THOMAS
This is what they themselves say.
There is a strong stereotype among people that they go to a monastery only out of loneliness or grief, if they cannot find their “place in life” or to atone for a terrible sin. We collected stories of modern monks and made sure that this is not always the case.
The beginning of the way
The first time I clearly realized that God exists was probably when I was twelve. It was 1987. It seemed that everything was breathing then not only with new words “Perestroika, glasnost, democratization”... Everything around spoke about what happened in Rus' 1000 years ago. She was baptized... And therefore, many people had a genuine interest in religion, in faith in God. This was also facilitated by the “thaw” in the state’s attitude towards the Church.
Quite unexpectedly, I then ended up, it seems, in Vladimir. I remember some people on the street were handing out the New Testament. I took. He came to the hotel, opened it and began to read: “Abraham gave birth to Isaac, Isaac gave birth to Jacob”... The words are understandable. It seems...? But how is it that Abraham gave birth to Isaac? Maria could have given birth to someone, Anna could have given birth. But Abraham and Isaac?! I read further: “and he said, saying...”. Again, nothing is clear, I can’t get through all these complex structures. Postponed. Started scrolling...
Photo by Yulia Makoveychuk
Finally I got to the Revelation of John the Theologian. And then suddenly it seemed to me that I was grasping some kind of meaning, that everything was clear here, and I clearly felt that behind all the reality described here was the One Who is called God. And although this book is one of the most difficult in the Holy Scriptures, I felt as if a seal had been broken in a hydrant and a fountain of living faith had burst upward.
But I must admit, more than a year passed before I consciously came to the Church. I entered the history department of Brest State University, our course turned out to be incredibly religious. Discussions about faith, Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Protestantism, and atheism were the norm from the first weeks of school.
Once, after my first year, I was invited to a television talk show. I think the topic was: “Do young people need faith in God?” The audience was not in a very good mood, only me and another guy defended a religious point of view. We didn’t know each other and only shook hands after the broadcast. A month later I meet him at the university. It turned out that he sings in the choir and is going to enter the seminary. I had no such plans at all. Very soon, thanks to him, I also began to sing in church.
Photo www.rostoveparhia.ru
Yes, I already recognized myself as Orthodox, I knew something about the doctrine, but I did not have clear ideas about the basics of spiritual life. Then I began to read a lot of spiritual literature. But this was clearly not enough. For 10 years, even though I was in church every week and sang in the choir, I received communion only five times. I kind of understood that this was important, but no one told me then that this was something that could and should be lived.
And life went on as usual. I was invited to work for a TV channel, and then for the civil service. At twenty-six years old, I was already deputy head of the apparatus and press secretary of the governor of the Brest region.
Longing for the sky
In 2003, I was offered to work in Moscow to do advertising and PR, and I agreed. And five years later I suddenly realized that I had not been to church for a long time. Inside, there grew a longing for the sky as for a father’s home, where you are very welcome. And I must say, at the beginning of that year I had a strange feeling that in two months I would die. Everything seemed to be wonderful: a great career, a great life. And suddenly this premonition. Every day you wake up and realize that the timer is ticking, and you are rushing into a concrete wall at high speed and you even know when you will crash into it. And that same acute longing for heaven covers me. I thought: “Why would that be?” I began to replay the past in my head, I saw that I was caught up in business, in the bustle of life, that I had not been to confession for a hundred years, had not received communion... I asked myself: “In general, do I live like a Christian?” And he answered himself: “No.”
Photo from personal Facebook page
Then I stood in front of the icon of the Savior and asked: “Lord, how do you want me to live? I ask You, take my life into Your hands - the steering wheels, and I will try not to interfere with You.”
And then he sat down at the table and began to prepare for confession: he took an A4 sheet of paper and began to write down... I wrote on three sheets of paper on both sides and then I caught myself thinking: now I’ll go to church, and they’ll chase me out of there with “dirty rags.” But something still pushed me not to retreat - I was going to God. And if they persecute you, you deserve it, “I accept what is due for my sins.”
I came to a church in the center of Moscow, approached the priest, to whom there was no line, and confessed... And after confession, I suddenly felt air rushing into my lungs. It was as if I had emerged from the bottom. Even my head started spinning.
After that, I tried to go to confession every Saturday and at least take communion on Sunday. And I still adhere to this rule. Then I formulated a thesis for myself: sin is not the “treasure” that I would like to accumulate . The feeling of the rapid approach of death disappeared, it was replaced by the joy of finding the present. But I could not even imagine that I would be a priest. And a monk too. I perceived myself exclusively as a specialist in the field of marketing communications and a PR specialist, although sometimes I began to think about how to devote all my time to serving God, the Church and people.
