gathering his last strength, blessed all the brothers. Soon, then, he fell into a righteous sleep, on January 14, 1817, having received the parting words of St. Christ's mysteries. The labored old man was buried in the porch of the Vvedensky Cathedral Church31. The following inscription is inscribed on his tomb: “under this stone is buried the wretched body of the many-sinful monk, abbot Abraham, who was 58 years old from his birth, and in this Hermitage he was abbot for 20 years and 3 months, died on January 1817 on the 14th day of the night at the end of the 12th o'clock." And at the same time, his petitionary testament: “ I ask and pray you, spiritual brethren and fasting women, do not forget me when you pray; but, seeing my coffin, remember my love, if anyone felt it; and pray to Christ our God that my spirit may join the righteous in eternal bliss, amen
».
As the head of the brotherhood, which he himself assembled, Fr. Abraham was strict and exacting, but by no means self-willed. Having introduced a new order of exemplary, non-covetous life in the monastery he renovated, he was a strict guardian of it and, relying on personal example, demanded the exact execution of his orders and instructions in the affairs of the hostel. He did not tolerate intermediaries: each of the monks, in their needs, was obliged to relate directly to him, for which, especially, his brethren loved him. His simplicity of heart, combined with spiritual wisdom and crowned with an honorable life, inspired involuntary respect for him. He was cordial and affable in his manners, and, although completely uncovetous, merciful and compassionate towards the poor; in a word, none of the visitors to the monastery left it without carrying in their hearts the memory of the good abbot! All Kaluga archpastors honored him with their special favor and trust, and often presented Abraham and his monastery as an example to others.
The personal qualities of the venerable elder are very clearly expressed in a spiritual letter written back in 1810, during an illness, and opened after his death. We enclose it in the original.
XX century
In 1918 the monastery was closed. For several years, a rest house was located on its territory. During the Soviet years, there was a dance floor at the graves of the elders for some time. And in 1939, these holy places, by order of Beria, were converted into a concentration camp. Several thousand Polish officers were held here, most of them were sent to Katyn and shot.
At the beginning of the Second World War, the monastery was a hospital, then a NKVD inspection and filtration camp. The government transferred Optina Pustyn to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1987. Restoration began in 1990.
The burial places of the elders were found with great difficulty. The devastation here in the nineties was so depressing that local residents did not believe that Optina Pustyn could be revived.
Restoration of the monastery
In 1987, the destroyed Optina Monastery was transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church. The devastation was so depressing that local residents did not believe in the revival of the monastery. Archimandrite Evlogii (now Bishop of Vladimir and Suzdal) was appointed rector. He began to revive the monastery, primarily its spiritual life. There were a lot of difficulties, from clearing the territory to relocating the laity, who reluctantly agreed to move beyond the perimeter of the monastery. With God's help, there were craftsmen, builders and philanthropists who were ready to financially contribute to the restoration of the Desert.
Now the monastery itself and the skete have been practically restored, a large monastic economy has been created, many people come to live and work in the holy place. There are craft workshops, guest houses, and a refectory. About 200 monks live in the monastery; it is one of the largest monasteries in Russia.
Now in the monastery there are the relics of the Venerables Nektarios and Ambrose (Vvedensky Cathedral), the relics of the Venerables Isaac, Anthony, Moses (Kazan Church), the relics of the Venerables Leo, Hilarion, Macarius, Anatoly (Zertsalov), Anatoly (Potapov), Barsanuphius, Joseph (Vladimir Church ), the relics of St. Raphael (Church of the Transfiguration).
Architectural ensemble
The main temple of the monastery is the Vvedensky Cathedral. It was founded in 1750. The largest temple on the territory of the monastery is the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, built in 1811. In the 2000s, the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord was erected.
On the territory of the monastery there are also: a temple in honor of the Venerable Mary of Egypt, a bell tower, a chapel, a gate church, a wooden belfry, a fraternal refectory, as well as a bakery, abbot, library, and cell buildings. Some buildings appeared in the 19th century. For example, the cell of Elder Ambrose is located in a wooden hut, which is more than 150 years old. However, the oldest building in Optina Hermitage is the Vvedensky Cathedral.
In Moscow and St. Petersburg there are churches belonging to the monastery. This is the courtyard of the Holy Vvedensky Monastery of Optina Hermitage in Yasenevo (Church of Peter and Paul) and the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Vasilyevsky Island.
