Stories about animals. Stories about animals for children of the younger group
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 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).
Yes, Father Arseny most of spent 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.
Priests were no longer shot or sent to prison at that time, but for widespread propaganda of religious views one could get quite a real time. Therefore, it seems natural that in the chapters talking about specific people, then only names were indicated (most likely changed), and the specific location of the action was given with 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 knocked 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 latest editions of the book “Father Arseny” in the afterword the real names of Father Arseny’s spiritual children are named.
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" was recommended to me to read by people from our old emigration. They said that this publication, published by the Orthodox St. Tikhon's Theological Institute in Moscow in 2000, is serious, necessary, explains a lot, and is of great value. And the thickness of the volume is 750 pages, and the circulation is decent - 20 thousand copies, and its reprints in translations into English and Greek are not a pound of raisins for you.
Russian literature abroad is represented by dozens and hundreds of wonderful preachers, Orthodox philosophers and masters artistic word who created with their creations an inexhaustible treasury of Spiritual thought. The names of ROCOR Metropolitans Anthony (Khrapovitsky), Anastasy (Gribanovsky), Philaret (Voznesensky), Vitaly (Ustinov), St. John of Shanghai, Arch. Averkia (Tausheva), architect. Konstantin (Zaitsev), architect. Andrey (Rymarenko), prot. Mikhail Polsky, prot. Alexander Shmeman, Father Seraphim Rose, I. Ilyin, S. Nilus, A. Kartashev, I. Shmelev, I. Savin, V. Nikiforov-Volgin, B. Shiryaev, in our time supplemented by the names of Archpriest. Dmitry Dutko and others. Lev Lebedev.
That’s why hope told me: maybe something completely unusual had appeared on the other side, since Russian emigrants were recommending this book to me.
However, from the very first pages a strange feeling gripped me. It was as if some kind of performance was being performed in front of me. Moreover, I know the real plot very well, the plot is terrible, tragic. The result of which was the destruction of the Orthodox culture itself on the territory of the USSR: thousands of churches and temples were destroyed, millions and millions of Orthodox books were destroyed, tens of thousands of confessors of our Faith disappeared without a trace, the very essence of church service was mutilated, they sank into oblivion Orthodox traditions in life, in the family, in everyday life, Russian history itself has been rewritten so many times that no one knows what really happened, even the language itself has changed beyond recognition.
Here they also offer a surrogate, a fake of the same plot, popular prints. And the heroes of the book are developed walking diagrams, figures invented by someone, arranged in the necessary, calculated order. Someone selected them very cleverly. The reader does not immediately understand that this is a clever and skillful selection. Especially if he did not live in that country or left there almost as a child, and now occasionally visits with his American (French, Canadian, Argentine, etc.) passport.
The book "Father Arseny" pretends to be documentary. The editor-compiler, Archpriest V. Vorobiev, reports that these are “literally processed eyewitness accounts of the life of a modern saint-venerable.” The book consists of five parts, the text of the “testimonies” occupies more than 700 pages. Dozens of names and surnames. Pasted in is a selection of photographs: Saint Patriarch Tikhon, Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky), other bishops and priests, martyrs for the Orthodox Faith, places of life and execution of thousands of Orthodox Christians, as well as views of Moscow, Moscow region and Rostov churches.
It must be said right away that among the photographs there was not a single one of the “holy saint” himself, that is, Father Arseny. There were also no photographs of dozens of people, members of his “secret” community. Although they play a huge role in the narrative - it is on the basis of their memoirs, oral and written evidence, memories recorded by others, stored in someone’s archives that the plot of the book took shape.
Despite the fact that the time frame of the story is blurred, the attentive reader learns that Pyotr Andreevich Streltsov, from a good Moscow family, graduated from Moscow University even before the revolution, military service in the First World War somehow bypassed him, and he also did not participate in the Civil War, but he is engaged in ancient Russian art. In the early 20s, he served in “some church” in Moscow, organized a “secret community”, this community grew, Father Arseny’s “spiritual children” organized their own communities.
The activities of Father Arseny himself were interrupted in 1927 by arrest and deportation for 5 years. Returning to Moscow, he continues his work. In 1940, he was arrested a second time and was jailed for good. And they give time in the "camp" special regime", which is repeated many times in the book. Father Arseny spends 18 years there. (These facts of the "biography" can be isolated from the text itself. In the preceding "Brief information about the life of Father Arseny" (pp. 11-12) slightly different ones are given , more detailed, but also less conclusive data). The book itself begins with “literary-processed” memories of the camp and Father Arseny’s stay in it.
The main character was released only in 1958. Again “spiritual nurturing”, his “spiritual children” learn about his liberation and come to him. And now he asks them to write down memoirs, or talk about their paths in life at tea gatherings. There is no doubt that the author-compiler thereby tried to give more credibility to what was reported. This technique itself inexplicably reminded me of Boccaccio’s “Decameron”. The plot there is approximately the same: a plague is sweeping across the country, entire cities and regions are dying out, corpses are lying on the streets, since there is no one to bury, and ten boys and ten girls, by the way, from good families, gather in a country villa and entertain each other with stories on various topics.
The principle of authenticity always underlies documentary prose. Credibility is real people, real documents. Unfortunately, Father Arseny himself dies (according to the book) in 1975. The “Brief Information” about his life says: “he was buried in the cemetery of Rostov. A granite stone with the inscription “Father Arseny 1894-1975” was placed on his grave. Then this stone disappeared...”
Most of his "spiritual children" and people said to have known him also die before the book was compiled. This is also persistently communicated to readers. As if to emphasize: there is no need for you to look for sources.
The only photograph directly related to the text of the book depicts the author-compiler Archpriest V. Vorobyov and V. Bykov, in whose archive most of the “evidence” was kept. There is so little information about the rest that it is impossible to establish whether they even existed.
CHARACTERS
A feeling of bewilderment and even annoyance arises in the reader, first of all, from the fact that the overwhelming majority of its heroes are anonymous. No, they have patronymic names: Nadezhda Petrovna, Sergei Sergeevich, Vera Danilovna, Pavel Semenovich, Irina Nikolaevna, Alexey Fedorovich. Others go by their names only: Alyosha, Vera, Yulia, Kira, Yura, Lena, Sasha, Katya... But not a single real, living person.
There is no such thing that the reader knows for sure: here is Ivan Ivanovich Petukhov, he studied at such and such a school (the number of the school where it was located), then at Moscow University in such and such a specific year, his teachers are professors “name-rec” (and list of them), after graduating from the university, he worked at such and such an institute (the name of the director, the secretary of the party committee, who, undoubtedly, did not remain indifferent to the ideological struggle within the walls of the institution entrusted to him), was a believer and went to such and such a church in the mid-60s x (for example, in the same St. Nicholas Church, whose photograph is placed in the book), communicated with Father Vsevolod (Shpiller), whose photograph is also placed in the book, and so the son of a wonderful preacher Ivan Shpiller in his book “Memories of Father Vsevolod Shpiller" - M.: Orthodox St. Tikhon's Theological Institute; The Brotherhood of the All-Merciful Savior, 1993, writes the following about the spiritual connection between I.I. Petukhov, Father Vsevolod and Father Arseny... And then the quote from the text.
So on at least documentary prose should be built.
We are offered a set life stories, which proceed as if outside the history of the entire country, outside of places, outside of time, outside of events.
Let's take any of them at random. Here are the “memories” of Lyudmila Sergeevna, one of Father Arseny’s “spiritual children.” She, along with two friends, as active “churchwomen”, are deported to the Arkhangelsk region. There they suffer, suffer physically and mentally, almost die of hunger, barely survive and finally return to life. But when you read the text, you suddenly understand: all this is not real, invented, heard somewhere and then “literally processed.”
It is said about the regional center that “we had never heard of its name before.” Well, then, are there a lot of regional centers in Russia whose names no one has heard? Now we can name it. No, main character"Lyudmila" is hiding it. But he calls the village Korsun, twenty miles from the regional center. Neither the name nor the surname of the chairman of the village council, the key figure for the next 4 years of deportation. The same thing that made the life of the deported girls unbearable. The only one named was policeman Andrei Mikhalev. He and his wife Vera nurse girls dying of hunger. Andrei Mikhalev never receives a patronymic from the author-compiler. Just as “grandmother Lyaxandra”, in whose hut the girls lived, does not receive either a patronymic or a surname.
Paramedic Ivan Sergeevich, who gave the job first to Lyuda and then to Yulia, has no last name. The doctor Zoya Andreevna, under whom the girls worked, was left without a last name. To avoid any questions, the former exile “Lyudmila Sergeevna” reports that many years later she came to Korsun, the hospital had grown, and none of those who had previously worked there were there anymore. As they say, the end is in the water.