Photo by Yulia Makoveychuk
One day we were drinking tea in the company of church children. Word by word, it turned out that one church needed a singer, and I had long wanted to continue singing in the choir. I was brought to the regent. We met, and then she said: “In our choir, an icon of Roman the Sweet Singer recently appeared. And no one knows where it came from." I come to the rehearsal, they show me this icon - a completely ordinary one, from Sofrina, but my heavenly Patron. He took it carefully and hung it on the wall. So it seems to still be hanging on the choir in that church.
Hieromonk Prokhor (Andreychuk), resident of the Holy Dormition Pskov-Pechersky Monastery
Igor Andreychuk grew up in a believing family, but was an absolutely ordinary teenager: he studied at a metallurgical technical school, went to discos, sometimes returned drunk, did not really delve into himself, and certainly did not think about any of his vocations. By the age of sixteen, the young man developed a severe allergy, and his mother, in parallel with drug treatment, prayed for a long time for her son’s health. Once I persuaded him to go to Diveevo. “Temples, nuns, endless services... I was simply in shock. At first, this all made me very depressing: prayer day and night, and no comfortable hotel for you - a miserable house with amenities on the street... But my mother prayed to St. Seraphim of Sarov every day, and my heart little by little began to thaw,” recalls Hierodeacon Prokhor in his notes. Towards the end of his stay at the monastery, the young man suddenly became imbued with monastic life: he realized that there was nothing superfluous or vain in it, only God. “When on the day of departure I went up to venerate the icon of the Mother of God “Tenderness,” a thought suddenly struck me: I must become a monk.”
A month later, Igor and his mother went on a pilgrimage to the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, and the young man realized that he wanted to stay there forever. And so it happened - in 1995 he entered the monastery as a novice, and five years later he was tonsured a monk.
“The most joyful memories from my monastic life are those moments when my father and I, with Father John (Krestyankin), walked, read canons, akathists in the fresh air while the birds were singing, squirrels came down to us, we could feed them from our hands. These were the most joyful, blessed, unique moments! Such calmness, such light emanated from him! I still remember how kindly he always greeted me: “Oh, Prosha has come!..” recalls Father Prokhor.
Kirill Baglay
Angelina Dadasheva
Goodbye career!
There were more and more important and interesting church affairs, and meanwhile my business projects began to slowly close down. I especially didn’t want to promote alcohol companies on the market, although these were key clients. At some point, I became acutely aware that my life as a Christian and this kind of business were incompatible. I tried to figure out how to resolve this contradiction that tormented me. On Friday evening I went to confession. I told the priest about this - they say, I think I’m doing a bad job by helping to promote such companies on the market. And in response he asked me to think it over carefully, probably believing that this was all “neophyte”. I was surprised by his reaction... And I found myself even more bewildered.
It's Monday of the work week. And the strangest thing began: one after another, clients began to call me to inform me that projects were being suspended for various reasons. Within a week, almost everything was closed. I just raised my head up and said: “Only You could arrange this.” It was an amazing experience - when you are used to living large, and suddenly you have nothing. I had to move out of my rented apartment and even spend the night in a friend’s kitchen.
And suddenly a friend calls and says:
- I owe you five thousand.
- Why suddenly?! - I ask.
“And I,” he answers, “received a salary at the university plus a good bonus, came home with a wad of money and suddenly discovered that I had lost five thousand of it.” I wander around the apartment and think: “Lord, if I find them now, I’ll give them to the person who really needs them.” And for some reason I immediately thought about you. So: I found them, and now I am fulfilling my promise to God.
I thanked him, took the money and paid him for the classes. And then I felt light and joyful, and I thought: “Shells are exploding all around, but not a single fragment will hit you.” I remembered the verses from Psalm 90:
He will cover you with His wings: His wings are your protection. His loyalty is a shield and a wall.
Neither the horror of the night is afraid of you, nor the shot of an arrow during the day,
no plague creeping in the night, no pestilence in broad daylight.
A thousand fallen next to you, ten thousand at your right hand, but trouble will pass you by!
You are just a witness...
My friends and I went out into nature and read the Gospel together. In fact, every day I sang in the choir. And most importantly, I had the opportunity to receive communion every day. I am especially grateful to God for this period, because He showed me all the beauty of life in the Church and the Church itself in its holiness and simplicity of human relationships and purity, like a Bride in a snow-white robe. And this supports and motivates me even now. Yes, I see different moods and opinions in church society, and this is normal. But that vaccination, that charge that I received at the time of my churching, still supports my immunity.