Elders
Optina Pustyn is, first of all, its elders. There are only fourteen of them today. What is the essence of old age? A more experienced one is selected from among the monks, who becomes the spiritual father of all the brethren. He also becomes a mentor for the laity who come here. Between the Kazan Church and the Vvedensky Cathedral there is a necropolis. Clergymen are buried here. And it is in this part of the desert that the graves of the Optina elders are located. However, they are empty - the relics of the saints were transferred to shrines.
Each of the elders became famous for something. Nectarius was a predictor. Leo is a healer. The most famous was the third elder of Optina Pustyn - Ambrose. Not long ago his cell was restored in the monastery. Entry for lay people is closed here.
Optina Pustyn – the center of eldership
Optina Pustyn is, first of all, its Orthodox elders, of whom there are 14 in total. The phenomenon of Orthodox eldership lies in the fact that a monk experienced in spiritual life is elected from the brethren of the monastery. He becomes the father of the entire monastic community and lay people coming to the monastery. The will of God for every person who comes is revealed to them. People come to the elder to ask the most secret questions. The elder may not accept the person, and without explanation. But if he has already accepted, then every word he says can become fateful.
Hieroschemamonk Ambrose
He was canonized in 1988. Reverend Ambrose, known in the world as Alexander Mikhailovich Grenkov, had a phenomenal memory, wrote and spoke fluently in five foreign languages. Since childhood, he was distinguished by extraordinary abilities, but in his youth he became very ill and then made a vow to God: if I survive, I will become a monk. Alexander Grenkov has recovered. He chose Optina Pustyn for his ministry.
The Monk Ambrose knew how to speak to everyone in their own language: to help an illiterate peasant woman, to give advice to a wealthy landowner. This man communicated with Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Conversations with the elder took place in a special room. The furnishings of this room are completely preserved today. Asceticism reigns here, although the elder received here not only famous writers, but also representatives of the royal Romanov family.
Leo Tolstoy came to Optina Pustyn six times. For the first time - in 1878. A long, difficult conversation then took place between Ambrose and Tolstoy. After the writer’s departure, the elder said: “I’m very proud.” There is information that Tolstoy came here just before his death; he wanted to visit Ambrose, but did not dare to enter the monastery.
Fyodor Dostoevsky came to Optina Pustyn after a heavy loss - the death of his little son. The writer could not understand why God needed the death of an angelic boy. He suffered a lot. Arriving at the monastery, Fyodor Mikhailovich talked for a long time with Elder Ambrose. According to eyewitnesses, he left his cell as a completely different person. Elder Ambrose is the prototype of Zosima from the novel The Brothers Karamazov.
Archimandrite Barsanuphius
The future clergyman, Pavel Plikhankov, was born in Samara in 1845, into a merchant family. He graduated from a military gymnasium, after which he made a good career. He rose to the rank of colonel. However, unexpectedly for his relatives and colleagues, Plikhankov submitted his resignation in the 70s. He arrived in Optina Pustyn in 1891. In 1907 he was elevated to the rank of abbot. Five years later, the Monk Barsanuphius was appointed rector of the Staro-Golutvinsky monastery.
The elder was in Optina Pustyn just at the time when Leo Tolstoy arrived there. As already mentioned, the writer visited these places on the eve of his death. Having learned about this, Barsanuphius went to the railway station in order to admonish Tolstoy before his death and help him reconcile with the church. But he was not allowed to see the dying writer.
Nectary Optinsky
Nikolai Tikhonov was born in Yelets in 1853. The family was poor, the father worked at a mill and died early. Soon the mother also passed away. The boy was left an orphan. At the age of eleven he entered the service of a merchant's shop, and six years later received the position of junior clerk.
At the age of twenty, Nikolai went on foot to Optina Pustyn. Here Elder Ambrose received him. They talked for a long time, but about what, Nektary later did not tell anyone. In March 1887 he was tonsured into the robe. Seven years later he was ordained hierodeacon.
Two years before the outbreak of World War I, the brothers elected Nektarios as an elder. After the arrival of Soviet power, the monastery was closed. The Monk Nektarios was arrested. He spent three years in prison. It is known that after his return he lived in the village of Ulyanovo, Kaluga region. Died in 1928.
Nadezhda Pavlovich
Pavlovich Nadezhda Aleksandrovna (1895–1980) – poetess. She was born in the town of Laudon, Livonia province (the territory of modern Latvia) in the family of a magistrate. Graduated from the Pskov Alexander Gymnasium. While still studying, the first poems of the seventeen-year-old poetess were published in the newspaper Pskovskaya Zhizn. In 1914 she entered the Faculty of History and Philology of the Higher Women's Courses named after. Poltoratskaya in Moscow. In November 1914, the “First Collection of Young Poets” was published, in which, among ten new poetic names, she made her debut together with Maria Shkapskaya. This collection was published three months after the outbreak of the First World War; the lines of her “Infirmary Poems” were etched in the memory of many:
... There are droplets of pus on the robe.