The whole book is simply filled with such stories. All 700-odd pages of text. Interspersed with excerpts from Orthodox prayers. Each of Father Arseny’s “spiritual children” tells something. Some Nadezhda Petrovna, or Iya Sergeevna, or former bandit Serafim Sazikov, or M.T. Toropova, or A.V.R-va tells the story and then gives it to Tatyana Nilovna Kameneva for the archives. Who is T.N. Kameneva? How did it happen that she had a whole archive? Why is it given to her? The reader doesn't need to know this. And others tell and hand over to the same archive to V. Bykov.
And they tell it in such a way that you don’t see the place of events, nor the relationships between people, nor the position of the narrator himself, nor his real life. He will tell you how he proves it. That's where he'll shut up. And Father Arseny asks someone else to tell him something. The only exception is the Afterword, written by the previously mentioned V. Bykov. But more on that later.
The number of heroes in the book associated with the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the GPU-NKVD, and the punitive authorities is striking. They are not only among the camp authorities, they are also among the camp inmates. This is understandable. That's how it was! Some were planting, others were sitting. Those who planted then planted themselves. Or they received a "tower".
However, reading the book, the reader suddenly discovers that the whole narrative seems to be cemented by the party members and security officers. Judge for yourself, right from the first pages, telling about life in the camp, next to Father Arseny is the party member and security officer Alexander Pavlovich Avseenkov. The author writes about him: “He “did” the October Revolution, a member of the party since 1977, knew Lenin, commanded the army in 1920, held a high post in the Cheka, approved the verdicts of the “troika,” and recently worked as a member of the NKVD board.. "
The fact that this has never happened, Avseenkova A.P., is easy to verify. The author gave his hero too high a rank. The hero himself rather reminds us of Antonov-Ovseenko. It was he who “made” the revolution, and knew Lenin, and commanded armies, and killed thousands of Russian people. True, he did not live to see the camps in the 50s. He was summoned to Moscow from a diplomatic post from Spain after the defeat of the Republicans in 1939 and ended his life in the basements of the Lubyanka.
The hero of the book “Father Arseny” Avseenkov is an exceptionally decent person. The fact that he also killed people is somehow not said. Well, he killed and killed, well, he imprisoned and imprisoned (by the way, he also imprisoned the same Father Arseny in 1939 - here, by the way, the author always makes typos and mistakes with dates, and Father Arseny was imprisoned in 1939 (p. 31), then in 1940. And in the “Brief Information” it simply says: they were imprisoned first in the 39th, released and imprisoned a second time in the 40th)... But that’s not what we’re talking about! And the main thing is that the security officer and murderer, under the influence of Father Arseny, suddenly comes to God.
Has this ever happened? In the history of Christianity - yes. The same Saul, a well-known persecutor of Christians, was transformed by the will of the Lord into the Apostle Paul. Was it? Was. Only Paul went to his death for our God, and “comrade” Avseenkov, after his release, continued to serve in high ranks, as the author tells us. And those high ranks are in their main specialty, that is, in the security service. So what is the meaning of this “comrade” coming to God?
We are not given an answer. But the idea of “comrades” suddenly turning into new-found “Pauls” continues persistently throughout the book.
The head of the “special department” in that same “special regime camp”, with the rank of major, also turns out to be almost the spiritual child of Father Arseny. His name is Sergei Petrovich Abrosimov. He is a former general, demoted to major and sent to work (according to his profile!) in the camp. And now the former general reaches such stupidity that he confidentially shares with prisoner No. 18376: “Tell Alexander Pavlovich (Avseenkov) that Sergei Petrovich ... is here. Many people at the top remember Alexander Pavlovich, but it’s difficult to help. They try more than once They approached the Chief, but to no avail. The Chief replies: “Let him sit,” and the deputy is trying to destroy. Alexander Pavlovich knows a lot, he’s straightforward, but they didn’t like to remove them, but the Chief didn’t give permission. They’re trying to do it in a roundabout way, through criminals. to act. Criminal Ivan Karego is being pushed to do this..."
Curious confessions from the head of the “special department” to a prisoner! The author-compiler felt at least a little ashamed. He takes advantage of the fact that those prisoners, exhausted in camps and prisons, are no longer alive. He lies to us like a gray gelding. Only there are other wonderful testimonies in Russian literature about that endless nightmare. These are "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and "The Gulag Archipelago" by Solzhenitsyn, "The Unquenchable Lamp" by Boris Shiryaev, "Russia in a Concentration Camp" by Ivan Solonevich, " Kolyma stories"Varlam Shalamov, "Diary of an Exile" by Elena Ishutina, hundreds and thousands of testimonies of people who survived in Stalin's camps. So there could not be such confessions from a camp commander, even a demoted former NKVD general - to a prisoner!
Further - more. Start reading the chapter “Joy” on page 95. You will be amazed. This is how the same major communicates with prisoner No. 18376: “Hello, Father Arseny! Hello Pyotr Andreevich! I have good news today. Alexander Pavlovich Avseenkov is being released. Friends achieved it with great difficulty. I’ll call you tomorrow. I’m afraid that this news will not affect him. shocked. His heart is bad. I ask you to carefully inform him about the upcoming release. Tomorrow I will announce it to the head of the camp, so that he doesn’t worry. And not only will he be released, but he will be restored to the party..."
You read and are moved: Lord, how good! And the head of the “special department” (we must understand the “special investigative department”, which carried out further investigations of the prisoners), well, he doesn’t give the prisoners tea with honey and raspberry jam. Calls by first name and patronymic. And my joy with the prisoner - and with all of us, readers! - shares. Verily, your victories are our victories, your joys are our joys. You see how it turned out: the lessons did not kill the security officer-killer, but now liberation has come outright. And even the party is being restored. And the Chief, well, is just a real father! He punished, but also forgave. Allowed to return to duty. Surely they will give back the awards, all the orders and medals. Of course, a Soviet patriot and all that.
It's just a lie! The camp commander could not address the prisoner by his first name and patronymic, much less in the Orthodox way: Father Arseny! Like prisoners, they were instructed to address their superiors only with the word “citizen.”
Major Abrosimov himself, after serving in the camp, was soon also restored to his previous rank. Returned to Moscow as a lieutenant general. And already in 1957, a lieutenant general (you must understand - the MGB) sent a note to Father Arseny to the camp: “I remember, I haven’t forgotten anything, we are doing everything, but they interfere...” And the simple soul of Father Arseny took the note for at face value: well, they prevented the capital’s Lieutenant General Abrosimov from rescuing him, Father Arseny, from the camp in 1957.
The theme of “transformed” security officers, intelligence officers, police officers, guards and executioners does not end there. Here is the chapter “Father Platon Skorino” - a military intelligence officer becomes a priest (p. 226 ff). He was greatly influenced by another military intelligence officer, Lieutenant Kamenev. And an intelligence officer, and a patriot, and a believer in God! He served his homeland and saved his soul through prayer. Wait, at what time and in what country was this? In eSeSeSeR-e!!! And there were no political instructors, no SMERSH, no All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), no total denunciation, no GULAG?
And here's another story. A woman from surveillance of Father Arseny breaks into his safe house. Then the same emotional striptease, which has already set the teeth on edge, begins: Anna tells the supervised Father Arseny everything about herself and her sick daughter.
It cannot occur to the author-compiler that this recklessness, if it actually happened, would cost the OGPU agent his life. Where there, the author goes even further in his lies. And now the same hep-eared woman betrays Father Arseny to their hepe-eared sex workers, members of his so-called “secret community”. Moreover, there was no particular need for this. And Father Arseny himself seemed to resist her revelations. But somehow, so cunningly, on his part, he “revealed” her real name - not Anna, but Irina.
You can imagine the nonsense: the secret agent allows her ward access to secret official information, for which there is only one reward - a bullet in the back of the head. But he doesn’t tell Father Arseny his name! Only he can “guess”. Fools hepeushniks. They should have taken Father Arseny into their service, he would have revealed to them the names of all the enemies of the people. I would sit in their safe house, sip some tea and open it, I would guess...
However, it’s time for the next OGPU rank to emerge. This time it is the Investigator (pp. 458-467). It’s written about him in the book, with a capital letter. Because this same Vladimir Pavlovich Vasilenko turned out to be so kind and good that he told the defendant the whole kitchen and shared all the details of his work. He didn’t just share, but explained how he, the person under investigation, would make a counter-revolutionary article into a softer one. And Iya Sergeevna remembered all this, and carried the memory of it throughout her life, and many years later she suddenly met the Investigator’s daughter - what a coincidence! And: “...I told about the meeting with her father, the interrogation, the protocol, how I conducted the investigation into my case and saved her from the camp.
