PRESS ARCHIVE: Kill all living things. The book “Father Arseny” is an undoubted fake, manufactured in the depths of the KGB system

Father Arseny.

I read the book “Father Arseny”. I liked the book. In an artistic, emotional form, the book talks about the foundations of the Orthodox faith; about how to pray correctly; how to prepare for confession; examples are given of how a Christian should act in certain circumstances of life. The examples are very vivid, emotionally charged, after reading which you cannot remain indifferent. In this regard, the book can be placed on a par with the best works of art of Russian literature. The book reveals in great detail the life of the Orthodox community during the period of cruel persecution of the Orthodox Church and its hierarchy (from 1917 to 1975). Thus, Father Arseny spent most of his life in exile and Gulag camps. The author of the book “Father Arseny,” Vladimir Vladimirovich Bykov, personally met Father Arseny several times and was familiar with many of his spiritual children. It was he who collected the memories of this ascetic and considers himself only the compiler of a collection of memories about him.

The first chapters of the book appeared in the USSR in SAMIZDAT in the seventies. At that time, priests were no longer shot or sent to prison, but for widespread propaganda of religious views one could get a very real sentence. Therefore, it seems natural that in the chapters telling about specific people, then only names (most likely changed) were indicated, and the specific location of the action was given as a hint. Accordingly, the worldly name of Father Arseny indicated in the book, Streltsov Peter Andreevich, is just a pseudonym. The real worldly name of Father Arseny is still unknown. The people who were part of the Orthodox community of Father Arseny died long ago. Their youth was in the 20-30s of the 20th century. In the seventies, and this is noted in the book, most of them were already 55-60 years old. The camps and the difficult years of war did not improve their health. So the author of the book V.V. Bykov is now over ninety. Schema nun Isidora, who met Father Arseny on the train, is about the same age. This episode is described in the book: The train shuddered at the junctions, the wheels rattled rhythmically, the taiga, rocks, rivers, and lakes of Siberia rushed past the window. The past was now passing before my mind's eye, people and people walked in an endless line. The majority died, but many still survived, and Fr. Arseny will see. The new life was still poorly imagined for Fr. Arseny. Everything was unknown, but there was God, and with His help this life was to begin. The thoughts that filled the consciousness went away, and Fr. Arseny began to pray and suddenly heard: “Be careful, here from the camp, so as not to be robbed,” and a second voice said in a half-whisper: “I’m surprised! How are they released? We must shoot.” Father Arseny opened his eyes: a young couple was settling down in the opposite place. The train moved forward, stations, rivers, forests, cities flashed by, people walked and talked freely on the platforms. Life went on." A young woman exclaimed indignantly: I’m surprised! How are they released? It is necessary to shoot. - and there is the future schema-nun Isidora. In the latest editions of the book “Father Arseny”, the real names of Father Arseny’s spiritual children are named in the afterword.

A monument was erected at the grave of the Orthodox ascetic immediately after his death in 1975, but then the monument disappeared and the grave was lost.

On May 25, 2001, a new monument to Father Arseny was erected at the Voinskoye cemetery, located in the western part of the city of Rostov.
This is precisely a monument, since there is no burial under the gravestone. The book was written at a time when it was necessary to carefully hide real names, so the real name of Pyotr Andreevich Streltsov (Arseny's father) is completely different. Which one exactly? It is necessary to conduct research in the archives. Documentary film “Father Arseny”: The book “Father Arseny” can be considered a documentary and historical work, a biography of the hieromonk and priest Arseny. Since 1975, its publication and distribution has been underground. Only in 1993 it was published by the publishing house at the Orthodox St. Tikhon's Humanitarian University. Since then, six reprints have been published. The book has been translated into Greek and English and published in Greece, the USA, and France.

Pugacheva with a baby

There are guests at the table: a priest from Tyumen and a thin, inconspicuous man in black, whom I take for a novice. He sits with his head down and inserts only barely audible exclamations of approval into the conversation between the two clergy. And they continue the conversation that began before my arrival about the godlessness of modern society.

“It’s gotten to the point where they can’t even die like a Christian,” says the priest from Tyumen. Recently he was called to Moscow to perform the funeral service for a businessman. He performed the funeral service for him, and then it turns out that the deceased bequeathed to be cremated. "What?! — the father was indignant. - Come to your senses! But the relatives of the deceased did not come to their senses and carried out the will of the deceased. And then let’s call the priest: they say, the dead man appears to him - and that’s it. Scary? That's it.

A young monk, Father John, is serving at the table. He is so thin that the leather monk's belt is wrapped twice around his waist.

— Is the jeep in your yard? - I ask the abbot. He nods: mine.

— Don’t you think that such cars and expensive mobile phones for priests distract parishioners from thinking about God? Well, for example, the same grandmothers with a small pension?

- Let the grandmothers think about their sins! - the previously silent man in black suddenly says. Father John rings the cups.

“Stereotypes, stereotypes...” sighs the priest from Tyumen. - Do you think that since a priest is so poor and wretched... Why should the priest live poorly? These are all Soviet remnants...

