| Prot. Nikolay Sokolov |
Nikolai Vladimirovich Sokolov
(born 1950), archpriest, rector of the Moscow St. Nicholas Church in Tolmachi at the Tretyakov Gallery, professor, dean of the Orthodox St. Tikhon Humanitarian University, teacher of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament at the department of biblical studies, member of the Inter-Council Presence of the Russian Orthodox Church Born June 13, 1950 years in the village of Grebnevo, Shchelkovsky district, Moscow region, in the family of a priest.
From 1973 to 1975 he worked at the Mosconcert, in the ensemble of People's Artist of the USSR K.I. Shulzhenko "Rhapsody".
In 1975 he completed a full course at the Moscow State Conservatory. P.I. Tchaikovsky by specialty - viola.
From 1975 to 1976 he served in the army.
In 1977, he was hired by the Moscow Patriarchate as a patriarchal assistant. He was a patriarchal subdeacon until 1987.
In 1983, he graduated with honors from the Moscow Theological Academy and presented a candidate's course essay in the department of moral theology on the topic: “Axiological aspects of the Old Testament moral teaching,” for which the Council of the Academy awarded him the degree of candidate of theology.
On April 7, 1982, he was ordained to the rank of deacon by Patriarch Pimen of Moscow; served in the house church of the Moscow Patriarchate in honor of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God.
On December 26, 1986, he was appointed a full-time deacon at the Church of the Resurrection of the Word at the Vagankovskoye cemetery in Moscow.
On September 8, 1988, he was ordained to the rank of presbyter to a regular place in the same church by Bishop Feofan (Galinsky) of Kashira, vicar of the Moscow diocese.
Since 1989 - founder and director of the Sunday school at the church of St. Andrew the First-Called.
In 1990, he was elevated to the rank of archpriest by Patriarch Alexy II.
In 1992 he was appointed rector of the Church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi at the State Tretyakov Gallery; Head of the Department of the State Tretyakov Gallery “Church-Museum of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi."
Since 1992 - Dean of the Orthodox St. Tikhon's University for the Humanities, teacher of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament at the Department of Biblical Studies. Since 1997 - Associate Professor. Since 2007 - professor. Course taught: Holy Scripture of the Old Testament.
Since 2001 - confessor and board member of the Foundation of the All-Praised Apostle Andrew the First-Called and the Foundation of the National Glory of Russia; (Moscow, Ordynka st. 35.)
Since 2004, he has been the confessor of the Russian Olympic team.
Since 2004 - member of the commission on affairs of Orthodox educational institutions.
Since 2009 - member of the board of trustees of the Elena Mukhina International Prize.
On July 27, 2009, it was included in the Inter-Council Presence of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Holy Saturday
This is such a miracle of the soul: one moment it, the soul, suffered and cried, and the next moment joy fills it - and you immediately want to share it with your children, with your loved ones, with everyone who enters the house. I don’t know how to convey this more precisely, probably, it happens to each person in his own way: the sacrament of meeting the Resurrection of the Lord. The Lord makes any person feel this, no matter whether he fasted or not. And even an atheist will still feel Easter! Maybe he doesn’t want to accept it with his mind, to realize it, but he can say, for example, “Oh, what good weather today!”, and his soul still feels this joy inside, since it is by nature a Christian. The Lord gives this to everyone!
Such a wonderful service on Holy Saturday! Since we have a large family, we split up: someone stays at home, someone goes to church. I really love the Liturgy of Holy Saturday and try to get to it. When you leave the church, everyone wants to shout: “Christ is Risen!” Because you feel that you have already been resurrected, because you know that there, in Jerusalem, on the Holy Sepulcher, the Holy Fire descended, and they call you and tell you about it... In a word, it is no longer possible to restrain yourself! You enter the house with this feeling, you have no strength to contain this joy, you kiss and hug everyone, and whisper in your ear: “Christ is Risen!” And I want to turn on the recording of Easter chants at full volume.
When the children were little, we made each of them a basket with a small Easter cake and eggs, decorated it with flowers and went to the temple to bless it. Now our sons-in-law - either Father Sergius or Father Mikhail - consecrate everything at home for us. We have so many Easter cakes and Easter cakes that it’s simply unrealistic to take everything to church. But for the children, my grandchildren, we still make baskets so that they can participate in the consecration. This day is very bright, and it is Holy Saturday that you really look forward to, when they sing “Let all human flesh be silent.” It is impossible to express what is happening to the soul at this moment... We don’t see it, but we feel it, we know it, we really experience it.
It all starts with cleaning
How do we begin preparing for Easter? From cleaning. After the Week of the Cross, we begin to clean the house. Usually the girls and I write a to-do list, dividing it into columns of who should do what. There is a separate job for the boys, we even write down their names: Kolya, Sima, Volodya have to nail something, glue something, take something off, fix something... We always have boys taking down and hanging curtains, doing the hard work, and that’s all the rest of the housework is for the girls. We wipe down all the icons and prepare elegant decorations for Easter. On Friday evening, Holy Week, children already begin to decorate the house with eggs, flowers, and chickens.
Basically, we finish all the work of cleaning and preparing the house by Palm Sunday. And we are already starting to slowly buy products for making Easter cakes and Easter: flour, yeast, lemons, nuts, candied fruits and everything else. It is always a great joy for me to wash windows. Let's wash it - and you can already feel the presence of the holiday, you are already waiting for it, it is already at the door. You hang new curtains on the clean windows, the icons are already shining - there is a feeling of the Resurrection in the house!
