Priest Father Nikon Vorobyov is a monk, spiritual writer, since 1956 hegumen of the Orthodox Church, author of numerous letters to his spiritual children, Orthodox philosopher, interpreter of the lives and messages of the Holy Fathers.
The Russian Orthodox Church is rich in people who leave a bright light in its history. Such a bright “beacon” of the church was Father Nikon (Nikolai Nikolaevich Vorobyov). His sermons, instructions and discussions on many everyday problems, without a doubt, need to be listened to and read by all Orthodox people.
Return of the Prodigal Son
Among the ever-growing number of parishioners, young people are increasingly found: boys and girls attend services on great Orthodox holidays with interest or simply come to the temple to pray. Decades of Soviet power have left their mark on the minds and souls of people: now not many know by heart prayers, dates of Orthodox holidays, and the writings of saints. In order for us to better understand the content of the teachings of the holy fathers, some clergy are trying to “translate” their texts into a modern way. One of these associates was Abbot Nikon Vorobyov.
short biography
The elder was born back in 1894 in the Tver province, in the small village of Mikshino. His parents were ordinary peasants, and he himself was the second son. It is interesting that Abbot Nikon (Vorobyov) had only brothers: there were six sons in the family, but it was Kolya who differed from others in his honesty, pity, and obedience. In those days, although they tried to raise all children in an atmosphere of piety and unquestioning reverence for the church, historical events dictated their “fashion.”
Having retained a special attitude towards faith in his soul, in his youth Nikolai enthusiastically began to study natural sciences and philosophy. However, the craving for religion won, and, having become disillusioned even with the Petrograd Psycho-Neurological Institute, the future associate plunged into faith. For many years, Nikolai searched for the way to God, but all his efforts were not in vain, and at the age of 36, the future abbot Nikon (Vorobiev) took monastic vows. In troubled times for the Orthodox Church, many clergy suffered for their faith, and our hero was no exception: he was arrested and exiled to Siberia for five years. The persecution was not as difficult as the return. Only after the end of the Great Patriotic War was he able to return to his favorite work, but in the meantime he held the position of assistant doctor in a small town. From that moment on, Abbot Nikon (Vorobiev) gradually began to become an example of asceticism.
Vorobyov's childhood
Nikolai (secular name Nikon Vorobyov) was born into a large peasant family on May 4, 1894 in the village of Mikshino, Tver province.
Origin and birth
At first, the biography of Nikolai Vorobyov was the most ordinary, he grew up like all boys, his father and mother were simple peasants, very religious and devout people. Unfortunately, the archives do not contain photographs or descriptions of Nikolai himself as a child or his parents. But it can be assumed that the life of a peasant child at that time was difficult from the very beginning.
Family
The family into which Nikolai was born was large; everyone in it knew how and loved to work. Kolya had 6 more younger brothers. The boy was very inquisitive and active; he did not stand out among other children. The only difference is that he was very compassionate and kind. Since childhood, Nikolai had a strong desire to get to the bottom of things; his character had a special honesty and decency. Kolya studied very well and graduated with honors from a rural school.
Later, Abbot Nikon recalled that monasticism was predicted for him as a child. In their village lived the holy fool Vanka, who one day approached little Kolya and began pointing his finger at him, repeating: “Monk, monk.”
Nikolai's education
When Kolya grew up, his father sent him to a real school in the city of Vyshny Volochek. The talented boy began his studies with zeal.
Thanks to his innate perseverance and responsibility, he was given even the most difficult disciplines:
- drawing;
- drawing;
- mathematics;
- singing;
- dancing;
- playing the viola.
All his talents did not go unnoticed among the teaching staff: during his years of study at the real school, Kolya received several certificates of merit and certificates.
The parents helped their son with money as much as they could, however, when the younger brothers grew up, parental help was reduced: it was necessary to raise the rest of the children. Nikolai did not despair; he continued his studies with the same zeal. He obtained funds to pay for housing and food by helping his rich comrades who were behind in their studies.