(Snow-white, formal robe).
So birch trees in early spring
They stand above the melted snow.
During these same years, she met Valery Bryusov, Andrei Bely, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Sergei Yesenin, Velimir Khlebnikov and many other contemporary poets.
In the 1919–1920s, she worked on the presidium of the All-Russian Union of Poets and, on his instructions, went to Petrograd, where, together with Alexander Blok, she organized the Petrograd branch of the union. Communication with Blok and the spiritual closeness that arose between them determined Pavlovich’s future life path and many of the motives of her work. Blok's death on August 7, 1921 was a deep emotional shock for her. In her memoirs about Blok, first published in the Blok Collection (Tartu, 1962), she cites Marietta Shaginyan’s story (without mentioning her name) about the night before Blok’s burial: “One writer volunteered to read the Psalter at night. She wanted the Gospel, but Lyubov Dmitrievna said: “If we do this, then according to the rules of the church.” The Psalter is relied upon.” The reader told me. In the evening, L.D. came out of her room in a dressing gown. and said goodbye to the dead. And his mother kissed him and went home. She was left alone. It was kind of creepy. The candle wavered, and light and shadow ran across his face. The facial expression gradually changed. She continued reading. When dawn came, the face really changed. The expression softened, the menacing thing that was in it disappeared. Arriving on the morning of August 8, I saw this new expression on the face of the deceased. It became calm and more meek. It seemed that Alexander Alexandrovich was sleeping...” Shortly before his death, Blok gave her the first volume of the Philokalia with his notes, and she invited him to read the Chronicle of the Seraphim-Diveyevo Monastery. She would take this as a sign of fate, finding herself in a monastery a year after Blok’s death, but not in Diveyevo, but in Optina. Her childhood friend, the artist Lev Bruni, told her a lot about Optina Hermitage and its wonderful elders, where he and his wife, Nina Konstantinovna Balmont, and their children lived nearby in a dacha. In addition, she received an order from a Petrograd publishing house to write a book about the history of Optina Pustyn. She went to Optina Pustyn, where she met and subsequently became the spiritual daughter of the last Elder Nektary, elected conciliarly in 1912, who, as it turned out, especially singled out Blok’s “Poems about the Beautiful Lady” as prayerful. Elder Nektary blessed her to live and work at the Optina Museum of Local Lore, which was headed by Lydia Vasilyevna Zashchuk (later schema-nun Augusta, shot in 1938 and now canonized). “In 1922–1923, I had to work as a research assistant at the first Optina Local History Museum, founded in 1918 and closed in 1928. In 1922, I found a still functioning monastery,” she recalled in the article “Optina Pustyn. Why did the greats go there?”, published in 1980 in Tolstoy’s volume of the almanac “Prometheus”. Until the end of her days, Pavlovich could not talk about the fact that for two years in Optina she not only worked as an employee, but was in obedience to Elder Nektary. On Holy Thursday of Holy Week 1923, Elder Nektary was taken to the Kozel prison hospital and accused of counter-revolution. He was threatened with execution. Having received the blessing from the priest to take care of him in Moscow, Nadezhda Alexandrovna turned for help to Krupskaya, in whose secretariat she worked for several months in 1919. She asked to save her “grandfather,” an old monk, whom the Kozel authorities sentenced to death. Krupskaya regarded this as “excesses on the ground” and sent it to A. Beloborodov. By this time, the former chairman of the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council, Beloborodov, who signed the order to execute the tsar and the royal family, was Felix Dzerzhinsky’s deputy, and soon became the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs (executed in 1938); in this case, fulfilling the request of the leader’s wife, he sent a telegram to Kozelsk about the release of the elder. The execution was replaced by exile in the village of Kholmishchi, Bryansk region, where Nadezhda Alexandrovna visited the elder, bringing food and warm clothes, although such trips were unsafe at that time. Later, working in the Red Cross, she helped imprisoned monks (among whom were Optina residents), and accomplished a spiritual feat by visiting Father Sergius Mechev, the son of the famous Moscow elder Alexei Mechev, in the prison zone.