But in the memory of Father Arseny there was an incident. One woman kept complaining about the Kurgan bishop. They ask her: “What did Vladyka do bad to you?” "Like what?! - answers. “He has all sorts of carpets at home, chandeliers, expensive furniture...” - “Don’t you have carpets at home?” - “There is...” - “And, guess what, there is crystal?” - “And there is crystal...” - “So why should the ruler live poorly?!” Then she blushed, felt ashamed and ran away from the temple. That's it...

I look around the room: a massive exercise machine - a treadmill, tall painted vases. The cell attendant, a young man with a scar and military bearing, brings his father, the governor of Zanzibar, the smallest Chihuahua registered in Russia. Zanzibar is a gift from a grateful parishioner. The treadmill is also a gift. From a businessman who learned that the priest has diabetes and physical activity is beneficial for him.

The artist Sergei enters the room with a portrait of Yuri Galtsev, painted in the same manner as the portraits of Alla Borisovna on the walls: a prima donna with her father Arseny and a plate of fruit, a prima donna in a black cloak with a hood, feeding a baby from a bottle of formula... There is also Christina Orbakaite, similar to Larisa Dolina. Moreover, all the Russian pop stars for some reason look much younger than their years. Sergei himself is a picturesque character: his hairstyle, wide trousers, a silk shirt with a pattern and a gold tooth - it seems that he fell asleep immediately after perestroika and only recently woke up. In the past he was a famous Samara singer, now he is a painter under the priest.

We go out into the yard. There, the inconspicuous person whom I appointed as a novice is transformed. I notice he is wearing fashionable high boots and a coat. And when he gets behind the wheel of an Infiniti, I understand that he is certainly no novice.

“Boris, financier from Tyumen,” he introduces himself.

We go for water to a holy spring two kilometers from Chimeev. On both sides of the road there is untouched snow and tall pine trees. The sun appears from somewhere below, from behind the chapel we are approaching, and shines onto the road through the tree trunks.

- Beautiful…

Below are baths and a well. An icy wooden staircase leads to them. Next is the Niyap River. Three hundred years ago, according to legend, a board sailed along it against the current. She was noticed by village boys playing on the shore. They looked closely and a woman was looking at them from the board with big eyes. They called the priest and took the icon to the temple. And then a little further upstream a spring began to flow.

The bridge is shaky. Niyap is a small river, in some places just a wide stream. But the bottom is not visible in it. The water is still and black. Trees hang over it from the banks, one with a thin trunk looks like a tall, thin Father John.

— XP 35? — I bang my fist on the back door of the jeep.

“Yes,” Boris answers modestly. “The Lord helps me earn money, and I don’t shy away from giving alms: I need to give to so many—the poor, the same grandmothers, so that they don’t go hungry!” We are all equal before the Lord, no matter how much money you have on your credit card. However, no one is hungry,” he clarifies, taking a bucket from the well, and asks me: “Do you eat every day?”

I nod and he concludes:

- So, there has been no famine in our country in recent years, and it seems to me that there will not be any.

Who is Peter Streltsov

Pyotr Andreevich Streltsov is the secular name of hieromonk and priest Arseny, who was born in 1894 in Moscow. He graduated from high school at the age of 16, after which he entered the Imperial Moscow University. During his five years of study, Pyotr Streltsov did a lot of work on studying Russian architecture, wrote numerous studies and monographs on the history of ancient Russian art.

Biography

Streltsov Petr Andreevich is an art critic who has long become famous in scientific circles. In his youth, he experiences mental torment between worldly life and his childhood dream of monasticism.

Main stages:

1. He fulfilled his dream at the beginning of 1917, when he went to Optina Pustyn. There he lived for two years in obedience to two elders - Anatoly and Nektarios.
2. Having taken monastic vows as a hieromonk under the name Arseny, with the blessing of the elders, he goes “into the world.”
3. Patriarch Tikhon approved the priestly path of Father Arseny and allowed him to serve in one of the parish churches of Moscow.

The rector of the church was Father Pavel.

Religion and faith in life

Religion and faith are inseparable from the life path of Peter Streltsov. At the end of 1921, Archpriest Pavel was arrested, and therefore, until December 1927, Father Arseny became the only rector of the temple. However, in December 1927, he was also arrested and sent to the Arkhangelsk region for two years. After exile, it was forbidden to return to Moscow, so until his second arrest in 1931, Arseny served in a church in the Moscow region.

Then his life develops as follows:

1. He is exiled to the Vologda region for five years. Returning from exile, he continues to serve as a priest, but secretly (at home and in compliance with strict secrecy). During this time, my father manages to go to Petushki several times to meet with Bishop Afanasy Sakharov.
2. In 1939, he was again arrested and exiled to Siberia. In 1940, the fourth arrest was exile to the Urals, where he had to endure a long stay in a maximum security camp without the right to correspondence.
3. Having been released from the camp in the spring of 1958, Archpriest Arseny settled in the city of Rostov the Great. Until his death in 1975, he lived in the house of the widow of his spiritual son who died in the camp. In the same city, Father Arseny was buried.