"Yes! Yes! Dad was like that. He was very tormented by what was happening in those years, was indignant, tried to tell his superiors and even wrote a report to the Party Central Committee and the leadership of the People's Commissariat. Soon he was arrested and shot..."
Let's pay attention to the end of the story about the Investigator:
“Of course, in 1956 we were posthumously rehabilitated, my mother and I were allowed to return to Moscow and were even given a two-room apartment” (p. 466).
Hollywood happy ending on Moscow boulevards! Such a good security officer, so honest, so persistent and decent. He could not tolerate lies and was repressed. But then, the truth triumphed - and the kind uncles from the CPSU “even gave the widow and daughter a two-room apartment.”
An even more terrible and absurd transformation occurred with the Soviet reconnaissance saboteur (chapter “Scout”, pp. 598 - 613). During the war, his sabotage group was sent to the German rear in Belarus. It is clear that the captured Germans were ordered to be killed after interrogation. Which, without a doubt, was done. Fewer enemies means closer victory! But according to the same instructions, the group also killed civilians, their own Soviet citizens, if they somehow inadvertently revealed who was in front of them. It was ordered to kill everyone, young and old, so that even a three-year-old child would not let anything slip.
We will not discuss the absurdity and criminality of these instructions and, by the way, their disastrousness for the saboteurs themselves - in Belarus, partisans armed local residents, controlled up to a third of the territory. Let’s even skip the heartbreaking story of how Soviet saboteurs did NOT shoot the priest and his family, although they realized who was coming to them.
Let's pay attention to another fact. This same saboteur-killer, naturally a member of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, an officer of SMERSH, one of the “special contingent of trained people”, after the war ends up in a camp, and upon leaving there he not only turns to God, but becomes... a priest, a father Innocent. No wonder, apparently, that he was trained in a special contingent!
Wonderful are your works, Lord! How many of them are there, Sauls who have been transformed?
And similar stories go on and on. About the communist Nikolai, who goes under the blessing of Father Arseny (p. 132). About the policeman Pashka-khap, in whom Father Arseny saw the “spark of God” and who later became a people’s judge from the “khap”. (pp. 360-365). And the reader, especially the Russian reader in the West or the young reader in Russia, dumbfounded, cannot help but say to himself: “Could it be so?”
It couldn't! SO - it couldn't!
If there is Good, then there must also be Evil. If there are those who have been transformed, then there must also be unrepentant, inveterate sinners. Enemies! There was a place for them in the book - enemies! As you might guess, these are not security officers-gepeushniks-NKVD-intelligence officers-saboteurs killing their own.
The enemies are also not executioners and guards in “special regime camps.” The most disgusting one in the book gets the nickname “Jolly” - and it doesn’t seem so evil and disgusting. And the nicest one is even called “Fair” (!) - and in terms of holiness, well, perhaps slightly inferior to Father Arseny himself.
And of course, the enemies in the book are not sexos. In general, these are almost martyrs worthy of canonization. How they suffer! They denounce - and they suffer, again they denounce Father Arseny and his spiritual children, and they suffer again. And they report again...
No, the enemies in “Father Arseny” are also from his camp environment. These are “former policemen, Vlasovites, traitors to the motherland.” This is exactly what the author-compiler calls them. “...Everything had already been measured out to them, they knew their end and were really getting down to business,” he informs readers on page 79.
Wait, what's the matter? Because regiments, corps and divisions, what are regiments and divisions - armies of millions in 1941-1942 were abandoned by the Soviet command to their fate? Because they had to fight surrounded, without weapons, without ammunition, without food, without experienced commanders - did Stalin’s pack shoot them during the Great Purge? Because, having been captured, they immediately fell under the definition of “leader and teacher”: we have no prisoners, we have traitors to the Motherland! Because in the prisoner of war camps they were deprived of help not only from their Soviet state, but - at the request of Soviet diplomacy! - and support of the International Red Cross.
Captured British, French, Poles, and Americans received parcels. The parcels contained food: cheese, sausages, butter, biscuits, coffee, sugar, honey, cocoa. There were parcels filled with woolen items, clothes, and shoes. All this was sent through the International Red Cross, through dozens of non-governmental organizations.
Soviet prisoners of war received nothing from anyone! They were doomed to the hardest, hard labor, to an animal existence, to a slow death of starvation. Because... - read again the definition given to them by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief: we have no prisoners of war!..
The author-compiler seems to forget to tell us all this. He also forgets to tell us about the idea that was gradually forged in the former Soviet soldiers and commanders - on the shoulders of the Germans to return to Russia, sweep away the satanic power, and then return freedom and independence to Russia.
He says nothing about the White warriors, who turned out to be the core of the Russian liberation army, about the old Cossacks, who for twenty years in a foreign land had been dreaming about their native Kuban, about the Terek, about the quiet father Don - and who were drawn to the ROA from France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Serbia, Czechoslovakia. No, this is not the author's task.
This is how he describes the Vlasovites in the book: “Zhora Grigorenko was hated by everyone. Stocky, broad in the shoulders, with a head without a neck, a face cut by a scar, which is why his face was distorted and constantly smiling, making a repulsive impression. There were rumors that the Germans had him was an executor of sentences, although he was convicted only for serving as a private in the Vlasov army" (pp. 80-81).
Of course, Good collided with Evil. And of course, Father Arseny turns out to be a moral winner over these “distorted faces.” This is what he tells them:
"I believe in God, I believe in people and I will believe until my last breath. And you? Where is your God? Where is your faith? You talk a lot about how you want to protect the oppressed and offended people, but so far you have destroyed, killed and humiliated everyone those who come into contact with you. Look at your hands, they are in your blood!” (page 81).
Well, we already know what kind of people our Father Arseny believes in. All these security officers-"degenerates" Avseenkovs, Abrosimovs, Anna-Irinas, Platos, Fathers Hilarions, Investigators with capital letters, and even the criminals who joined them (by the way, they were then called “fellow travelers” in Stalinist terminology, which the author-compiler forgot!) are densely sown in the text.
“They once told me that you are a believer, but in what? Tortured and killed people in the name of what?..” (p. 81)
Here we are. And there is nothing more to say here. When our old emigrants, many who went through the ROA, DP camps, escapes, repatriation commissions, changing names and surnames, recommended me to read this book, they themselves gave this chapter “Who are you with, priest?” - have you read it? And what did they understand from it?
WHO IS O. ARSENY WITH?
To this question title character books and answers in his lengthy monologue on page 79:
“Everyone was now scolding the authorities, the order, the people... You say that the communists imprisoned believers, closed churches, trampled faith. Yes, outwardly everything looks like this, but let’s look deeper, look back into the past. Faith among the people has fallen, people have forgotten their past , abandoned many dear and good things. Who is to blame for this? Are you and I to blame, because we are reaping the harvest from the seeds we have sown.
Let us remember what example the intelligentsia, nobility, merchants, and bureaucrats gave to the people, and we, the clergy, were even worse than everyone else.
The children of priests became militant atheists, atheists, and revolutionaries, because they saw unbelief, lies, and deception in their families. Long before the revolution, the priesthood lost its right to be a mentor to the people. The priesthood became a caste of artisans. Atheism and unbelief, drunkenness and philandering became common among them.
Of the huge number of monasteries... only five or six were the lights of Christianity... the rest became hostels with almost no faith, and often monasteries, especially women's monasteries, shocked believers with their notoriety...
...Realizing this, I cannot condemn our government, because the seeds of unbelief fell on the soil we had already cultivated, and from here comes everything else, our camp, our suffering and the vain victims of innocent people. However, I will tell you, no matter what happens in my fatherland, I am a citizen of it and, as a priest, I have always told my spiritual children: we must protect it and support it, and what is happening now in the state must pass, this is a huge mistake, which sooner or later must be corrected" (pp. 79-80).
Does this monologue remind us, Russian Orthodox, of anything? Of course, this is a paraphrased and verbally revised Declaration of Sergius (Stragorodsky) of 1927. Millions of Russian people are suffering in a foreign land, families are broken, their homes are destroyed, their world and way of life are destroyed. Unable to bear it, they shoot not in dozens, but in hundreds. It is a known fact that 80 percent of all Russian White warriors who arrived in Shanghai in the early 20s died there within 6-7 years: from alcoholism, unemployment, poverty, hunger and disease. And most importantly - out of despair.
What's on the other side of the border?