Metropolitan Mercury (Ivanov) Photo www.rostoveparhia.ru
At that time I did not think about the seminary, or the priesthood, or monasticism. Of course, later I graduated from the Moscow Theological Seminary, but at that moment I did not know where to go. I thought about only one thing: I want to serve God constantly and with my whole life. And one day my friend from the Synodal Department of Religious Education and Catechesis invited me to work with them. I had no idea what I would do there, but I still went to the first meeting with the chairman of the department, Metropolitan Mercury (Ivanov). I saw a charismatic, bright, educated man. But I still had my doubts. Until I saw how the metropolitan performed the liturgy, with what awe and reverence, and boundless dedication, he served at the throne. This finally confirmed my decision.
Preface
Before, I went to the Lavra very often. There was time. I didn't do anything special there. I only went to services, read in the hotel room and slept. And he always returned different - no matter how long it was: a day or almost a week.
I could never figure out what had changed in me. But he always tried to preserve some accumulated monastic silence. In this silence, something whispered about unearthly Love. About unearthly beauty and courage. And about peace, about a quiet and very truthful world.
And this world inside, not allowing itself to be properly recognized, nevertheless most of all convinced me that there was a larger world, a world of which I was not a citizen, but those guys over there might already be there. Something has already been revealed to them. So it seemed to me. And now it seems.
I later got to know many monks personally, many became my friends. How we laughed. And now we laugh. I have never laughed so hard with anyone in my life. Filled with such non-idle joy. I only heard stories about others from the brethren of the monastery, looked at them at services, but never spoke to them. Here is an old man, he does not miss a single fraternal prayer service, which always begins at five in the morning. He walks with a limp and is very taciturn. Many, many years ago, St. Sergius himself woke him up with a blow to his leg with a stick. He appeared to him and told him never to miss fraternal prayer services. Since then, the monk has been limping slightly on the leg that Sergius hit.
I stare at them at every service and in the refectory. I just look at it as if it were some kind of beauty. Like complete happiness - because when you decide to leave everything - you are no longer torn apart by our uncertainty, these doubts and semicolons.
It seems that Seraphim of Sarov said that the only thing that distinguishes a great saint from a lowly sinner is determination. The Spas channel program “How I became a monk” and the book that came out of it are exactly about this: about how they decided! We launched this project because it was important to see a person at such an explosive turn of fate. Being tonsured a monk - and nothing more - begins to write your life anew. Yes, this happens after every confession. But so deeply - that under a different name, and renouncing everything - and all the former self - this is only in tonsure...
And the point is not at all that we ourselves should repeat this path. No, you must serve in the place “in which you are assigned,” and everyone has their own calling. But the point is why or for whom they do it. After all, these are people who, without cuts, have given their whole lives to God. And by looking at them, at their destinies, at their motives, we can understand a lot about God. About the One who informs everything that concerns Him, this quiet, filled and very meaningful world, Who answers questions - even unasked ones. About the One with whom it is good. I experience this in the monastery, the apostles experienced this at Tabor, everyone can experience this, and when you experience this closeness with God, you understand why Innokenty Sibiryakov, a pre-revolutionary millionaire, fled from the world with the words: “Help me. I'm fabulously rich." Because one can truly give anything for a genuine experience of the fullness of God.
Innokenty Sibiryakov will later become a monk on Mount Athos in the grandiose St. Andrew's Skete. When you are in it, you understand what the “autumn of monasticism”, once predicted here on Mount Athos, is like - once up to 3,000 monks labored in the monastery, as well as workers, novices, pilgrims... It is huge. After the revolution, the monastery was empty. Nowadays, barely 20 monks live here. The monastery no longer belongs to the Russian Church.
And so it is everywhere. It is already difficult to imagine the Russia in which filled monasteries stood, but the fate of those who walk this path today is all the more interesting and surprising. Now in this step there is no fashion, no lack of choice, and more often - only Love.
In this book there will be no similar destinies, there will be no cliches about monasticism, they say, unhappy love, long suffering led to a monastery... No, this step is often taken not because they have suffered a fiasco in this world, not because of emotional ruin, but in a very deliberate way and balanced. And that is why there is so much beauty and courage in this step.
I don’t remember whose idea it was that a monk is a sacrifice of society to God. As long as it is brought, society can flourish. When this sacrifice stops, societies will begin to sour. Yulia Varentsova's book is about a very small sacrifice, but even more valuable. And that means about hope for all of us.
Boris Korchevnikov, General Director of the Spas TV channel