A stone with the imprint “Father Arseny 1894-1975” was installed at the burial site. Now the burial place is lost because the stone itself has disappeared, and those who could show the grave of Father Arseny have already died. Currently, in the cemetery of the city of Rostov the Great there is a symbolic grave of the hieromonk.

Father Arseny

History of writing

One of the deep admirers and “spiritual children” of Father Arseny, Vladimir Vladimirovich Bykov, collected stories of victims of persecution against the church for many years, and personally knew many of the authors of memoirs about the holy father. He knew Elder Arseny and even confessed to him 12 times. Vladimir Bykov donated his manuscripts to the Orthodox St. Tikhon's University for the Humanities. They contain descriptions of the lives and trials of several real people.

At the same time, he had one condition - not to give real names and dates that could determine their identity. That is why different ascetics exist in the book under the same name of Hieromonk Arseny.

Almost 20 years ago, on the initiative of the university, data was collected on tens of thousands of people who suffered from persecution of the Orthodox Church. It was their editor and compiler of the book, Vladimir Vorobyov, who included them in the first edition. The recordings were left unedited to maintain maximum authenticity.

Idea and essence

Reader interest in the book “Father Arseny” is associated not only with the literary component. The religious perception of the world in the twentieth century was associated with the image of the new martyrs, because “Father Arseny” is a story about the survival of ascetics in the camps, about the exploits of faith, about the fate of the Church in the years 1920-1950.

The book blurs the line between documentary and fiction. Prose becomes a reliable witness to a terrible time. The multiplicity of prototypes is not important to the reader; only the uplifting spirit of the book is significant. This is hope for salvation, a monument to all the victims, tortured and killed.

Plot of the book

Each event in this book is the story of several people. Stories and confessions are placed on seven hundred pages, dozens of names and surnames are included.

It is important to note that:

• the plot itself can be tracked by the headings, which have a literary purpose;
• in each short story, the space of hell, terrible, tragic events, many opposing figures - everything is connected in an everyday setting;
• gradually the reader gets acquainted with the biography of the priest, learns about all his exiles, suffering in the camps, acquaintances with different people;
• each chapter is presented in the form of a testimony, memoir or message;
• contains important information about what is important for spiritual development and survival in unbearable circumstances.

The first chapters point to a dark and difficult period of life: “Camp”, “Barack”, “The Sick”, “The Major’s Call”, “The Fair Overseer”. But further from the chapter titles it becomes clear that circumstances are changing, the state of mind is improving. This is obvious if you read “Life Goes On,” “Joy,” “Everything Changes,” “Confession.”

Current characters

Conditions of the Soviet era forced us to hide and change the names of all characters and titles. The first character is the criminal Gray, who appears in the second chapter.

In the third chapter, the sick and dying Sazikov Ivan Aleksandrovich appears, as well as the ideological communist Avseenkov Alexander Pavlovich. For them, the elder read a prayer for recovery to Christ and the Most Holy Theotokos.

These characters act as memoirists in the next chapter. Gradually, the reader becomes acquainted with a dozen names and surnames: Ivan Karii, Vera Danilovna, Major Abrosimov Sergei Petrovich, Alexey (with whom Arseniy survived in a punishment cell in thirty-degree frost), Nadezhda Petrovna, doctor Boris Petrovich, monk Mikhail, Sergei Sergeevich.

Genre of the work (main features)

Literature of the second half of the 20th century increasingly strives for documentary and authenticity, when the author peeks through the external artistry and conducts a direct conversation with the reader. At the same time, he does not strive for personal authorship or introducing individuality into the text. The author's task is to describe eyewitness accounts.

Only the authenticity of the story is convincing. The religious themes and spirituality of the text come first.

Text structure

From the time the first edition went out of print in 1993 until the last reprint in 2014, the book became more and more voluminous and was supplemented with new chapters.

Please remember that:

1. The first three parts (“Camp”, “Path” and “Children”) were published in samizdat in 1975 and passed from hand to hand among church families. The manuscript was admired: no one had previously written about the millions of believers who died and were tortured in camps and prisons.
2. In 1998, the third edition was published with the added fourth part, “The Path to Faith.” The materials for it were collected by Vladimir Bykov.
3. In the new, reissued and revised edition in 2014, the fifth part “Love Thy Neighbor” appears, the materials for which have not previously been published.
4. The previously unpublished 16 chapters are based on the stories of Father Arseny’s spiritual children, fellow prisoners and his own memories. Here appear the names of real people who knew the preacher closely and communicated with him: Bishop Afanasy (Sakharov), Archpriest Sergius (Orlov), Vsevolod Shpiller. They all secretly communicated with each other.

The book also includes photographs of ascetics who knew Hieromonk Arseny and experienced similar trials for their faith and Christ. The first and second parts have separate prefaces.

The prefaces to the first and fourth editions were written by the editor-compiler Vladimir Solovyov. In them he writes about the feat of uncanonized ascetics and new martyrs, about the question of the prototype and its authenticity.

Similar works

In our time, similar books appear about the lives of saints, biographies of elders, and presentations of the exploits of the Orthodox faith in the modern era.