Tens of millions of Russian people groan under the yoke of godless power. The era of "NEP" quickly ended - the internationalists received a respite. After the amnesty of 1921, a new wave of repression began, and the flywheel of another dispossession spun up. People are sent in trains to camps, to Solovki, to the construction of the White Sea Canal, to peat mining, to logging, to “socialist construction projects,” to dig canals in Turkestan. Appointed from the Kremlin to “nourish” the believers, Sergius Stragorodsky at this time declares the need for a loyal attitude to the Soviet government. For this he is placed at the head of the Church.
As if to follow this up, a lot of the same things will be said in the book “Father Arseny”. And that all power is from God (with a footnote on New Testament, as expected). And that the Chief then forgave and returned the security officers to service. And that it was precisely from the camp that people came out “spiritually enriched, strong in spirit, with a strong, established faith in God, who understand human suffering" (p. 99).
The moral is clear: concentration camps are what the Russians need, it is there that they are “reborn” to a new life. They are being reforged, as Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria would say. And they become active builders of communism, A.S. Makarenko would add.
It is not surprising that the reaction of prisoners, former soldiers of the ROA, to Father Arseny’s speech was unambiguous:
“Our little red priest,” said Zhitlovsky. “You should be crushed for such a vile sermon. You pretend to be a saint, but you yourself are an agitator, you work for the “special department” ...” (p. 80).
The only place in the entire book that breathes truth! Alas, the truth is rejection and denunciation. But someone should have told her to the "red ass".
The author-compiler has a special feeling for all these “intellectuals, nobles, merchants, officials and clergy.” Here is the chapter "Irina Nikolaevna - Dunyasha". These are not two people. This is the same person. Like Slava CPSU, he is not a person at all.
The character is called Irina Nikolaevna, but that was in the past, before the revolution. And in the present, in the mid-1920s, she is a cleaner in the Dunyash church. (In general, the principle of double names and nicknames very skillfully complements the principle of anonymity in the book. By the way, we will not find out until the end of the text whether the name Peter Andreevich Streltsov was the real name of Father Arseny, or whether it was the same pseudonym as Irina Sergeevna).
In this chapter, narrated by a certain Shirvinskaya and extracted from the archives of a certain Diligenskaya, all class sympathies are placed in their places. It is said that Nadya M. is “a sweet, good person, but, unfortunately, burdened by class prejudices: pride in her origin, the merits of her ancestors, birth, nobility...” (p. 496). In the society that gathered at Nadya M.’s, the following scene occurred:
"One, apparently one of the very honored guests, was indignant modern orders and that boors rule the state.
Nadia's mother said in French:
“Prince, be careful, don’t say that, here, among us, is a simple cleaning lady!”
And a little lower:
"The old lady said:
-Democratization! Here are its fruits, a simple cleaning lady at the same table with us! - and made an indignant gesture, completing the phrase."
Of course, Dunyasha, who turned out to be Irina Sergeevna, a noblewoman who graduated from Moscow University and knows both French and English, gave a worthy rebuff, “which made the prince very embarrassed.”
Is everything clear? The old world is pulling back. All these princes, counts, nobles. There are class prejudices and rejection of “democratization.” Representatives of the new era are smart, educated, and believe in God. The template is just too well known. True, in the books of Politizdat until 1990, these representatives believed in the “victory of communism.” Now, apparently, fashion has changed.
WHAT IS BEHIND THE TEXT?
When we turn to the spiritual state of Russians today, the question immediately arises: about the attitude towards the apostasy of Sergius of Stragorod. Because this is about the schism of the Church, about who our spiritual mentors are, to whom we will come to confession, who will cover our heads with stoles and make the sign of the cross. Who will we tell about our sins? Who will show us the lies in life's conflicts, who will guide us on the true path.
This is discussed vaguely in the book. Meanwhile, this is one of the most painful issues: the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the True Orthodox Church (continuing its feat in the Russian Federation to this day) were and remain in the positions established by St. Patriarch Tikhon.
The Moscow Patriarchate is making every possible attempt to destroy these positions, to destroy the ROCOR - under the guise of a “merger” or “reunification” of churches, to deal with the TOC by all means, punitive and administrative inclusive.
In fact, according to the logic of things, Father Arseny must be a consistent “Tikhonovite”, since already in 1927 he was arrested and exiled. However, no, in the chapter “Archbishop” (pp. 584-592) we understand that Father Arseny is only against the “renovationist church”. On page 681 it is said more definitely: “Vladyka (Afanasy Sakharov) and Father Arseny were once of the same opinion about the commemoration of Metropolitan Sergius, but from the moment Patriarch Alexy was appointed to the patriarchate, this issue was removed...” In other words, when- then Father Arseny was a supporter of St. Patriarch Tikhon, but then another “patriarch” was appointed, Alexy I, and “the question was dropped.”
Such a transition of the priest from one belief to completely different sounds like a Soviet bureaucrat. How it happened that “the issue was dropped” is not explained. According to the text, it turns out that Alexy I took the patriarchal place, and the strong “Tikhonovite” Father Arseny began to remember Sergius in litanies.
What has changed since Alexy I was appointed “patriarch” in 1945? After all, he turned out to be the successor of the same Sergius, appointed “patriarch” in 1943 after a “historic” meeting with Stalin (with the participation of Malenkov, Beria, Karpov), when Uncle Joe demanded from Sergius “Bolshevik tempos” in the creation of “patriarchy”.
Or the conditions of continuity embodied in the rites of initiation, consecration, enthronement were excluded from the Canons of Russian Orthodoxy: Alexy I cannot just come to the place of Sergius and say: well, that’s it, guys, Sergius was one thing, he flirted with his advisers, and I - another matter... Because then it was necessary to convene the Local Council and explain what happened.
What to explain?
What is the difference between them?
Did Alexy I lead the line of St. Patriarch Tikhon? Did he return the Church to rejection of Satan's authority? Did he forbid his bishops and priests from reporting believers to the NKVD? Did he change the procedure for obtaining rank in the Russian Orthodox Church - only with the consent of the Committee for Religious Affairs under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks)?
No, Alexy I did not do any of this. Just as the next “patriarch” Pimen, who lived to see the times when the Russians already with hatred demanded to wash away the cancerous tumor of the CPSU-KGB (uniting them into one abbreviation - CPGB), did not do this, went out to rallies of many thousands in the cities.
No, these “hierarchs,” on the contrary, strengthened and improved “the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Soviet government.” For which the Soviet government gave them the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (Pimen had three of them, Alexy I had four! That’s how hard he worked...)
And this, raised in a system of demons, accustomed to conformism, having forgotten or never known Christian opposition to atheism, is inherited by the current “patriarch” Alexy II (Ridiger), who became an accomplice bloody massacre Kremlin over Russian people in October 1993.
The author-compiler of the book “Father Arseny” imagines the Russian reader as a completely stupid, unreasoning and, most importantly, being who does not remember anything. He writes about the horrors of satanic power, as some naturalist would write about the life of barb fish and snails in an aquarium.
But what he is trying with all his might to convey is that “the terrible past associated with the “special regime” camp has become irrevocable. The period of difficult trials that befell the Motherland has passed” (p. 119).
Yes, such as the author-compiler, I would like the Russian people to forget about the “terrible past”. But this is a favorite technique of the KGB’s socio-psychological developments (now called “political technologies”), which carry out “brainwashing”. It’s true, it’s impossible to deny the all too obvious “terrible past.” But you can make it look like a horror fairy tale. I listened, was horrified, and forgot.
The goal is so that people do not detain their attention to the fact that it, that very “past,” continues in the present. That non-Russian and non-Orthodox people continue to own that country. That they are robbing it, robbing the population in the same way as they did in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s... That wild, absurd wars continue in the Caucasus - and coffins continue to go to the cities and villages of the Russian Federation . That women in the Russian Federation refuse to give birth. That there are up to one and a half million orphans wandering around the country alone. That alcoholism, and now drug addiction, are destroying Russians at a rate that the Nazi invaders did not reach. That old people in the villages of the Vologda region, Ryazan region, Urals, Prikamye, Volga region, Oryol region, Tambov region, Vladimir region die from hunger and cold in winter. That a stream of emigrants poured out of Russia in the 90s - anywhere, under any conditions, for any job. That the level of corruption of civil servants is now officially recognized as 100 percent. That the suicide rate in the Russian Federation reached an all-time peak in the mid-90s and continues to this day. That Orthodox priests, if they are not from the MP, are beaten and killed in a country called the Russian Federation.