Soon his younger brother Mikhail entered the same real school, and Kolya took upon himself the care of its maintenance. And although it was very difficult for him, he did not deviate from his goal: to finish his studies and help his younger brother.
Nikolai Vorobyov came from a believing Orthodox family, however, as often happens, this faith was “superficial”, without deep understanding and penetration into the soul. When Nikolai plunged headlong into studying science at school, he thought that this was the real truth, he became an atheist.
Like any growing young man, he wanted to get to the bottom of the meaning of life, and decided that he would find it in philosophy. He began to study philosophical works with enthusiasm; with his last money he could buy an interesting book, preferring it to dinner. Over time, Nikolai achieved great success in philosophy, even the school teachers consulted with him. However, Nikolai soon realized that this science did not provide answers to the life questions that tormented him.
Spiritual letters of Abbot Nikon (Vorobiev)
As a true associate, the clergyman had nothing but faith in his soul: he gave all the money, things and other material assets to people in need. His only property were numerous books, the pages of which contained the writings of the saints of the Russian Orthodox Church. The priest devoted all his free time from serving to painstaking work. Hegumen Nikon (Vorobiev) wrote down his thoughts and thoughts about faith, God, and repentance. These were not just letters - they were an appeal to descendants who are still at the very beginning of their path to the Lord. In his works, the clergyman “translated” the laws of the Bible into a language understandable and accessible to modern people.
Letters to Spiritual Children
“Glory to God for everything and everyone’s sake! Glory to the one who showed us the life of a holy and spiritual old man - we thank God for His great goodness that was upon us, as He gave us the holy old man, Mr. Venerable Sergius, in our land of Rusti, in the land of midnight.”
This is how his close disciple, Blessed Epiphanius, begins his story about the life and exploits of our Reverend Father Sergius. “I’m amazed,” he says, “how many years have passed and the life of the holy elder has not been written; and they were deeply sorry for this, since such a holy elder, so wonderful and kind, passed away 26 years ago, and no one had the temerity to write about him, neither far nor near, neither greater nor less.”
We can repeat these words of the Wise Epiphanius with even greater right, with the only difference that from the day of the death of St. Sergius to our time, not twenty-six, but five hundred years have passed, and we still do not have in modern Russian a complete biography of the great the elder not only in the sense of an independent historical study about his life and exploits, about his significance in the history of the Russian Church, Russian asceticism, Russian enlightenment and in general the moral education of the Russian people, but even a simple complete translation of the life written by Epiphanius.
True, there are more than a dozen different lives of St. Sergius, and the best of them, of course, is the one compiled by St. Philaret of Moscow. But this life was intended to be read during Divine services and was read by the deceased Hierarch himself in Bose in the Lavra at the all-night vigil on July 5, 1822. In terms of its internal merits, this life is an ingot of gold, but, as intended for church reading, it is necessarily short and omits many details, precious for reverent admirers of the memory of the great saint of God. It is also worth mentioning two lives of St. Sergius, placed in the works “Russian Saints” - the Right Reverend Philaret, Archbishop of Chernigov, and “The Lives of the Saints of the Russian Church” by A. N. Muravyov, but neither one nor the other also has the desired completeness, because the compilers of these lives, describing the lives of all Russian Saints, necessarily tried to be brief in their presentation.
Of the individual publications, only one should be mentioned, published after the 2nd edition of our book, on the 500th anniversary of the repose of St. Sergius, “St. Sergius of Radonezh and the Trinity Lavra created by him” by E. Golubinsky; The author offers in this book, as he himself says, “a narrative about the Reverend, on the one hand, brief, and on the other hand, complete, without omissions reproducing all the details of his life, both natural and supernatural.” But even this book cannot completely satisfy the reverent reader of the memory of the great saint of God; it is enough to say one thing about it: for the sake of “brevity,” its author does not intend to give edifying reading in it, but offers only a concise presentation of the facts he collected from all historical sources and presented in the form of a biography. Moreover, this biography was published inseparably from the guidebook to the Lavra and forms, as it were, an introduction to this guidebook. We do not consider it necessary to dwell on other individual publications, such as the work of Mr. Lavrentiev, since they represent poor adaptations from Epiphanius or simply borrowings from the above-mentioned authors.