The Lord rewarded Nadezhda Alexandrovna for her selfless service to her confessor: Father Nektary said that he took upon himself all her sins. After the death of Elder Nektary in 1928, Nadezhda Alexandrovna managed to transport and thus save rare books from the remarkable collection of Optina Pustyn, the Optina editions themselves, and the entire manuscript collection on 23 carts. All these treasures were transferred to the Library named after. Lenin in Moscow, where they lay undisassembled until the 90s.
Even during the life of Elder Nektary, Nadezhda Alexandrovna collected and wrote down many stories about his remarkable foresight, many of them were included in Metropolitan Benjamin’s book “God’s People.” The Bishop highly appreciated these recordings.
During her stay in Optina Pustyn, with the blessing of Elder Nektary, the Kostry publishing house published two collections of poetry, “The Shore” (1922) and “Golden Gates” (1923), in which her prayer poems first appeared. The third collection, “Thoughts and Memories,” was published in 1962, the fourth, “Through the Long Years...” – in 1977, and posthumously, “On the Threshold” – in 1980, but these collections did not present the most important things in her poetry - spiritual poems, which after Optina she wrote all her life.
Give me strength and give me patience
See, hear – and live everything!
Let me carry out earthly service,
To compose heavenly songs! –
She addressed the Lord in the poem “Optina,” dedicated to the elders and ascetics of the monastery. This poem, created in the 30s, was first published in 1991 in the seventh issue of the Moscow magazine. For more than half a century, Nadezhda Alexandrovna published only children's books, she translated poems by poets of the peoples of the USSR and foreign countries, worked as a literary consultant for the Ogonyok magazine, and published several theological works in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate and Russian foreign works in the 70s and 80s under various pseudonyms. publications And a poem like “To the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia...” was dangerous even to write down; it was memorized, and thus it was preserved only in the memory of her closest friends...
In 1996–1997, the magazine “Man” published in several issues chapters from Nadezhda Pavlovich’s memoirs “Memory Net” about Yesenin, with whom she co-wrote the script for the film “Calling Dawns”, Akhmatova, Mikhail Chekhov, Father Pavel Florensky, Maria Yudina, Pasternak and many other contemporaries, but this is only a small part of her memoir heritage, which, like poetic and theological works, is still awaiting its publisher, because not a single book of hers has been published over the past thirty years.
Until the end of her earthly service, she, to the best of her strength, fulfilled the behest of Elder Nektarios to never forget Optina, to do everything possible to preserve it. In those years it was fraught with great difficulties. But even then, already in old age, she went to receptions with the Minister of Culture E.A. Furtseva, fussed about Optina with the Kaluga authorities, hitchhiked off-road to Kozelsk just to touch the destroyed shrine and talk to people who still remembered its heyday. On December 4, 1974, by resolution of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, Optina Pustyn was finally taken under state protection and its restoration began. She did not live to see the revival of Optina Pustyn and its return to the Russian Orthodox Church. On the eve of her death, Nadezhda Alexandrovna told me: “I am not afraid of death. For me, dying is the same as going into another room...” Having taken the sacrament, she departed to the Lord on March 3, 1980.
Introductory article and publication by T.N. Vorobyova (Bednyakova)
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Schema-Archimandrite Iliy
Optina elders - who are they, why did people from different parts of the country try to get an “appointment” with them? These are people who have some kind of spiritual vision.
Schema-Archimandrite Eli (Alexey Nozdrin) has such vision, according to the monks of Optina Pustyn. Now he lives in Peredelkino and is the personal confessor of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow. When the elder was in the Optina Hermitage, people continuously came to him. He didn't accept everyone. But if a person was lucky enough to talk with Elder Eli, he could receive completely unexpected advice from him. For example, leaving a business, adopting a child from an orphanage, or even joining a monastery.
Alexey Afanasyevich Nozdrin - that was his name in the world. He was born in 1932 into a peasant family. In 1949 he graduated from school. While serving in the army, he joined the Komsomol, but upon returning home, he repented of his actions and burned his Komsomol card.
In 1958, Nozdrin graduated from a technical school in the Moscow region. Then he worked at a factory in the city of Kamyshin. There was only one temple here, which the future clergyman visited. Nozdrin, on the advice of his confessor, graduated from the Leningrad Theological Academy. In 1966 he was tonsured a monk. At the end of the eighties, he was sent to Optina Pustyn, where at that time the restoration of the monastery began.
Orthodox Life
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No one will order a prayer service for him. Neither an akathist nor a canon was written for him. Actually, there is no day in the church year on which to include his name.
And how can he be entered if his name is not known exactly (there are only different versions and legends)? And if you were to compose an akathist, what kind of feats would be included there? – Throughout life – murder, robbery, violence... Food for colorful movies, not for spiritual teaching.