These are:

1. “The Unknown World of Faith” (republished from 2002 to 2010). This is a collection book containing different stories, but all about the extraordinary facts of the life of ordinary Orthodox Christians and famous people who have found faith in God.
2. The true story of the three Optina new martyrs, killed on Easter in 1993, is described in Nina Pavlova’s story “Red Easter”. She acted as a collector of memories of the hieromonks and the manuscripts left behind by them.
3. The book “Servant of God” is a biography of the elder mitred archpriest Nikolai Guryanov. It talks about a 20th century pastor, an outstanding confessor who is known to the Orthodox world for his exploits, his humble bearing of the cross and his sincere love for God.
4. The feats of faith, love, forgiveness and sacrifice of the ascetics of our time are collected in the book by Alexandra Nikiforova “The Living Tradition of the 20th Century.” It contains stories of witnesses about holy elders and Orthodox martyrs.

In 2011, a film was made about how memories, stories and letters of various people who knew and communicated with the Orthodox elder Arseny were collected.

BRIEF INFORMATION ABOUT THE LIFE OF FATHER ARSENY

Father Arseny was born in Moscow in 1894. In 1911 he graduated from high school and entered the Faculty of History and Philology of the Moscow Imperial University. He graduated from the university in 1916 and suffered from endocarditis for more than eight months. At this time he wrote his first works on art - ancient Russian architecture. At the beginning of 1917, after a period of spiritual quest, he left for Optina Pustyn, where he was a novice of two elders - Anatoly and Nektary. Here he took monastic tonsure, then he was ordained a hieromonk. In 1919, Father Arseny, with the blessing of the elders, returned to Moscow and was appointed the third priest to one of the Moscow churches. This required special permission from St. Patriarch Tikhon, because The service of hieromonks in parishes was usually not allowed. At the beginning of 1921, Fr. Arseny became the second priest, and at the end of 1921, when the rector of the church, Father Pavel, was transferred and soon arrested, Father Arseny became the rector. During his eight years of service, he gathered a significant community in his church, for which he became a beloved shepherd and confessor. In 1927, at the end of December, Father Arseny was arrested for the first time and exiled to the Arkhangelsk region for two years. After the end of his exile, Father Arseny served in a church near Moscow (outside the hundred-kilometer zone). In 1931, he was arrested again and exiled to the Vologda region for five years. Now Father Arseny has received permission to live in the Vologda, Arkhangelsk and Vladimir regions. It was impossible to serve in church; I served at home. He secretly came to Moscow several times, met with Bishop Afanasy (Sakharov), asked him to ordain several of his spiritual children to the priesthood, to which he received the consent of Bishop Afanasy. He secretly nurtured his spiritual community. Then - a third arrest in 1939, a new exile to Siberia, then to the Urals. Father Arseny spent about a year in exile in the village. Troitskoye, Arkhangelsk region. In May 1940, he was arrested again and imprisoned in the Ural camp. In March 1941 he was transferred to a high-security camp, correspondence and visits from spiritual children almost ceased, and in 1942 he was transferred to a special-regime camp, where correspondence and visits were finally prohibited. Only in the spring of 1958 was Father Arseny released from the special regime camp and settled in Rostov the Great with Nadezhda Petrovna. Father Arseny died in 1975 and was buried in the Rostov cemetery. A granite stone was placed on his grave with the inscription:

Father Arseny

Then this stone disappeared; in what condition and where the grave is located is now unknown, since everyone who cared for it has already died.

The text is given according to the edition:

Father Arseny. Edited by Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov. Fourth edition, expanded. – M.: Publishing House of the Orthodox St. Tikhon’s Theological Institute, 2000. – 784 pp.; ill.

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Crooked candle

Father is always accompanied by people and sounds. It’s as if he’s afraid to be left alone and in silence.

“I should hang a red mule in the middle here,” he says to the women hanging curtains in the guest quarters of the cell building.

- Do you know how much I paid for these curtains? - he asks me. - Three hundred and fifty thousand!

My feet are warm, warmed by the heated floor.

- You forget that I am a journalist. I will write about your curtains, so I ask you not to show me anything like that again.

— Do you like the furniture? - he sighs. — I ordered it in Moscow...

The orphans don't take their eyes off me.

— When I didn’t enter art school, I went to study as a cook. Yes, yes, I had brilliant culinary skills...

Father Arseny sits at a table on which lies a large mirror. He wipes its surface with a damp cloth, and I look at his reflection. In the mirror he is different - his hair is grayer, the corners of his eyes are downcast. In the mirror he thinks about something other than the curtains. It probably seems this way because it reflects it from below.

— Then I had an exhibition of confectionery products. But all my life I have been outraged by rudeness and injustice. I worked at a catering company. If you see such a sign, run away quickly. Eggs - the whites are already green - cannot be thrown away: they will be used for biscuits, custard rings, etc. Do you know that biscuits are soaked in syrup with the addition of cognac? I didn’t know that there was just one gang there, I went to the headmistress and complained: the eggs were rotten, they were stealing cognac. And she was the leader there. In general, I left there. Then he worked as an artistic director at a vocational school.

The orphans listen to him attentively; apparently, they did not know this about him.