Holy message
Hegumen Nikon (Vorobiev) left us many valuable works in which he addressed everyone. These are “Letters to Spiritual Children”, and “How to Live Today”, and “Repentance is Left to Us”... These and many other works were left to us “for the benefit and healing from anger, malice and bragging” - this is what abbot Nikon Vorobyov wrote. These letters became not just a statement of the laws of God, the content of the Great Scripture and reasoning about God. In his works, the associate shares his own experience of deep knowledge of religion. They help believers set priorities correctly and apply spiritual knowledge in modern life. It is no secret that every day we are surrounded by many temptations that push us to sin and corrupt our souls. The letters of Abbot Nikon (Vorobyov) are written in simple and understandable language for every Orthodox Christian, but at the same time, the laws of God run through them as a red thread. The elder teaches not just worship before the Lord, but repentance of the soul. In his works he reflected all spheres of human life; in the books and letters of the elder, everyone will find the answer to any question of interest.
About the values of the soul
The spiritual letters of Abbot Nikon (Vorobyov) are filled with a feeling of joy for life.
Despite the difficult life even for a monk, his works are imbued with love, compassion, and forgiveness. He writes that not only should one never lose heart and one must fight, but one must turn to the Lord. You should always ask God for protection and help, and you should always analyze your past experiences, trying to avoid repeating mistakes that have already been made. Hegumen Nikon (Vorobiev) advises everyone to turn to the Almighty for help at least once an hour, or even more often: then the thought of God, faith, humility and repentance will not leave our hearts for a minute, and that means the Lord will always be there. Everyone needs the help of saints: only then will human labor benefit not only himself, but also those close to him. For this the layman will be rewarded a hundredfold.
Mature age
Monk Nikon consciously took monastic vows when he was already an adult. His whole life before this step was a series of doubts and searches. Why did a person come into this world if his life is short and his deeds are empty? What is the highest truth? He found answers to his questions in serving God and renouncing worldly affairs.
Years of clergy
On April 7, 1931, Nikon was ordained to the rank of hierodeacon, and by 1933 to the rank of hieromonk. He is increasingly imbued with the ideas of Christianity. People who knew him recalled that he devoted most of his time, free from divine services, to intense prayers and meek humility.
Interrogations and arrests
Zealous service to God and an irreconcilable attitude towards the new government, which declared the church an enemy of the state, attracted the close attention of punitive authorities to the monk Nikon.
Also in 1933, Father Nikon was arrested for anti-revolutionary activities and agitation, convicted and sent to Siberian camps for five years. He was interrogated several times. The investigative reports, which were recently declassified, indicate that he did not renounce his faith even under pain of imprisonment. It is also clear from these documents that the priest did not slander his fellow believers and did not give false testimony. Father Nikon was released only in 1937. He settled again in Vyshny Volochyok and got a job as a servant in the house of a local doctor.
Here Nikon’s faith was again tested, since the doctor’s wife and her sister were ardent atheists, they often allowed themselves unflattering statements about believers, Nikon had to meekly come to terms with this. By his example of meekness and righteous life, Father Nikon encouraged the sisters to reconsider their religious beliefs and accept faith in Christ. The sister of the wife of the doctor for whom Nikon served, Elena Efimovna, herself a doctor by profession, became a nun with the new name Seraphim.
In 1941, the Great Patriotic War began in the country. The country's leadership decided to open churches and temples for believers so that they could offer prayers for victory over the enemy and for the health of soldiers. Father Nikon immediately begins his priestly service.
In 1944, Archbishop Vasily of Kalinin and Smolensk appointed him rector of the Annunciation Church in the city of Kozelsk, where the priest served until 1948. All this time, Nikon rented a room from local nuns, preached a lot and led a very ascetic lifestyle. Later, he told his spiritual son, a prominent theologian and apologist of our days, A.I. Osipov, that in those days five potatoes and a cup of water a day were enough for him.