OLD WOMAN PRORUKHA
Vladimir Bykov's "Afterword" differs sharply from the text of the entire book. Firstly, this only part of the book is distinguished by specifics, facts, and names. Secondly, one cannot help but notice that this part of the book is an attempt to confirm real story imaginary history.
When V. Bykov, a 90-year-old elder, talks about the life of the underground Orthodox community “Maroseyka”, led by Father Sergius (Mechev), he perfectly remembers not only names and surnames. He lists all family and friendly connections, who is married to whom, who married whom, who made what career, who died how. He remembers all sorts of hidden intricacies, secret betrayals (Bishop Manuel, who betrayed members of the community, who were ordained priests by himself, Manuel), events of 40-50 years ago, he gives the exact addresses of the places where meetings and secret services took place.
To confirm the pastoral activity of Father Sergius, the book contains a photograph of him, a photograph of his father Father Alexy Mechev, and photographs of people who were associated with the secret community: Bishop Athanasius (Sakharov), at first “unremembered”, but then returned to the fold MP ROC, Father Fyodor Semenenko, who was subsequently exiled to Tashkent.
And in this list of participants we were carefully included earlier famous Yuri and Kira Bakhmat. There is no additional information about them, as in the text. It just turns out that they too suddenly somehow entered the Maroseyka community.
V. Bykov (or the one who stands behind this elder) carefully introduces his acquaintance with “Fr. Arseny”: first he hears about him in 1939 (allegedly Fr. Sergiy Mechev mentioned this name), then he hears again in 1940 -om, precisely from Yura and Kira Bakhmat. Then there was a long break, until 1960. And in 1960, V. Bykov’s second wife, Elizaveta, with cousin Lyudmila Diligenskaya and Kira Bakhmat begin to travel to Father Arseny in Rostov Veliky. That is, we must assume that again Kira Bakhmat was the connecting link.
Finally, in 1961, V. Bykov himself met with him. And when he meets, he again asks Father Arseny to “tell us about yourself.” Since then, their almost 15-year acquaintance allegedly continued. True, if we learn about the community of Father Sergius in some detail, then, one must think, we will not learn anything about the secret ministry and secret community of Father Arseny. Neither Kira, nor Diligenskaya, nor V. Bykov himself thought of spanking even one photo of “Fr. Arseny.”
But “Fr. Arseny” for some reason is very interested in the community of Father Sergius Mechev and “for some reason asked to tell us about the priests we met in life” (p. 738). “Father Arseny’s” lack of awareness is understandable. Firstly, he was kicked out of church service for 18 years. Secondly, V. Bykov himself writes: “even those ordained (to the priesthood) did not know which of the other brothers was supposed to become or became a priest” (p. 732).
But here V. Bykov, without suspecting it, falls into the trap that he set. Well, why would Father Arseny, whom Father Sergiy Mechev himself knew, be “very interested” in the latter’s community, and even ask for the names of priests and deacons? Pray for them?
This is exactly how V. Bykov himself explains it. How interesting! Otherwise, “Fr. Arseny” did not know and did not understand the meaning of conspiracy? No, the former prisoner sticks to people from Father Sergius Mechev’s entourage: tell me, tell me, and add to the list.
And the conversation took place in 1967. Leonid Brezhnev led the country on the same course of communism. Churches were collapsing, the number of monasteries (17) was at its lowest point since 1961. The number of monastics steadily decreased (they fell under the “article on parasitism”) There were fewer and fewer official parishes (there were less than 7 thousand “twenties” in the entire USSR). Every year their number decreased by an average of 50-60. Orthodox devotees I. Ogurtsov, L. Borodin and B. Talantov were arrested. They received a deadline and went on their way of the cross.
Just at this time, Boris Talantov (died in 1971 in a prison in Kirov) wrote his excellent work “Sergievism or Adaptation to Atheism (Herod’s Leaven).” This is what I would like to recommend to everyone who has read the rotten pulp "Father Arseny" and now wants to breathe fresh air Truths.
AFTERWORD
The book "Father Arseny" is an undoubted fake, manufactured in the depths of the same KGB system.
The custom-made instructions are transparent: it is necessary to show that the people who served the Soviet demons were not bad people at all. They are patriots. They can even come to God. Without getting out of their chairs, without taking off their general's shoulder straps, strumming their orders and medals with Stalin's profile, remaining in their Moscow apartments, received for their “merits.”
Yes, it is they who then stand with a stupid animal look in the church with smoky candles and peel eggs in front of television cameras on Holy Saturday (Yeltsin is still more alive than anyone else alive!), they are the ones who, taught by all sorts of Shevkunovs, cleverly and appropriately begin to cross themselves and immediately “on “Presidentially” they are frank: “we’ll wet them in the toilets” and “there are no retired KGB officers.”
It’s not enough for these scoundrels that they have distorted the fates of millions of people, that they have destroyed the nation, that they are finishing off the gene pool, that they have turned the country into a “septic tank”. Their ultimate goal is to finish off Russian Orthodoxy, which has been preserved for many years in the Catacomb Church (CPC) and which was preserved in the Russian Abroad. It is their nature to kill everything living, to stain everything that is clean, to infect everything that is healthy, to distort everything that is beautiful. The fake “Father Arseny” is just one of thousands of blanks.
Execution, as often happens in the "office", is rough and untidy work! Anyone who wants to believe in “this” will believe after reading these lines. Even here, in freedom, outside the Russian Federation. And there’s nothing you can do about it: some have children working “for the revival of Russia” in American banks and financial corporations, others themselves dream of getting at least some medal from Moscow, others were sent and “fell asleep”, but then they blew the whistle - wake up and shine ! And there are quite a few of these in the Russian emigration.
Anyone who senses deceit, even before reading this work, threw away “Father Arseny” as soon as he opened it. Because, thank God, there is something to read about real spirituality in the Russian emigration. Without dragging in here “NKVD generals”, former Soviet killers-saboteurs and other criminal phlegm.
For those who would like to see how the barracks of the “spiritual Gulag” are being erected, how people are gradually, like an ointment, rubbing in the thoughts that concentration camps are for the salvation of Russians, that prison beatings, hunger, bullying, forced labor and extrajudicial executions make a person “spiritually enriched,” who would like to see how the very ability for spiritual resistance and revival is eradicated from people with sweet-voiced lies, this analysis has been made.
First Academic Council of the Orthodox St. Tikhon's Theological Institute. First row, from left to right: priest Anatoly Frolov (now archpriest), professor N.E. Emelyanov (1939-2010), archpriest Arkady Shatov (now bishop of Smolensk and Vyazemsky Panteleimon), archpriest Vladislav Sveshnikov, archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov, priest Gleb Kaleda ( 1921-1994). Second row, from left to right: priest Alexy Emelyanov (now archpriest), priest Nikolai Krechetov (now archpriest), priest Valentin Asmus (now archpriest), priest Alexander Saltykov (now archpriest), priest Dimitry Smirnov (now archpriest), professor A.B. . Efimov, Archpriest Sergius Romanov. Temple of the Blgv. Tsarevich Dimitri at the First City Hospital, September 1992.Theology in cinemas and clubs
History of Orthodox St. Tikhon's humanitarian university began with public lectures. It happened completely naturally. When perestroika began in the late 1980s and freedom appeared, a group of young priests, spiritually united by Hieromonk Pavel (Troitsky) and Archpriest Vsevolod Shpiller, seeing how people who came to them were eager to learn something about the Church, about the Orthodox faith, could not help take advantage of the opportunities that open up. Father Dimitry Smirnov once proposed holding a lecture hall of four lectures in a cinema near his house. We (Father Arkady Shatov, now Bishop Panteleimon, Father Alexander Saltykov, Father Valentin Asmus and I) agreed and hung up advertisements. We're coming. The cinema is packed to capacity. Not only our spiritual children came, but also many unknown to us, having read the announcement. We divided the topics of the reports among ourselves, and each of us spoke. And then they offered to ask questions. There were many questions, mountains of notes. They answered one by one. After a short break, these lectures were repeated at the cinema on Krasnaya Presnya.
Then Svetlana Ivanovna Gorlevskaya, director of the Orthodox Word bookstore, proposed organizing lectures more seriously, organizing an annual lecture hall in a large room. She made an agreement with the railway workers' club on Komsomolskaya Square, which had a large hall. There was no crowd here, but the hall was still full.
We wrote a program for the annual lecture. We gave lectures ourselves and invited new speakers. This went on for about two years. At the end of the year, students were asked to make educational courses with educational process, exams and assignments.