“Afterwards I went to earn money and painted in oils.” He wrote so similar, so realistic... Until he accepted an order for the iconostasis in the church. My assistant and I were promised five hundred rubles each, which was a lot of money back then. And imagine, I started working - and I feel someone’s gaze. It was so hard... And I feel ashamed: I took five hundred rubles. And then for the first time in my life I came across what iconography is. Oh, how difficult it was! I began to copy the icon of the Archangel Michael - I rewrote the face three times...

“I want to be with my friends,” Pugacheva shouts from the speakers. - They ran away in all directions. Oh, I can’t escape this loneliness anywhere..."

“And then I went to be baptized.” Father George, our elder, baptized. And you know what? There were candles in his hands - one crooked one. And I whisper to myself: “Lord, give me a sign! Let Father George with his hand give me a crooked candle..." The elder gives me a crooked candle... Lord, accept me... Help me... Lord, that I may serve you... I will dry up my flesh... I will dry up my flesh... I asked and understood what I was asking for...

“It’s not the wind that’s blowing, the oak tree is making noise,” Father Arseny drawls out when Alla Borisovna falls silent.

“That’s mine, my heart is a hundred-oh-no, kaa-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-a-it trembling-we sing in chorus. Father suddenly decided to “open my soul.” Whether it was spontaneous or planned, I don’t know. All I know for sure is that he will regret it when I betray him.

“I know I’m going to get married to my grave,” I can’t reach the high notes, but Father Arseny’s voice is high.

- I'll burn my torch, I'll burn you and I too...

- Father, don’t sleep! Don't sleep! - one of the orphans pushes him when he falls silent in the middle of the chorus, leaning his head on his shoulder.

“I hear everything...” Father Arseny opens his eyes. - I will dry up my flesh...

Forty steps

Sunday. There are buses with pilgrims from Kurgan and Tyumen near the church. People are different, the goal is the same.

Antonina comes here for work from her village every week. Her husband catches fish in the river, and Father Arseny buys it. Personally, everything here in Chimeevo helps Antonina. She comes here and it’s as if she’s been born again, she can fly on wings.

The man standing modestly at the very entrance is immediately clear to be a businessman: only they wear such coats, shoes and silk scarves. Let’s introduce ourselves: Sergei himself is not baptized, that’s why he stood aside. He is the director of a company engaged in major renovations of housing stock.

Dmitry and Alexey look much more modest. They are foresters from the Irkutsk region. Now, however, they are toiling without work.

- Come on, tell me how you are doing! - Father Arseny catches a worker at the temple gates.

“Father, if there was agriculture now, life would be easier,” he answers.

After the service, there was a parking lot of expensive cars at the viceroy’s house: the spiritual children of the viceroy’s father gathered for a Sunday meal. At the head of the table is Father Arseny himself, at the table are the clergy of the temple, Margarita - a woman of significant merit, her husband with a noble appearance and a gray beard, and three tanned, dyed blondes with unnatural lips. One of them has something to do with a man running for mayor of Kurgan. She, clearly repeating someone’s words, explains to Father Arseny that Russia must help third countries of the world with money, otherwise it, Russia, itself will be considered a third country.

“Oh, you’ve become politicized,” Father Arseny sighs and says to me across the table: “Here, interview the girls, they constantly appear on the covers of magazines.”

“No,” I refuse to interview the girls, “we came to you, you’re the only pop star here.”

Father Arseny did not appreciate the joke.

The cook Masha prepared tiger shrimps, grape snails, baked carp, and cooked fish soup. Father John is serving at the table.

“Vanya, be quick, turn around,” Masha grumbles at Father John. “Otherwise I’ll shove a snowball down the collar of my cassock!”

“I thought and decided,” Father John says to me, taking me aside and looking as if he was about to reveal a great secret. — I decided to start eating little bits of earth from holy places...

Without the blessing of Father Arseny, we make our way into the hut of Father John - he lives next door to the governor. We sneak around so as not to be noticed. The hut contains a stove, firewood, two beds, a ladle for washing with water covered in ice, and windows without glass, covered with simple white cloth nailed to wooden frames. Cold. Father John doesn’t like the hut either: the conditions are too good for a monk. He would like to live in the desert.

When Margarita, the spiritual child of Father Arseny, first saw the Kazan Icon, she howled. She just stood there and howled loudly. And since then, this shock has always lived in her, calling her to return here. In 1998, she and her husband arrived, lit candles - both fell, as if someone from below had clicked a finger on them. “It’s a bad sign,” said some old woman. And soon she and her husband were imprisoned and two of them were taken away,” explains Margarita. Now she has her own company for repairing diesel locomotives, her husband runs the plant.

“I say this: the Lord does not send us those trials that we could not overcome. There were so many ups and downs, but after each fall it only got better. “They toughen us up,” Margarita explains to me as we drive to the spring in her car.

She is a seasoned woman: with shoes on her bare feet, she gets out of the car into the snow, and we go down to the source to shower ourselves. At the top step she stops and says:

- There are forty steps here. As you step on each one, you need to repeat to yourself: “Lord, have mercy!”