But surprisingly, it was he who learned theology. This is what it says in the service of the Ninth Hour:
“In the midst of two thiefs, Thy cross was found as a standard of righteousness: one is brought down to hell by the burden of blasphemy, while another is lightened from sins to the knowledge of Theology. Christ God, glory to You!”
Translation: “In the midst of two thieves, Your Cross turned out to be the scales of justice: when one was dragged to hell by the weight of blasphemy, the other received relief from sins to the knowledge of Theology. Christ God, glory to You!”
At the center of theology is the Cross of Christ. A sacrifice for love, made by Love for the sake of loved ones. And next to the Cross of Christ is the one who was the first to know this Sacrifice. “Knew” – in the sense of “tasted”, for this is how knowledge is understood in biblical language.
In the Old Testament you will not find predictions about him, except that it was said about Christ Himself: “And he is numbered with the evildoers” (Is. 53:12). The New Testament, without unnecessary details, reveals the very essence, the most important thing that happened to him, and that is enough. But we can still say something and even should.
***
And he was met in this world by someone’s loving eyes. And someone carried him, nursed him. And someone hoped for him that he would grow up to be a worthy and respected person. For there is no person on earth who has not at least once seen someone’s loving gaze. As if for a moment I captured with my gaze the mysterious image of the One who always looks at us with love. Therefore, everyone has the opportunity to grow and mature in accordance with this love. But at some point, perhaps very early, he lost his way.
It all could have started with an incredible “discovery”: there is easy money! It turns out that money is obtained more easily through violence! Oh, our robber was not prudent at that time. Money seemed easy, but my soul became heavier. And a small naive child is a thousand times happier than an adult, inveterate uncle who has learned to make that kind of money. But my uncle doesn’t notice this right away. And when he notices, he comes to a new “discovery” - he is so stuck that there seems to be no point in correcting his life. Debauchery and drinking to extinguish this torment - and again atrocities. It ends the same way for everyone: inside it becomes unbearably bad. The abyss of despair consumes the last remnants of life. Actually, life is no longer life, let it all go to waste. Let no one think that our robber was different, a kind of noble Robin Hood, and not some inveterate bastard. No, he was the same as everyone else.
And then he suddenly got caught. How could it be otherwise? Whether you like it or not, you will still be caught. Whether you want it or not, you still have to answer. It’s just that someone gets caught before the real Judgment comes. And this is happiness for the bandit. But this still needs to be understood - this is the beginning of prudence. It is better to suffer for your sins here than there, where “the smoke of their torment will rise forever and ever” (Rev. 14:11).
But the soul of the one who gets caught has different feelings: what a shame - I’m caught! Everything is falling apart. Green envy of Barabbas, who so successfully escaped execution, gnaws at his already spoiled insides like a worm. How did he get free? It turns out that instead of Barabbas, someone else will go to death, humble and therefore so incomprehensible. This is where a revolution begins to take place in the soul. Everyone is trying to avoid a well-deserved execution, but this one goes voluntarily and accepts an execution that he does not deserve. He is meek as a lamb prepared for the slaughter - something unexpectedly unusual here.
***
For a long time our robber knew what pain was. Wild life hardened him, and the pain of his victims did not evoke any pity in him. Pain has long been perceived as a kind of background to an already unhealthy life. In a sense, physical pain muffled the internal pain - of the soul, heart, conscience. But the agony of crucifixion, this materialized curse, this emphasized weakness with shame is something beyond unthinkable.
Everything happened in an incredibly ordinary way. The hammers began to pound quickly. The nails pierced the nerves, and a sharp pain ran through the body like fiery lightning. Floats flashed in his eyes. Gritting his teeth, the robber tried to endure. Through mind-blowing torment, he suddenly heard the quiet, meekly humble voice of the Crucified One in the middle: “Father! forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). The words resonated in my heart, and my soul seemed to feel lighter.
The cross is raised. Just now, when he was stretched out on the ground, the robber saw a tenderly clear, but infinitely distant sky, and with the raising of the tree, the earth and those swarming on it appear before his eyes. There is the centurion, habitually giving orders. There are the indifferent legionnaires, his sworn enemies and silent executors of any assignment. They, without ceremony, immediately cast lots and divide the clothes of the Crucified One. And there are the Jews with the Pharisees and teachers of the law in front - they chuckle evilly. There is no limit to their gloating. But what is it?