From Kozelsk Nikon was transferred to Belev, then to Efremov (both towns are in the Tula region). After that he served in Smolensk. From there, Father Nikon was appointed to head the parish in Gzhatsk. The parish was in an extremely neglected and poor state; Nikon himself considered this appointment as an exile.
Nikon spent a lot of mental and physical strength to bring the parish out of desolation. He was strict with others when necessary and was endlessly demanding of himself. He went to bed very late and got up very early in the morning in order to be “fully armed” by the beginning of the service in the parish, read morning prayers, and prepared for the service with special zeal.
Despite poor health associated with the camp past, Nikon worked a lot physically in the parish garden, he had greenhouses, and he himself grew various vegetables. Since he learned a lot in his life, his harvests were excellent, he loved the land and knew how to work on it. I read a lot in my free time. Spiritually, according to the priest, the “Gzhatsky period of life” gave him a lot. And most importantly, he understood, experienced here a state of initial, as he himself said, humility. In 1956, Father Nikon was awarded the rank of abbot.
last years of life
In 1962, the abbot’s health deteriorated greatly, as a result of the Siberian camps. He grew weaker and weaker and began to get tired very quickly. I ate very little: some white bread, berries and milk. However, he never complained about his health and always maintained clarity of thought and peace of mind.
A few days before his death, he went to bed, his strength completely deserted him. Before the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God, he confessed his neighbors and spiritual children for the last time, held soul-saving conversations with them, bequeathed to preserve the faith by fulfilling the commandments and repentance in every possible way, to adhere in every possible way to St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov), to avoid especially vanity, which completely devastates the soul and leads it away from God. . He himself could no longer go to church and received communion of the Holy Mysteries several times at home.
“There is nothing to feel sorry for me. I must thank God that I have already completed my earthly journey. I never wanted to live, I didn’t see anything interesting in this life, and I was always surprised how others find something in it and cling to it with all their might. Although I have not done anything good in my life, I have always sincerely strived for God. Therefore, I hope with all my soul for God’s mercy. The Lord cannot reject a person who has always strived for Him with all his might. I feel sorry for you. Anything else waiting for you? The living will envy the dead."
Nikon died on September 7, 1963, in the afternoon, at 12:25.
From the memoirs of the student and spiritual child of Abbot Nikon A. I. Osipov:
“We should especially note the atmosphere of inner joy that reigned in the church during the liturgy among the worshipers and during the funeral service for the priest. The complete impression of some unusual celebration, a great holiday. The incomprehensible spirit of joy dissolved universal sincere sorrow. This can be explained by the blissful posthumous state and the prayers of the priest. His repose seemed to his relatives, spiritually close ones and the entire flock as if hidden in the morning pre-sun fog. The church was crowded that day, as if it were Easter, and many people later spoke about the feeling of a special, incomprehensible festive celebration during the service.”
According to labor it will be rewarded
The elder has a special attitude towards work; he calls on everyone to eradicate laziness in themselves, to cultivate diligence and diligence. He writes that God fully rewards diligence and patience, but it is much better to bear not only your own, but also each other’s burdens. Only then will the law of Christ be fulfilled, and then man will not be subject to despondency, sorrow, and suffering. Only in this case will love for one’s neighbor reign in the hearts of people, and each other’s shortcomings will pale in comparison with faith in God.
The books of Abbot Nikon (Vorobyov) are filled with love of life and humility. The elder writes that despondency, boredom, and indignation alienate us from the Lord. What could be worse? The Almighty tolerates everything, but human sins destroy the soul, which means they turn him away from God. Salvation is born from repentance, love, tenderness, and crying. A feeling of pity, not for yourself, but for your loved ones, can awaken meekness and patience in your hearts.
To everyone and everyone
Hegumen Nikon (Vorobyov) has more than a dozen books, and in each he shares intimate knowledge about God, faith, love, good and evil.