Palm Sunday is a special day! Children in general always love this holiday: the end of Lent, the house is ready, and willows are brought from the temple, you decorate the house with them, everything is already festive... But Holy Week is ahead and your thoughts are already tuning into this Great Week, which with all its experiences flies by in one breath.
Mother Galina and father Fyodor Sokolov in their youth
Mother with her eldest son Nikolai
Easter has frozen!
This year we weren’t even halfway through Lent, and the girls wrote down “places”, who would bake Easter cakes on what day, and organized a queue. I, as a mother, am always the first in this line to check: how the food is, how the stove is, whether everything is in order. This year, our Anechka (our youngest daughter - she is already thirteen years old) wanted to bake Easter cakes herself for the first time. Previously, she always only helped the elders do something, cut, rub, but was not responsible for the process itself. “Mommy, I want to do everything myself, knead and cook everything, you’ll just have to watch me,” says Anechka. But, of course, Easter cakes require masculine strength - kneading the dough is hard work and the most important thing. The girls negotiate with the male population who will help whom, depending on their free time. After all, Seraphim works, Father Sergius, the husband of his daughter Lyuba, must serve, Volodya studies at school. We bake Easter cakes the first three days of Holy Week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. It happens that girls will invite their girlfriends, who also want to learn how to cook Easter and Easter cake. These days, when approaching our house, everyone already knows that Easter is coming, as the entrance and street smell of the aroma of Easter cake, the freshness of lemon zest and vanilla. And this is the threshold of Easter joy.
On Thursday we cook Easter. Everyone goes to service in the morning and receives communion. The cooking process itself is quick, but all preparations before and after take quite a long time. As a result, it takes a day to do everything. First, we put the cottage cheese under pressure and prepare all the ingredients (cut nuts, grate lemon zest, etc.). We pass the drained cottage cheese through a meat grinder and set it to cook, and then, after the mass has cooled, add all the “yummy” ingredients, pour it into molds and put it in the refrigerator to harden. Once Fedyusha and I were interviewed, it was just the first days of Holy Week. We were still young then, although there were already five children, and the journalist later recalled: “We were sitting with Father Theodore, talking in the room, and then Mother Galina came in in such a joyful state, her eyes were shining, and said: “Fedyusha! But Easter froze!” And Father Theodore turns around with the same joy and says: “Yes?!” Frozen?!” - "Yes! Frozen!” “I was amazed at this state of two hearts, this joy that Easter froze for them, and this was their common, united rejoicing!”
It was very interesting for me to hear from the outside what we looked like. Thanks to these memories, I understand and feel even better that this frozen Easter really is for us - as a symbol of our accomplished Love with Fedyusha!
In my parental family, in Belarus, we didn’t cook Easter, we just had cottage cheese. And when I got married, I joined the tradition of the Sokolov family. They always bake Easter cakes and always cook Easter. When I first saw how this all happened, I was simply delighted! Father Theodore’s mother, Mother Natalya Nikolaevna, taught them all this. And I was already taught by Lyuba, the sister of Father Theodore. At first we lived with them. And I remembered for the rest of my life how I cooked my first Easter. Lyuba sang in the choir, and she had to go to the service, she asked me: “Galush, the cottage cheese is already ready, you just need to put it on the stove and cook it, and when it cools down, put all the goodies there and pour them into molds.”
And what do you think? What have I done? I set the cottage cheese to boil, then I thought: after all, I probably need to add everything - nuts, candied fruits, and lemon zest. That’s what I did, added everything I could to the pan, and cooked it all. My Easter has changed color! She became not white-cream, sunny, but brown! And I couldn't understand what was going on. When Lyuba came home from service and saw this Easter, she gasped: “What have you done?!” I told you, put everything away later!” I immediately began to ask for forgiveness. Of course she forgave. And we had to cook a new Easter again. And now, when I teach someone, I repeat several times, emphasizing that everything else must be put later, into the already cooled mass.
Sergei Beloborodov (now priest Father Sergius, husband of daughter Lyuba)
Joy and sorrow
In addition to Easter and Easter cakes, our family always makes jellied meat. Father Theodore cooked it himself and taught it to me. He always bought everything, set it to cook in the morning, and in the evening they cut the jellied meat. The refrigerator is completely filled with meat dishes, and there is a festive spirit in the apartment! But we paint eggs on Maundy Thursday.
When we bake Easter cakes, we really like to listen to Lenten church hymns or lectures by Bishop Veniamin (Pushkar) about the Passion of Christ - he has a wonderful series of lectures “Holy Week”. This puts you in the right frame of mind. After all, Holy Week is coming, and you are baking Easter cakes. All this must be accompanied by prayer. Of course, we listen to recordings of our dad, Father Theodore, and his sermons. This is an amazing general state - both joyful and sorrowful. An overwhelming expectation of Easter joy grows within you, along with the real experience of those days. Your thoughts are transported to Jerusalem, as if you are accompanying the Lord all these days. You hear about the Suffering, and you empathize with everything with all your heart, you know what day and at what time happened and is happening in Jerusalem, where Christ was, how the disciples behaved, and you perceive yourself as a participant in these events. Therefore, when they sing “Christ is Risen!” for the first time, these words that you kept to yourself throughout Lent, and especially during Holy Week, you immediately rejoice - it really has happened!
Pre-Easter cleaning. On the wall is a portrait of Father Fyodor Sokolov
Kneading dough is a man's job
Volodya Sokolov - youngest son
Anechka, the youngest daughter, and Lyuba Sokolovs grease a Easter cake decoration with egg