For some reason, no one looks at them, at the robbers. Everyone is noisy, loud, someone is crying, but they are in the minority, everyone is shouting and pointing their finger at the One who is crucified in the middle. The two robbers are just an addition. Nobody even says a word about their crimes, about retribution on Calvary. The eyes of all are riveted on the Crucified One (Matthew 27, 40. 42–43).
Swearing pours in from all sides. And He is meekly silent in response. From Him, even among the noise of strangers, there emanates peace and unearthly silence.
***
In the evangelists Matthew and Mark we read:
“The thieves who were crucified with Him also reviled Him” (Matthew 27:44; Mark 15:32).
And some interpreters say that at first they both reproached, and then the one who was called prudent repented. But other interpreters claim that “the robbers reviled” - this is said in a general way, in the sense that on behalf of the crucified robbers, as well as from the elders, scribes and the common people, reproaches were heard.
Luke, who wrote in more detail, clarifies:
“One of the hanged villains slandered Him and said: If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us” (Luke 23:39).
A passionate desire to live, even when you did not let others live, a passionate desire to save yourself, forgetting about others, breaks out from your inflamed chest with a furious demand: “Save, save from temporary torment.” And if God does not save, then He is unjust. And if it’s bad for me, then let it be bad for everyone else. In this cry there is despair, the madness of a godless life. The fire of crime always smokes the child of despair. The tearing of a lawless soul cannot be healed by any pleasure.
The robber's prudence is to understand this in time. Having understood, accept the torment as deserved. And in torment, to see the presence of God, who suffers for you and me. Evangelist Luke continues:
“The other (the robber), on the contrary, calmed him down and said: or are you not afraid of God, when you yourself are condemned to the same thing? and we are condemned justly, because we accepted what was worthy of our deeds, but He did nothing bad” (Luke 23:40-41).
A theologian is not one who talks about Christ, but one who confesses Christ. The Pharisees and lawyers were considered theologians, but it was they who crucified Christ. They laughed and laughed at Golgotha, where Love, inexpressible and boundless as Heaven, suffered for the whole world. And the robber, alien to the law, knew God in the flesh - he accepted a particle of Heaven in his heart, and his soul came to life, contemplating the endless horizons of Love.
“And he said to Jesus: remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom! And Jesus said to him: “Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:42-43).
Hundreds, thousands of Old Testament righteous people were in hell. For long, weary centuries they waited with hope for when the Desired One would come. And the prudent robber, bypassing hell, goes to Paradise! Actually, his life was hell on earth, and his meeting with Christ became the beginning of Paradise.
***
At the moment of the Crucifixion of Christ, the sun goes out in the sky. But the light shines in the heart of the robber. Turning to Christ is always a light that enlightens the sepulchral twilight of our souls killed by sin. Yes, the robber suffers physically and will die physically. But he is resurrected spiritually, and spiritually he gains freedom.
He looks at the world with new eyes, eyes that reflect the Sky. Now he sees not an angry crowd or enemies. He sees those who have become spiritually close to him. For example, the Mother of God - She is here, at the Cross of Her Son, with a pierced heart, humbly devoted to Him to the end. He sees His beloved disciple - John. He sees the centurion, whose face has also changed. And all of them together, including the robber, so different, with dissimilar fates, all became one at the Cross of the Lord, as He predicted: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to Me” (John 12:32). For them, Christ is not just a sufferer, He is the Lover and Beloved, He cleanses our sins, because He suffers for us.
And so, the torment fades. The thief on the cross is filled with quiet joy, for the light of the crucified Sun warmed his soul. Soon his legs will be broken. He still suffers, but he understood the meaning of this suffering, recognized it - and therefore there is not a shadow of embitterment or despair. The measure of his sins was accepted by the One who bore our sins with you.
***
He is introduced into Paradise. There are only saints in Paradise. The robber is also holy, but not because he is a robber, but because he has acquired prudence. His prudence lies in the fact that he responded to God's love. And whoever does not respond is unreasonable.
The holiness of the thief is also the holiness of humility, incomprehensible to us. What merits should you rely on if there are no merits? What kind of glory can one dream of if one’s life has passed without honor and glory? How to elevate your “I” if there is simply nothing to rely on in this exaltation? In everything there is only mercy, love and the almighty help of God. And, of course, repentant acceptance of the suffering sent down from God.
It is true that they say that on the cross the crucified thief performed three labors. Without even noticing it, he accomplished a feat of faith, a feat of hope and a feat of love.
- A feat of faith - because I believed in the Crucified Man suffering next to me - as the Son of God, bringing with Him the Eternal Kingdom.