While Margarita is preparing buckets on which “Holy Spring” is written in green paint, the watchman spreads his arms in different directions:

“We are now standing at the bottom of the river.” And its banks are right next to the pines. As soon as you enter the water, be it in winter or in summer, he will hug you and caress you... Because there is holiness in this water, grace. Neither touch it, nor feel it, nor smell it, nor see it. Just grace - that's all. Just as you believe in God, that is the grace of God for you.

- Oh-oh-oh-oh! Oh! Fine! Warm! Grace! - Margarita shouts from the bathhouse.

I look into the crack: it is pouring out of the bucket.

- Yes-ah, I’m big, fat! - she says through the partition, noticing my eye through the crack. “When I go into the sea, I always shout: “Mothers, take the children, the wave has started!”

We return to the car. I wonder if in every monastery there is at least one monk like Father John?

First step. Lord have mercy! I remember a story that was told to me back in Kurgan. The young monk lay on the sofa and cried. Since childhood, he did not like injustice: it was bitter for him, it was hard, they broke him - he did not want to become like others... This was the future father Arseny, the owner of the smallest chihuahua in Russia. But time passed, and he became exactly what he did not want to become. After this cry, he got lost on the sofa, as if through the looking glass. And only when Father Arseny looks down in the mirror does it reflect him as he was before. And he cries again, gets upset, says that everyone is betraying him...

Second step. Lord have mercy! Or maybe something wrong is happening with our monasticism itself, some kind of crisis has happened in it? Well, why does a monk need curtains for three hundred and fifty thousand? And will it, this crisis, pass if all the bells in all the churches of Russia are rung at the same time?

The third step, the fourth - the steps on the wooden rungs reverberate in the chest, the words of the prayer fall in time with the heartbeat: Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy!.. RR

Chimeevo is not just a run-of-the-mill Siberian village. Chimeevo is the destination of pilgrims from Kurgan, Tyumen, Moscow, who come to pray to the local Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, which is revered as miraculous

- Have a small drink with us! We won't let you through until you have a drink with us! I look into the eyes of the men who ran out onto the road from behind the store with bottles in their hands and blocked our way to the governor’s house, and I don’t see anything in them

Where is Yatsenyuk now: everything that is known today about the former Prime Minister of Ukraine (7 photos)

The structure of the Ukrainian political system is peculiar: several months pass after the elections, and the people cease to love the government for which they recently voted. The disgraced 15th Prime Minister of Ukraine was no exception, who, after his resignation, ceased to be a public politician. Everyone is wondering – where is Yatsenyuk now? Today there are several versions about what Arseny Petrovich does and where he lives.

Yatsenyuk Arseniy Petrovich: where is he now? April 14, 2016 - the Ukrainian parliament sends Prime Minister Yatsenyuk to resign. The disastrous two years spent in this position should have finally knocked out the winner of the elections to the Verkhovna Rada from the highest echelon of the country's politics. However, this did not happen, and Arseniy Petrovich feels great in the role of the “gray eminence” of Ukraine: Party. As the head of the Popular Front, he constantly dominates party meetings and almost single-handedly decides how the faction should vote in the Verkhovna Rada. Ministers. Despite the fact that Arseny Petrovich is now in the shadows, he still has his own people in the cabinet. And this is “profitable” lobbying for the requests of large corporations. Key players. Three key players in the country’s political structure represent Yatsenyuk’s party: Avakov – heads the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Parubiy – dominates the Verkhovna Rada, Turchynov – the first person in the National Security and Defense Council. Key issues are resolved with their consent, which means, de facto, Arseniy Petrovich himself is involved in this. Ambition. Despite his young political age, Yatsenyuk had already become Minister of Foreign Affairs, headed the Ministry of Justice, headed the NBU and served as Prime Minister. What remains? That's right - the presidency.

Where is Yatsenyuk and his family now? After Yatsenyuk left the post of prime minister, rumors appeared that Arseniy Petrovich had left Ukraine. They even named specific countries: Argentina, Great Britain, USA. This was preceded by two scandals: Billionaire. In two years as prime minister, Yatsenyuk becomes a dollar billionaire. A civil servant, and according to the laws of Ukraine, Arseniy Petrovich did not have the right to engage in entrepreneurial activity, he physically could not earn the amount of two billion dollars, while living on a politician’s modest salary. Project "Wall". We most likely will not find out about Yatsenyuk’s “dark” affairs, but his public promises are known to everyone. During the PR of the “Wall” project, which should be located on the border with Russia, Arseniy Petrovich thus raised his low rating. The result is that 30 km of fence was built for $400 million, which strangely resembles an ordinary chain-link mesh. But money decides everything, and no criminal cases were brought against the ex-prime minister. Now Yatsenyuk and his family live safely in Kyiv, and in any favorable case, he will return to big politics. Friendship with the most influential oligarchs of the country, Akhmetov and Kolomoisky, leaves no doubt that Yatsenyuk will definitely participate in the next presidential elections.