Memorial Day of Archpriest Vsevolod Shpiller in the Church of St. Nicholas in Kuznetskaya Sloboda, 2007. In the center, next to Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov, the rector of the Church of St. Nicholas in Kleniki, Archpriest Alexander Kulikov (1933-2009), who served for many years with Father Vsevolod in the Nikolo-Kuznetsky Church
Brotherhood on a mission
On August 29, 1990, we decided to create the Orthodox Brotherhood in the Name of the All-Merciful Savior. Quite a lot of brotherhoods opened then, and the “Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods” was established to control this process.
At the founding meeting, Father John Ekontsev was appointed chairman of the Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods. He had already developed a plan - the union should have fifteen sections. Father John invited everyone to sign up, wherever they wanted. We chose education. Our immediate goal was to open catechist courses. It was necessary to choose a rector who would take care of registration and organization of classes. We chose a secret priest, Father Gleb Kaleda, whom we had known for a long time.
He was secretly ordained in 1972, but could not be legalized because his documents raised doubts in the Patriarchate. We decided to choose him as the rector of our courses so that in this way he would prove himself. Father Gleb quickly registered the courses, found a place for classes, and in February 1991 the courses began to operate. Our students from the lecture hall were enrolled in them.
New rector. New Institute
Soon Father John Ekonomics realized that the Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods was not such a simple matter as he had imagined, because the brotherhoods were completely different. Then he identified two areas that developed most successfully: education and charity (at that time humanitarian aid was just beginning to arrive from the West). Father John proposed to Patriarch Alexy to create two new Synodal departments - religious education and catechesis (OROIC) and a charity department. Father John became the chairman of the Oroik, which received premises in the Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery. He invited Gleb’s father there with him, who by this time had already been assessed and legalized.
Father Gleb, apparently, was already feeling unwell (sick). In May 1991, he asked to be re-elected. The educational council met and they elected me as rector. I was not, of course, the central figure, but I was involved in this from the very beginning, and my spiritual children helped me in my work.
We started the next school year in the fall. After the second set of courses took place, students began to ask for the organization of full education. The Academic Council voted in favor, and on March 12, 1992, the Orthodox Theological Institute was registered.
A difficult date and a wonderful troparion
In the fall, it was decided to ask His Holiness Patriarch Alexy to adopt the name of St. Patriarch Tikhon. The Patriarch gave such a blessing, and our Institute began to be called St. Tikhon’s. It was now necessary to choose an Act day associated with the memory of Patriarch Tikhon. But the day of his death falls on the Annunciation. It is impossible to serve Patriarch Tikhon on this day, since the Annunciation is a greater holiday. The day of canonization of St. Tikhon, October 9, coincides with the memory of St. Apostle John the Theologian. The relics of Patriarch Tikhon had not yet been found; accordingly, there was no date for the discovery of the relics. We found the day November 5/18, when St. Tikhon was elected to the patriarchate. We received the blessing of Patriarch Alexy, set an Act Day for this date and began to serve St. Tikhon. At this time, I was asked to write an article about Patriarch Tikhon for the French magazine “Eternal”, and the publishers of the magazine asked me to attach stichera and a troparion to the saint to the article. There was a troparion, but I didn’t like it because it was long and inexpressive, and there was no stichera. And from France they are in a hurry to send an article. In the evening, after a call from Paris, I sat down at the table, took a pen and wrote a troparion and stichera. It was as if they fell onto the paper themselves without my participation. Then I tried to write again, but it didn’t work.
Samizdat comes out of the shadows
The Institute developed rapidly, its various divisions arose out of necessity. This is how our publishing house came into being.
At that time, most of the clergy had only a seminary education. We also studied at the seminary, and we understood that education there was at a low level. Under Soviet rule, it was impossible to raise this level. When church freedom appeared, it was necessary first of all to organize real education, because without educated pastors in our time the Church cannot successfully preach the faith. When we created the institute, it was absolutely obvious that it would not become a full-fledged educational institution if there was no science and no scientific research in it. But when scientific work appears, it becomes necessary to publish its results so that they can be discussed by the public. Without this, science does not exist. Therefore, we immediately began to think about publishing our works. This is how our publishing house appeared.
Most of the young publishing houses, of which there were many at that time, began reprinting pre-revolutionary books, but we decided that this was not enough and we needed to publish new books, those that were written in Soviet era and existed in samizdat. I had a whole library of such books. In particular, in our community there was a book “Father Arseny” that appeared in samizdat in 1975, which made a very strong impression on everyone. First, the first part of this book was published in the magazine “Young Guard”. We had a copy that contained three parts of the story, and we decided to publish them as a separate book.
Father Arseny
Soon after this, Vladimir Vladimirovich Bykov came to our institute, who was involved in the publication of this book back in samizdat. But he was brought up in strict secrecy and refused to name names. He said that all the events of the book are completely real, that Father Arseny is a real person, and that his late wife confessed to Father Arseny, and he himself saw Father Arseny twelve times. Only the name of Father Arseny, which is very consonant with the present, is changed in the book. He also assured us that soon we ourselves would understand and know everything, and that everything would be revealed to us.
Then Vladimir Aleksandrovich Goncharov, who came to the Church thanks to the book “Father Arseny,” began working for us. He decided to find Father Arseny at all costs, i.e. find out who it is. For many years he methodically searched. He had the necessary experience. Vladimir Aleksandrovich investigated every chapter, and in all the chapters of the book he found prototypes of the people described there. He found their real names, circumstances, found the places, houses, camps described there. These circumstances have been changed, sometimes more, sometimes less (in the preface it is written that “the names and titles have been changed”).
At first we were sure that we would find Father Arseny, but as a result of a long search, we became confident that Father Arseny is still a collective image that consists of two or three people. But it was important for us that all these events were not invented, that all the miracles really happened, and the book was created by combining stories about two or three people. In many stories, “Father Arseny” himself does not participate in any way. It was just a blessing to collect wonderful stories and stories, and write it all down, and they were presented as if they were told “at evenings with Fr. Arseny."
Consecration of the cenotaph of Hieromonk Arseny at the Rostov the Great cemetery. In the center is Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov. The monument was erected on the initiative of Vera Buteneva, translator of the book “Father Arseny” into English. Project of a memorial sign - employee of the Faculty of Church Arts of PSTGU Ariadna Voronova
Travel companion from the past
We published the first three parts quickly, only slightly edited. Then we asked Vladimir Vladimirovich, who once told us that there were still many unpublished stories, to find these stories and give them to us so that we could print the full version. He said that he needed to gather them among the spiritual children of Father Arseny. He brought them, and we published completely new fourth and fifth parts. I had to edit them entirely, even literary, since it was obvious that they were written by old people with the last of their strength. For example, the same phrases were repeated several times; in some places it was difficult to follow the author’s logic.
I remember one testimony related to a chapter of the book called “Departure.” It talks about how Father Arseny was returning after his release from the camp and was traveling in a reserved seat car on a train. Suddenly he heard a young couple who had entered the carriage at the stop talking to the conductor. “Be careful, they don’t steal from the camp here,” said the guide. A young female voice replied: “As soon as they are released! We must shoot." Father Arseny opened his eyes and saw that a young couple was settling down opposite him. After the book was published, I suddenly received a letter from St. Petersburg. An old woman unknown to me writes: “In your book “Father Arseny” there is a chapter “Departure.” Such a case is described there (she quotes). So the young wife from that couple is me.” Naturally, we immediately went to St. Petersburg and began to question her. And she told in detail how it happened: “Having heard our conversation, this man sat down on the bed and covered his head with his hands. He was tall, and he had a big head. We realized that he had heard everything, and we felt very ashamed. The husband asked what his name was - he said: Arseny. His face was wonderful. The husband tried to talk to him, and then asked him to go out into the vestibule with him. There he gave Arseny money and asked him for forgiveness. Soon Arseny got off the train.”
Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov 1993
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.
Part one.
PREFACE TO PART ONE
IN recent years Many memories appeared about the life of political prisoners during the “cult of personality.”
Scientists, military men, writers, old Bolsheviks, intellectuals of various professions, workers, collective farmers write. They write about their lives in camps and prisons, about interrogations, but no one has yet told us about the millions of believers who died in these camps, prisons or experienced unprecedented suffering during interrogations.
They suffered and died for their faith, because they did not renounce God and, dying, glorified Him, and He did not leave them.
“To put a seal on one’s lips” means to consign to oblivion the suffering, torment, ascetic labor and death of many millions of martyrs who suffered for God and for us living on earth.
We must not forget, but we must tell about these sufferers; this is our duty to God and people.
The best people of Russia Orthodox Church died in this difficult time: priests and bishops, elders, monks and simply deeply religious people, in whom the unquenchable fire of faith burned, equal in strength to, and sometimes even greater than, the strength of faith of the ancient Christian martyrs.