- A feat of hope - because instead of despair he cried out with repentance: “Remember me, Lord, when you come into Your Kingdom!” (Luke 23:42).
- A feat of love - because instead of feeling sorry for himself and justifying himself, he was imbued with compassion for the Innocently Suffering: “He did nothing bad” (Luke 23:41).
It was not for the sake of abstract pathos that Christ uttered parables - about the prodigal son, about the lost coin and about the lost sheep followed by the good shepherd. Our thief is the prodigal son, he is also the lost drachma, and again he is the stray sheep that Christ returned to the flock on His shoulders. That is, all the parables of Christ are about real life. The Robber is Entered into Paradise! And the angels in heaven have more joy over such than over the righteous who do not need repentance.
No one will write services for him, order a prayer service, or allocate a special day in the church year. Such is his humble lot. But before each Communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ we pray:
“I will not tell your enemies the secret, nor give you a kiss like Judas, but like a thief I will confess to you.”
And at every liturgy we sing with him: “In Your Kingdom, remember us, O Lord, when You come in Your Kingdom.”
Let us all sing together today with a wondrous church hymn: “In one hour you have vouchsafed the prudent thief Raevi, O Lord, and enlighten me with the tree of the cross and save me. Amen".
Priest Valery Dukhanin
Tragedy of 1993
On Easter, three clergy were killed near the belfry in Optina Hermitage. Hieromonk Vasily and the monks Trofim and Ferapont became victims of a ritual crime. The killer snuck up from behind and stabbed them in the back. He was quickly detained, during the investigation he was declared insane and placed in a closed hospital.
The murdered monks became new martyrs. In 2004, the book “Red Easter” by Nina Pavlova was published, dedicated to the victims of a crazy sectarian-Satanist (three sixes were scratched on the dagger with which he struck).
For the mothers of the fathers of Optina Pustyn, the inclusion of their sons as martyrs was not a consolation. Two of them took monastic vows after this tragedy. Father Vasily’s mother said before being tonsured: “I want to meet my son after death.” The monks were buried on the territory of the monastery. A bell tower was later built on their graves. They say that this place has extraordinary healing powers.
Workers
Many who come to Optina Pustyn stay here for a while. They are housed and fed for free. But on condition: they are obliged to work and attend all services. They say that staying in these holy places heals the soul.
Among the workers are representatives of various professions. The conditions of stay in Optina Pustyn are the same for everyone. Wake up at five in the morning. Worship takes about four hours a day. The rest of the time you have to work. Workers are accommodated in a special hotel, with several people living in each room. In order to settle in, you need a passport and work clothes. Everything else is given out at the monastery if necessary.
The monastery is completely self-sufficient. The workers work together with the monks. The subsidiary farm of this monastery is one of the largest agricultural enterprises in the Kaluga region. Each of the workers has some kind of profession in the world. The monastery tries to offer them work that is familiar to them. Veterinarians care for animals. Artists paint icons.
In the summer, the brothers go out to sow crops. But even here they are not exempted from worship - a special mobile church travels with them.
Workers have almost no free time. They must abide by the strict rules of the monastery. However, some live here for years. There are also those who do not leave at all and are preparing for monasticism.
Foundation of the Optina Monastery Monastery
The heart of Optina Hermitage - the place where the pulse of its life beat, from where came that grace-filled power that sanctified the lives of the inhabitants of the monastery - was the famous Optina monastery, the place of residence of the holy Optina elders. The monastery created the historical glory of Optina Pustyn.
The foundation of the monastery happened as follows. O. Moses, at that time a desert dweller in the Roslavl forests, traveled to Moscow on business and from there on the way back he stopped at Optina Pustyn. Rector - Fr. Daniel, knowing the desire of His Grace Philaret, then Bishop of Kaluga, to found a forest monastery near Optina Pustyn, introduced him to Fr. Moses, who at that time was far from the thought of parting with the desert life in the Roslavl forests. Vladyka and Fr. Daniel diligently convinced him of the advantage of living near the monastery, and he left, taking with him a letter from Bishop Philaret to the hermits of Roslavl, inviting them to move to the Kaluga diocese under his wing. Arriving at the place, Fr. Moses told his fellow fasters his impressions. The hermits, after listening to him, approved the resettlement plan, especially since at that moment they were threatened with trouble from the zemstvo authorities. With o. Moses left for Optina Pustyn, his brother Fr. Anthony and two monks: Hilarion and Savvaty.