Yatsenyuk's real surname Ukrainian politics is quite unique - all key people do not have their own surnames: Petro Poroshenko. The President of Ukraine changed his initials in his youth. Real name is Valtsman. Vitaliy Klichko. The famous boxer, and now the mayor of Kyiv, used to be Etinson. Yulia Timoshenko. The oppositionist and head of the BYuT faction has Armenian roots. For the purpose of “Ukrainization”, Yulia Grigyan turned into Yulia Tymoshenko. Semyon Semenchenko. The public deputy from the Samopomich party was formerly Konstantin Grishin. As for Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the politician comes from an ancient Jewish family – Bakai. But what to do if, just recently, people with Jewish roots did not have serious job prospects? That's right - change the last name to something more consonant with the Ukrainian voter. This is how Arseniy Bakai became Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Arseniy Yatsenyuk: what next? Whatever political experts say, Yatsenyuk’s future prospects in the political field are more than rosy. A superficial analysis of the current situation in Ukraine confirms this fact: Rating. The former prime minister's current rating is very low. But time is on Arseniy Petrovich’s side. All current power is concentrated in one hand - President Poroshenko. All the country’s failures are also associated with Pyotr Alekseevich. In the event of early elections to the Verkhovna Rada, political strategists will be able to turn Yatsenyuk into a new people’s “Messiah.” Oligarchs. Knowledgeable people associate the “People's Front” with the name of the Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. On the other hand, and Yatsenyuk was once a member of Yanukovych’s government, no one denies Arseniy Petrovich’s friendly ties with another financial heavyweight, Rinat Akhmetov. From this we can conclude: the project, called “President Yatsenyuk”, is not the second largest faction, and is part of the Verkhovna Rada coalition. Until the situation changes, Arseniy Yatsenyuk remains a person who is able to influence the decisions of the country's leadership. American trace It will not be a secret to anyone that the US State Department was at the origins of the “Orange Revolution” of 2004 and the “Revolution of Dignity” of 2014. After an unsuccessful bet on Yushchenko, the American leadership began to promote new people, one of whom was Yatsenyuk. Facts confirming this: Joseph Biden. The US Vice President is a good friend of Yatsenyuk. Victoria Nuland. The Assistant Secretary of State in 2014 misspoke in an interview and called Arseniy Petrovich “her man.” Barack Obama . At critical moments of Yatsenyuk's premiership, he met twice with US President Obama. Interesting facts about Arseniy Petrovich Did you know that: Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who is Jewish by nationality, denies this in every possible way and claims that he is a pure Ukrainian. In 2015, Arsen Avakov awarded Arseny Petrovich a machine gun from the times of the first world wave “Maxim”. The ex-prime minister met his future wife while working at Raiffeisen Bank. As head of the NBU in 2005, it was Yatsenyuk who kept the hryvnia from devaluing. Arseniy Petrovich broke the anti-record for Yushchenko's popularity - in April 2016, the population's support rating for Yatsenyuk was 1.5%. The third president stopped at 2.5%. Now you know exactly where Yatsenyuk is now. Today we can safely say that Arseny Petrovich, after his failed premiership, did not run away anywhere, but lives in Kyiv and dreams of returning triumphantly to big-time politics. The next presidential elections will show whether he will succeed. And at the moment, Yatsenyuk remains one of the richest and most influential people in Ukraine.

Catch Book.ru

Preface to the fourth edition

Seven years have passed since the first edition of the book Father Arseny. During this time, it was republished several times in Russian, three times in Greek, in English, and editions are being prepared in other languages. Its beneficial influence on the souls of our contemporaries is enormous; many, thanks to this book, acquired the Christian faith.

But there were also skeptics who stated even in print that the book Father Arseny is a novel, the main character of which is a collective image, and the stories of which it consists are fiction. These doubts, allowed by God's Providence, prompted a man who personally knew Arseny's father, Vladimir Vladimirovich Bykov, to write his memoirs, which are placed in this edition as an Afterword.

In the last years of his life, Father Arseny constantly blessed his spiritual children to write down the stories of those who came to him and their own memories, telling how God helped them gain faith and walk the path of life. The elder expressed confidence that over time these recordings would help other people find God, and expressed a desire for the future collection to be called The Path to Faith. With this title, the fourth part was published in the third edition of the book, released in 1998. The materials of the fourth part were collected and transferred to the Orthodox St. Tikhon's Theological Institute by V. V. Bykov. But Vladimir Vladimirovich said that there are still memories that the authors or their descendants have not yet submitted for publication. In response to our intense requests, Vladimir Vladimirovich again began to persistently persuade the owners of precious manuscripts to hand them over for a new edition. This is how the fifth part of the book appeared, which we called Love Your Neighbor. It contains sixteen previously unpublished stories of the spiritual children of Father Arseny, his fellow prisoners and his

Virgin Mary with a grain

In the center of the village is the Beryozka store, a small blue trailer. But there are no buyers there. “They want something to eat, but they don’t have any money,” explains the saleswoman.

An elderly man in camouflage and a plush hat with earflaps brings a box of cupcakes into Beryozka. He has calloused, calloused fingers, a dark tanned, almost brown face and whitish eyes. I look into them and see nothing but two pieces of faded chintz.

- FAQ? - he drawls in response to my question why in the village where so many pilgrims come, people live so poorly. - And we have a crisis. Just not this one of yours, from Moscow. Our crisis happened when collective farms were closed. And it won't end.