In these memoirs, one, only one of the many ascetics appears before us. And how many of them there were who died for us!
For twenty centuries, humanity has accumulated numerous knowledge, Christianity brought Light and Life to people, but in the twentieth century people selected only evil from the numerous arsenal of knowledge and, multiplying it with the achievements of science, brought the greatest and most prolonged suffering and painful death to millions of people. The Lord led me to walk a small part of the camp path with Father Arseny, but this was enough to gain faith, become his spiritual son, follow his path, understand and see his deepest love for God and people and know what a real Christian is.
Every day, reading a poem, a story, a fairy tale, showing pictures, the mother introduces the child to the diverse animal world! This is an elephant - it is big, and the tallest is a giraffe, a very beautiful bird, a parrot, can learn up to a hundred words.
To stories about animals have become more diverse and interesting, so that a child can not only distinguish a panther from a domestic cat, but also make up interesting stories O unusual opportunities animals and thereby amaze your peers and teachers, the administration of the “Your Child” website will introduce you to the animals of our planet for several months. Every week a new topic of the series of stories “Interesting about animals” will be published. The articles will contain interesting information about the animal world, interesting facts about animals.
/ Animals of the Arctic
ARCTIC ICE
It seems incredible that where the temperature does not rise above - 10 o C, Arctic animals can live and reproduce. And yet, even the coldest and most inhospitable parts of the Earth are inhabited. The fact is that some animals have adapted in a special way to retain their own body heat. For example, the body of penguins under their plumage is thickly covered with warm down, and the skin of polar bears is very thick and waterproof. In addition, all polar animals have dense layer fat
Life for animals in Antarctica is possible only on the coast. The interior of the continent is uninhabited.
Polar bear.
At the end of autumn, a female polar bear digs a den in the snow. In December - January, as a rule, two bear cubs are born, but only in the spring will they leave the den for the first time.
A polar bear cub is born very small, blind, deaf and completely defenseless. Therefore, he lives with his mother for two years. The skin of this bear is very dense, waterproof and absolutely white, thanks to which it easily finds shelter among the whiteness of the surrounding ice. He swims remarkably well - this is facilitated by the membrane that connects the pads of his paws. The polar bear is the most large predator in the world.
A polar bear usually weighs between 150 and 500 kilograms. The mass of some representatives exceeds 700 kilograms.
Pinnipeds.
On cold ground and the endless ice floes drifting in the Arctic are home to various species of pinnipeds; these include fur seals, seals and walruses. By origin, these are terrestrial animals that have mastered marine environment: During evolution, their body has adapted to life in water. Unlike cetaceans, pinnipeds were only partially modified by this adaptation. So the front paws of fur seals turned into flippers, on which they can lean on land to raise the upper body; seals learned to move on the ground by crawling on their bellies.
Pinnipeds have huge nostrils, and short time they can inhale the amount of air needed to stay underwater for about 10 minutes.
Pinnipeds feed not only on fish, but also on crustaceans, mollusks and krill, which consists of tiny shrimp.
Navy SEAL similar to a sea lion, but has a thicker skin and a shorter and sharper snout. The male is much larger than the female and can weigh four times as much.
Elephant seal. The largest species of pinnipeds in the world: the weight of a male can reach 3,500 kilograms. It is easily distinguished from the female by the swelling on its head, similar to a short trunk, from which it gets its name.Sea leopard. With its spotted skin, this seal resembles the predator of the cat family, from which it borrowed its name. The leopard seal is very aggressive and can sometimes even eat a fellow seal if it is smaller.
Walrus.
This long-tusked mammal lives in the Arctic seas, making short seasonal migrations. A male walrus is huge: it can weigh 1,500 kilograms, while a female's weight rarely reaches 1,000 kilograms. The walrus has a massive, wrinkled body covered with sparse bristles.
The strong voice of the walrus resembles both the roar of a lion and the lowing of a bull; while sleeping, on ice or in water, he snores loudly. He can relax for hours, lounging in the sun. The walrus is irritable and obstinate, but he will not be slow to come to the aid of his brother who is being attacked by hunters.
Long tusks are indispensable in the life of a walrus: he uses them to defend himself from enemies and to drill into the seabed; With the help of tusks, the walrus climbs onto the shore and moves along the ice floe or ground. The length of the fangs is more major representatives reaches one meter!
Little walruses are nursed by their mother for two years, and for the next two years they remain under her protection.
Under the skin of the walrus there is a thick layer of fat, which serves as both protection from the cold and a reserve reserve in case of hunger.
Penguins.
Penguins- these are birds, but their wings are not suitable for flight: they are too short. With the help of wings, penguins swim, like fish with the help of fins. Penguins are found only in the southern hemisphere. They live in large colonies on land, but some species can make long migrations in the open sea.As a rule, penguins lay only one egg. Baby penguins find refuge from the cold in the lower folds of their parent's abdomen. The plumage of penguin chicks is usually dark brown; over time, they acquire the characteristic black and white coloration of adults.
In the colonies emperor penguin sometimes there are 300 thousand individuals.
/ Interesting facts about animals of savannas and prairies
Among the grasses of the savannah. In the savannah there are periods of drought when there is a shortage of food. Then numerous herds of animals go in search of more favorable conditions. These migrations can last for weeks, and only the hardiest animals manage to reach their goal. The weaker ones are doomed to die.
The savannah climate favors the growth of tall and lush grass. Trees, on the contrary, are rare here.
The baobab is not a very tall tree, but its trunk diameter can reach 8 meters.
Buffalo.
The African buffalo, along with the hippopotamus, is considered one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. Indeed, if a buffalo is wounded or feels danger to itself or its cubs, it does not hesitate to attack the aggressor and kill him with its powerful horns. Even the lion tries to avoid meeting him, as he is not sure of the outcome of the battle. Therefore, only buffaloes that have strayed from the herd, or old and sick animals that are unable to defend themselves, are attacked by predators.
Zebra.
The zebra skin is original and easily recognizable. At first glance, all zebras seem the same, but in fact, each animal has its own stripe pattern, like human fingerprints. Countless attempts have been made to domesticate zebras (domesticate them like horses), but they always end in failure. The zebra does not tolerate riders or other loads on its rump. She is very shy and difficult to approach even in nature reserves.
Zebras lack horns and other means of defense and flee from predators. Once surrounded, they defend themselves with their teeth and hooves.
How to spot predators? Zebras' vision is not very sharp, so they often graze next to other animals, such as giraffes or ostriches, which are able to notice the approach of predators earlier.
A pursued zebra can travel at speeds of 80 kilometers per hour, but not for long.
The stripes on a zebra's skin can be used to identify different types of zebra. The stripes on the croup are especially significant in this sense.
Leo prefers open spaces where he finds coolness in the shade rare trees. For hunting, it is better to have a wide view in order to notice herds of grazing herbivores from afar and develop a strategy on how best to approach them unnoticed. Outwardly, it is a lazy beast that dozes and sits around for a long time. It is only when the lion is hungry and forced to chase herds of herbivores or when he must defend his territory that he comes out of his stupor.
Lions do not hunt alone, unlike cheetahs and tigers. As a result, all members of the lion family live together for a long time and the grown lion cubs are not expelled from it, unless the conditions in the hunting territory become critical.
Usually a group of females goes hunting, but males rarely join them. The hunters surround the prey, hiding in the tall grass. When the animal notices the danger, it panics and tries to escape at a gallop, but most often falls into the clutches of other hidden lionesses that it has not noticed.
A characteristic feature of a lion is a thick mane in males, which is not found in other representatives of the cat family.
A lioness usually gives birth to two cubs. To become adults, they need about two years - all this time they adopt the experience of their parents.
A lion's claws can reach 7 cm.
Giraffe.
In an effort to survive, all animals have evolved to provide their species with sufficient food. The giraffe can feed on tree leaves that other herbivores cannot reach: thanks to its six-meter height, it is taller than all other animals. A giraffe can take food from the ground, as well as drink water, but to do this, it must spread its front legs wide apart in order to bend over. In this position, he is very vulnerable to predators, because he cannot immediately rush to flight.
The giraffe has a very long, thin and soft tongue, adapted for plucking acacia leaves. The lips, especially the upper ones, also serve this purpose. The giraffe picks off leaves growing at a height of two to six meters.
The most favorite food of giraffes is tree leaves, especially acacia; its thorns apparently do not bother the animal.
Giraffes live in herds, divided into two groups: one contains females with cubs, the other contains males. To win the right to become leaders of the herd, males fight by striking their heads with their necks.