Upon arrival in Optina Pustyn in 1821, Fr. Moses and his brethren had a huge amount of work ahead of them: they had to clear a huge area of centuries-old pine trees to build a monastery. Both brothers - Fr. Moses and Fr. Anthony, together with hired workers, felled pine trees and uprooted stumps. The monastery was located 170 fathoms from the monastery. The plan of the monastery was approved by Bishop Philaret, who wrote: “1821, June 17th. May God bless the building of the monastery with His grace and help us to complete it.”
Pious local citizens helped with money. First, they built a house in which the initial inhabitants settled. October 26 Fr. Moses wrote to a relative that they worked for 3 months near the structure of the cells and St. temple. “I thank God that He brought us here,” with these words of Fr. Moses finished his letter. In another letter written shortly after this, Fr. Moses informs one hieromonk that “3 cells and a temple in the name of St. have already been built. John the Baptist and Baptist of the Lord." But funds became scarce, and Fr. Moses went to Moscow to get ready. He returned with a cart overflowing with luggage, which consisted of church utensils. On February 5, 1822, the consecration of the temple took place.
Bishop Filaret suggested Fr. Moses to accept the priesthood. O. Moses flatly refused. But the bishop threatened him that if he refused, he would sue him at the Last Judgment, and Fr. Moses had to give in. After this, Fr. Moses was appointed confessor of the monastery brethren. Gradually, separate houses of fraternal cells appeared on the sides of the temple. Fruit trees and pine nuts were planted, which turned into slender trees and bore fruit after 25 years. Many berry bushes were also planted. 2 ponds were dug. Father Moses was forced to make debts and went a second time to Moscow to collect money to pay them off, but was soon called back, since Bishop Philaret, accepting the Kiev diocese and leaving Kaluga, appointed him rector of the Optina Monastery, and he had to appear to him for acceptance of the farewell blessing. This significant event took place in 1825.
After Fr. Moses' hermitage leader was his younger brother Fr. Anthony. This is the impression the monastery left on itself in the memories of a person who was there in his youth under the monastery’s leader, Fr. Anthony:
“The majestic order and reflection of some kind of unearthly beauty in the entire monastery often attracted my childish heart to spiritual pleasure, which I remember now with blessing, and I consider this time the best time of my life. Simplicity and humility in the brethren, strict order and cleanliness everywhere, the abundance of a wide variety of flowers and their fragrance, and in general some sense of the presence of grace, involuntarily made us forget everything that was outside this monastery. I happened to be in the monastery church mainly during mass. Here, already at the very entrance, you used to feel outside the world and its vicissitudes. With what touching reverence the sacred service was performed! And this reverence was reflected in everyone present to such an extent that every rustle, every movement in the church was heard. Choir singing, in which the head of the monastery himself, Fr. Anthony, it was quiet, harmonious, and at the same time majestic and correct, the like of which I have never heard anywhere else after that, for all that I very often heard the most educated singers in the capitals and the most famous singers in Europe. In the skete singing one could hear meekness, humility, fear of God and prayerful reverence, while in secular singing the world and its passions are often reflected - and this is already so common. What can we say about those most cherished days when the sacred rite was performed by the head of the skete himself, Fr. Anthony? In his every movement, in every word and exclamation, virginity, meekness, reverence and at the same time a holy sense of greatness were visible.
After that, I have never seen such a priestly service anywhere, although I have been to many monasteries and churches.”
You can imagine the external and internal, spiritual appearance of the monastery and monastery during the heyday of Optina by turning to the poem of the elder Schema-Archimandrite Barsanuphius (Plikhankov), who was the head of the Optina monastery at the beginning of this century: ... The legacy of centuries is a shady forest. On its sides lies a dense forest: In it silence, space for silence, complete freedom for the feelings of saints and thoughts: Only sometimes the noise of the trees can be heard there, When their tops are shaken by the flying wind.
The heavens are clearer here and their azure is purer... Carrying a worldly yoke and making a sorrowful journey Amidst the darkness and rapids of life's thorny path, I was privileged to see a glimpse of paradise.
In the vicinity of the monastery
Today, a whole village has lined up around the monastery. In the nineties, a small house in the vicinity of the monastery could be bought for only 50 thousand rubles. Today prices have increased approximately twentyfold. Among the residents of nearby villages, there are many who purchased houses here solely because of the proximity of the Optina Pustyn. Many villagers host those wishing to visit the famous monastery. The cost of renting housing is low - from 300 rubles per bed.
Optina Pustyn is surrounded by forest, villages and healing springs. Six hundred meters from the monastery there is the spring of Paphnutius Borovsky, which has long been considered healing. Thousands of pilgrims come here every year. They say that the spring really cures ailments.