More than 300 spiritual letters are known, and in each he emphasizes that repentance is the vital moisture for the Russian Orthodox Church. As long as a sense of humility, obedience and faith lives in people, there is no power on earth, the ability to turn the Lord away from us and him from us. The Almighty tolerates more than any layman or monk: only God knows about all our sins, bad thoughts and evil words. Abbot Nikon calls his readers children, children of God. As long as repentance lives in our hearts, we are omnipotent against temptations and enticements. The Lord is born in ourselves, and we give birth to him in our souls.
In addition to printed publications, spiritual addresses of Abbot Nikon (Vorobyov) are published on electronic and audio media. Thus, each of us can absorb the words of the elder not only in a traditional way, but also in a more modern way. Don’t miss the opportunity to get enough of God’s power: read at least one message from the great companion of our days.
Teenage years and early life
In 1914, Nikolai Vorobyov brilliantly graduated from real school. He is faced with a choice of further path. By this time, Nikolai had already become completely disillusioned with philosophy as a science capable of providing answers to the questions that tormented him about the meaning of life and man’s place in it.
Admission to university
The young man decides to continue his education at the Petrograd Psychoneurological Institute and study human physiology; he successfully passes the entrance exams and plunges headlong into a new science for him. But after a year of study, he will be even more disappointed. And here he does not find answers to his questions that have bothered him almost since childhood.
Nikolai falls into severe depression and experiences severe psychological shock. He leaves his studies at the institute. His mental breakdown was so great that he began to think about suicide.
Introduction to religion
In the summer of 1915, Nikolai Vorobyov is on the verge of suicide. Remembering God, Nikolai from all his depths, almost in despair, exclaimed: “Lord, if You exist, then reveal yourself to me! I am not looking for You for any earthly, selfish purposes. I only need one thing: are You there, or are you not?”
And God answered Vorobyov’s prayer. Later, Abbot Nikon recalled that this was a kind of Revelation, after which some kind of moral turning point occurred in his soul.
He could not say exactly what happened to him, but from that time Nikolai Vorobyov believed in God completely and irrevocably, and saw his path and destiny. He was no longer interested in worldly life and worldly hobbies. He devoted himself to studying and saying prayers, reading the Gospel and the Revelations of the Holy Fathers.
From memoirs:
“And only in the holy fathers and in the Gospel did I find something truly valuable. When a person begins to struggle with himself and strives to follow the path of the Gospel, then the holy fathers will become necessary for him and his relatives. The Holy Father is already a dear teacher who speaks to your soul, and it perceives it with joy and is comforted. Just as these philosophies and all sorts of sectarian nasty things caused melancholy, despondency, and vomiting, so, on the contrary, he came to his fathers as if he were visiting his own mother. They consoled me, enlightened me, nourished me.”
In 1917, Vorobyov entered the Moscow Theological Academy, where he very zealously began to study the basics of Theology, however, revolutionary events in Petrograd and the capital interrupted his studies. Following the revolution, political changes began in the country. Vorobyov leaves for the village of Sosnovitsy (near Vyshny Volochok) and for some time works as a mathematics teacher at a local school.
From memories:
“And there [in Sosnovitsy] he lived as an ascetic: he ate a piece of bread, a plate of empty cabbage soup. There were almost no potatoes then. And during this, so to speak, real ascetic life (now everything can be said), I was in prayer all day - I was in prayer and in fasting. And it was then that I understood spiritual life, the inner state: the Lord revealed the action in the heart of prayer.”
Then, by the will of Fate, he again finds himself in Moscow and works as a psalm reader (reader) at the Boris and Gleb Church.
Monastic tonsure
Vorobyov became more and more imbued with Christian teaching, and by 1931 he firmly decided to choose the monastic path for himself. On Palm Sunday, 1931, April 5 (March 23, old style), at the Kozyrevskoye cemetery at the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Minsk, he was tonsured a monk by Bishop Feofan (Semenyako). For the sake of this event, both came to Minsk from Moscow. When he was tonsured, Nicholas was given the name Nikon.