When running, the giraffe is not very fast or agile. When running away from an enemy, he can only count on a speed of 50 kilometers per hour.
Cheetah.
"Secret weapon"The cheetah is distinguished by its flexible body with a strong spine, curved like the arch of a bridge, and powerful clawed paws that allow it to rest firmly on the ground. It is the fastest-footed animal of the African savannah. No one can imagine an animal running faster than a cheetah. In short moments, he reaches speeds of over 100 kilometers per hour, and if he didn’t get tired quickly, he would be the most a terrible predator Africa.
Cheetah prefers to live in small groups from two to eight - nine individuals. Typically such a group consists of one family.
Unlike other members of the cat family, the cheetah's claws never retract, just like dogs. This feature allows the animal not to slip on the ground when running; Only the claw of the thumb does not touch the ground.
The cheetah climbs trees and surveys the savannah from above to discover herds of grazing herbivores that could become its prey.
The cheetah's skin is not always covered with spots; sometimes they merge, forming stripes, like the king cheetah.
The long tail serves as a rudder - it can quickly change the direction of running, which is necessary when chasing a victim.
Elephant.
The African elephant was threatened with extinction both because of hunting, to which it became a victim at the beginning of the 20th century, since there was a great demand for ivory products (from tusks), and because of important changes made by man in its habitat. Now elephants live mainly in giant national parks, where they are studied by zoologists and protected by guards. Unfortunately, this is not enough to stop elephants from being killed by poachers. The situation is different with Indian elephant, which has never been in danger since man has used it for centuries various works.
The African elephant is different from the Indian elephant. It is larger, its ears are larger, and its tusks are much longer. IN Southeast Asia elephants are domesticated and used for various jobs. African elephants are resistant to domestication due to their more independent nature.
Like the giraffe, the elephant prefers to eat tree leaves, which it plucks from the branches with its trunk. It happens that he knocks down an entire tree to the ground to get food.
Tusks and trunks are two of the elephants' miraculous survival tools. The elephant uses its tusks to protect itself from predators and uses them during drought to dig up the ground in search of water. With a very mobile trunk, it picks off leaves and collects water, which it then puts into its mouth. The elephant loves water very much and, at the first opportunity, climbs into a pond to freshen up. He swims great.
The elephant willingly hides in the shade because its huge body has difficulty cooling down. For this purpose they serve huge ears, which he rhythmically fans himself to cool off.
Just as children hold their mother’s hand, so baby elephants walk holding the elephant’s tail with their proboscis.
Ostrich.
The natural environment in which the ostrich lives determined the final adaptability of this bird, the largest of all: the ostrich's mass exceeds 130 kilograms. The long neck increases the ostrich's height to two meters. A flexible neck and excellent vision allow him to notice danger from afar from this height. Long legs give the ostrich the ability to run at speeds of up to 70 kilometers per hour, usually sufficient to escape from predators.
The ostrich prefers open spaces where it can see everything from afar and there are no obstacles for running.
Ostriches do not live alone, but in groups of varying numbers. While the birds are looking for food, at least one stands guard and looks around the area to spot enemies, primarily cheetahs and lions.
The ostrich's eyes are surrounded by long eyelashes, which protect them from both the African sun and dust raised by the wind.
Ostriches build a nest in a small depression, digging it in sandy soil and covering it with something soft. The female incubates the eggs during the day because her gray color blends well with environment; the male, with predominantly black feathers, incubates at night.
Females lay from three to eight eggs in a common nest, and each of them takes turns incubating the eggs in turn. One egg weighs more than one and a half kilograms and has a very strong shell. Sometimes it takes a baby ostrich a whole day to break the shell and hatch from the egg.
The ostrich's beak is short, flat and very strong. It is not specialized for any particular food, but serves to pluck grass and other vegetation and grab insects, small mammals and snakes.
Rhinoceros.
This huge pachyderm lives in both Africa and South and Southeast Asia. There are two species of rhinoceroses in Africa, distinct from the Asian ones. African rhinoceroses have two horns and are adapted to habitats characterized by large spaces with very few trees. The Asian rhinoceros has only one horn and prefers to live in forest thickets. These animals are on the verge of extinction because they are ruthlessly hunted by poachers for their horns, which are in high demand in some countries.
Despite its mass, the African rhinoceros is very mobile and can make sharp turns while running.
A female rhinoceros usually gives birth to one calf every two to four years. The baby stays with his mother for a long time, even when he grows up and becomes independent. Within an hour, a newborn calf can follow its mother on its own legs; moreover, it usually walks either in front of her or on the side. It feeds on mother's milk for a year, and during this time its weight increases from 50 to 300 kilograms.
Male rhinoceroses, like many other animals, fight for the right to become the leader. At the same time, they use the horn as a stick, that is, they hit with the side, and not with the tip. It may happen that during a single combat the horn breaks, but then it grows back, albeit very slowly.
A rhinoceros's eyesight is poor; it sees only close up, like a nearsighted person. But he has the finest sense of smell and hearing; he can smell food or an enemy from afar.
Ro / Interesting facts about animals of the jungle and rainforest
In the Amazon forest.
Rainforests characterized by lush vegetation; under trees with tall trunks, despite the fact that their crowns let in little light, a dense undergrowth grows. It has high humidity - precipitation is frequent here and is conducive to the development of plants of any type. Such an environment is almost ideal for supporting the life of countless animals that find food there in abundance. Naturally, this environment is especially favorable for small and medium-sized animals, which, even more often, can move with dexterity.
Pelican.
This bizarre bird with a distinctive beak is found on all continents and, depending on its habitat, has slight differences in shape and size. Its most typical habitat is sea coasts and lakes. It feeds on aquatic animals, mainly fish. These birds fish in a special way at low tide. They gather in groups and beat the water together with their wings, scaring the fish and forcing it to swim towards the shore, where it is clearly visible and its maneuverability is difficult. The fish become easy prey for the pelicans; they fill their beaks with it, on the lower part of which there are expandable throat sacs. The prey is taken to the nest and calmly eaten there.
Pelican- Very big bird, reaches a length of 1.8 meters, and its wingspan is up to 3 meters. In search of food they are able to dive to depths.Pelicans- birds are social, live in numerous colonies, get food together and build nests.
The American white pelican lives most of the year in the southern United States, Mexico and Central America. During the breeding season, birds living in more northern areas move to the south, where the climate is milder and more favorable for the development of chicks. The plumage of pelicans is almost completely white, with only light yellow spots on the chest and wings.
The pelican's nest is a bulky structure made of reeds, dead wood and feathers. When adult birds bring food to the nest for their chicks, they pull it out of the parents’ throats with their beaks, already half-digested, which makes it easier for them to digest the food.
The female lays two or three bluish or yellowish eggs and incubates them for about 30 days. The chicks are born completely naked. The plumage grows over the next 10 days. The female is a little small in size smaller than a male.
Sloths so named for the extreme slowness of their movements, reminiscent of movements in slow motion filming. The constantly wet skin of sloths serves as a breeding ground for microscopic algae, which is why the animals' fur acquires a greenish tint, making them almost invisible among the foliage.Jaguar.
An animal similar to a leopard, but larger; It is also distinguished by a special pattern on the skin: ring-shaped dark spots, inside of which there are smaller specks. Jaguars hunt alone and mainly on the ground, although they crawl well in trees and swim. Having caught prey, the predator usually hides it somewhere in a secret place and then eats it piece by piece.
Jaguars give birth to two or three young. Like all predators, they teach their growing babies to hunt.
Tapir.
The most common South American species is land tapir, lives near bodies of water. He swims well and can cross quite wide rivers; sometimes tapirs even dive to get the stems aquatic plants, serving them as food.
In dense foliage Amazonian forests lives a wide variety of wild birds. Here stroll the red-brown hoatzin and the crested serima, whose legs are better suited for running than wings for flying. Quezal builds a nest inside a termite mound and the termites do not cause him any disturbance. The eagle owl, a nocturnal predator with a long crest on its head, lives in the most impassable places, and therefore ornithologists have not yet been able to figure out its habits.
This tiny bird (size from 5.7 to 21.6 cm; weight from 1.6 to 20 g) with a long curved beak is capable of flapping its wings so often that it manages to hang almost motionless in the air, sucking nectar from a flower. This is the only bird in the world that can fly backwards.
Swordbeak Hummingbird. When fluttering, this bird makes more than 50 wing beats per second. So it can freeze motionless in the air or fly at speeds of up to 100 kilometers per hour. The swordbill's beak is very long and straight, whereas other hummingbirds have a curved beak.
g rhinoceros can reach a length of 1.5 meters.