When I leave the store, it is already dark outside. The door to the church is open, but only the cleaning lady is there. It's warm inside and smells like wax. A lamp is burning near the Kazan Icon. They say that even before the revolution, the wooden church where it stood then burned to the ground, but only a corner of the icon was burned. And after the revolution they poked at it with bayonets and swung an ax at it... They made a granary out of the church, so when the frame on the icon is cleaned, there won’t be a grain of wheat in it.

Before entering the house at the temple, where Father Arseny blessed us to spend the night, I climb the tower near the cell building under construction - only here, not counting the abbot’s house with an antenna installed on it, can I get a mobile connection. Dogs bark. On one side there is a black river, on the other there are domes. The ground below me was torn up as if someone wanted to get to its insides.

- Did I bless you to go to village houses? - Father Arseny asks me sternly the next day at dinner.

“They didn’t bless me,” I answer, finishing the pancake with red caviar. - I haven’t gone yet. But I'm going...

“So you’ve been lied to…” he says seriously. - And I don’t bless you to go home...

Father left Tyumen, and his place was taken by a new guest - Father Roman from Maykop. His cassock is belted with a military belt, and on his chest is a Suvorov Military School graduate badge. Father Roman is accompanied by businessman Alexander. He is in the construction business.

“I’ll tell you honestly, for me all people are the same - like a star, like an asterisk,” Father Arseny continues the conversation, the beginning of which I again did not hear. - And that singer is Madonna! Madonna! She is a blasphemer - she crucified herself on the cross. You have to believe in God alone...

“And you have Alla Borisovna, nursing a baby, hanging on the same wall as the Virgin Mary...” I interject.

- And you, my dear, don’t ask stupid questions if you don’t want them to tell you about pink blouses... You think all the priests are illiterate, unintelligent. I know what you write in your yellow press.

— And you, father, apparently are interested in the yellow press?

Father Roman is noticeably nervous: my tone in conversation with the priest is inappropriate.

- Father, would you like some tea or what? - a large woman comes out of the kitchen - cook Masha, the only person in the house whom both Father Arseny himself and his guests are afraid of.

“Or how...” answers the priest.

Father John brings Father Arseny tea.

During the day, without a blessing, I visit the cell building under construction. A team of young workers from Kurgan shows me a room reserved for a gym, narrow cells for two, washrooms, stained glass windows... At the entrance there is an announcement: “For smoking - a fine of 1000 rubles.”

— Why don’t locals work at construction sites? - I ask.

“They don’t want to,” the workers shrug. And they ask: “Have you come to Arseny?”

I notice their strange tone and grins when it comes to Father Abbot.

In the evening I go to the governor’s house to warm up: our “ice house” near the church was never heated. Father, sitting in front of the TV, watches an Orthodox channel, guests drink tea and pies at the table. The artist Sergei arrives with a copy of the Kazan Icon - his father Arseny transfers it to Maykop with his father Roman. The young guys who usually accompany the priest outside the house are huddled around the table, helping Sergei pack the icon. “Orphans,” the priest introduces them to me.

He blesses me to sit on the chair next to him. Nearby lies a black cat, Murka, with a torn tail and an Ilizarov apparatus in her hind paw. She gave birth a month and a half ago, but is already pregnant again. Murka is always pregnant. She is an eternal mother. During confession, Father Arseny always asks parishioners if they offend our little brothers.

- Why are you constantly asking stupid questions? - he scolds me. - What do you think, all the money should be given to the poor? They are donated to the temple. Before there was nothing here at all, everything had to be rebuilt.

— Maybe tell me a little about yourself? I want to show you in the report as you are, and not as you seem...,” I say, hoping that Father Arseny will turn out to be better than he seems.

“I won’t tell you anything... I’m a very sick person, I have a serious illness and... I have a lot of things... I’ve been betrayed many times, so I won’t tell anything about myself.” There are so many disgraces on my way! You open your soul to people, but they betray you.

“Truly I say to you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did it to Me. Gospel of Matthew 25:40." This is the inscription on a large drawing standing on a shelf next to the TV. It depicts Jesus Christ holding a bloody human fetus in his hands. Father Arseny instructed Sergei to paint such an icon - against abortion. In confession, he always asks men: “Have you ever been an accomplice to an abortion?”

“This is what is one of the highest sins, and for men too,” he sighs, noticing that I am looking at the drawing.

Meanwhile, the announcer loudly talks about ascetics and true piety.

“Sergey,” I turn to the artist, “have you noticed that President Medvedev looks like Nicholas II?”

Sergei, the orphans, Father Roman and a businessman from Maykop are huddled in the corner near the icon of the martyr king and looking at it carefully.

- When did you notice this? - asks Father Arseny.

- Yesterday, when I looked at photographs of the royal family in our house...

“That’s why it’s difficult for me to write Nikolai,” says Sergei. “I have long noticed this similarity, and it is difficult for me not to attribute Medvedev’s features to the tsar.

Sergei dreams of painting Putin's family. When he hears the word “Russia,” he imagines a huge field with golden ears of wheat.

And in my opinion, Russia is Chimeevo.