The Shoemaker-Pilgrim
On the day of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in 1898, Nikolai Guryanovich Rogozin was born into a peasant family. His parents were believers and pious people. Not far from his native village there was the Belogorsk monastery, which was often visited by the whole family.
Nikolai went to parochial school for three years, and that was where his education ended. Already at the age of eleven he began to study shoemaking. At nineteen, the young man got married, and almost immediately he was drafted into military service. When asked why he chose the Bolsheviks and not the Whites, he said:
“And I knew from Scripture that the Reds would win.”
Nevertheless, he never supported the ideology of the Bolsheviks, considering them an inevitable evil sent as punishment. I wanted to devote myself to God when I was very young, but I was able to fulfill my desire only after the war.
He did not participate in the Great Patriotic War due to serious heart problems. Despite the persecution of believers, he visited the temple often, without hiding from anyone. He sang psalms for several years, and at the age of 57 he became a priest, receiving a parish in the small village of Chusovskie Gorodki, in the Perm Territory.
He loved his temple very much. I tried to invest all my donations, every extra penny, into it. His family lived very poorly, and people often asked - how is it possible to live in such asceticism? To this, Father Nikolai replied that if he does not invest money in the church and does not pay taxes, then the temple will be closed, and the parishioners will remain unsworn and unbaptized.
Father never went on vacation; he even went to visit his daughters for just one night. He was always worried about his parishioners - what if someone needed his help or someone died, and there was no one to sing the funeral service.
The modest rural priest gained fame as a prayer book and seer. He had spiritual children in many cities of Russia; people often came to him from all corners of our vast country. Father conducted extensive correspondence with more than two hundred addressees. Even during his lifetime, Father Nicholas was considered a holy elder, because he helped many people, many witnessed the extraordinary miracles that the priest performed with the power of his prayerful word.
About
Letters about time
Dear editors! I, a resident of Gorny Altai, consider the Blagovest newspaper to be my newspaper. And to the question that we constantly face in our “real life”, I probably won’t get an answer anywhere else like you do. I want to ask about the passage of time. Reading the teachings of ascetics and holy fathers, we know that time in the “last” (that is, our) times will accelerate: a year for six months, a month, etc. We all feel it ourselves - we don’t have time to do anything. If before I managed to do so much in a day, now I’m just amazed at how quickly the day flew by. People involved in practical activities often say the same thing: in the same period of time they now manage to do less than before. In our family, it is often discussed whether this “reduction of time” occurs only in the spiritual, invisible realm, in our concepts, measures of spiritual state, or whether “impartial,” “real” science can say something to confirm or refute this concept “ reduction of time,” that is, it will explain what actually happens with time (of course, it’s not a matter of fractions of seconds that add up to some extra day, which supporters of changing the calendar insist on). Are there any studies and conclusions on this issue that combines the spiritual and scientific principles of knowing time? I have no one else to turn to with this question, since where science reigns, the spiritual aspect is most often not taken into account. L. Mikhailova
, Altai Republic
Peace to you, our dear editorial team!
I, the sinful servant of God Nadezhda, decided to ask you to put in a word about not changing the time from the Third Millennium. When you remember about the upcoming transition to “summer time,” your heart will grieve. How much can you please the demon, because on Holy Easter we proclaim: “Christ is Risen!” - at 12 o'clock at night, and by now it is still 11 o'clock. And it’s not all about saving energy, but these are demonic machinations, the devil imposes his will on us. I read this in the book “The Machinations of Demons,” which was written with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus'. Is it really so difficult about the “winter” times, but to leave only the present, God’s time, and not turn the clock hand back and forth? After all, we lived before without this, and nothing... This pain has been in my heart for three years now, and now I decided to at least cry to you. Nadezhda Rozhentseva
, village. Dubinino Krasnoyarsk region
Angel of Time
These two letters arrived at our editorial office almost simultaneously. They are united by a common metaphysical anxiety: what happens to time? Previously, in Soviet schools, we were taught with pathos that “we are responsible for time.” But it was meant that we are responsible for the country, socialism, the people... Now the time has come to worry about TIME ITSELF... Suddenly it turned out that not only we depend on time, but it also depends on us. And we don’t always treat it correctly. What is time? There are hundreds of answers to this simple question, and, therefore, none of them is completely correct, not exhaustive, since some other facets of this almost limitless concept remain outside the brackets. And therefore it is easier to answer this question “negatively”. Time IS NOT eternity, on the contrary, its antipode (but one that only proves the existence of the timeless: if there is time, then it is either finite, and then behind it is the timeless (eternity) or infinite - and then... it’s still eternity ). Time is one of the pseudonyms of death, because when “there is no more time,” as the Gospel says, then “the last enemy will be destroyed - death”()... It can be assumed that for Adam the power of time began from the moment of the Fall - spiritual death. Then it turns out that the power of earthly time over people is caused by sin... Time, as a rule, is unidirectional, irreversible (Priest Pavel Florensky in his wonderful work “Iconostasis” proves that “a sleeper, closing himself off from the external visible world and moving with consciousness to another system , and the measure of time acquires a new one... In a dream, time runs... TOWARDS the present, AGAINST the movement of time of waking consciousness,” that is, we still cannot talk about the absolute irreversibility of time; in a dream it is reversible). And, finally, time is the condition of our salvation, the “material” for the transition to eternity... For only in time is CHOICE possible (the choice between good and evil). That is why “eternal” demons can no longer repent, since time does not exist for them, and the Angels of Light cannot “fall”, because they too are in eternity... That first fall from grace, the rebellion of Lucifer, was in Heaven long before the creation of the earth, and therefore before the CREATION OF TIME. After the creation of time, “choice” became impossible for them. But having fallen under the power of sin, and then of time, it is in time that a person must make his final choice of eternity (hell or heaven). A case is described in the literature that well illustrates the difference between being in time and in eternity. The Mother of God appeared to one lover of God in a dream, holding the Power (symbol of the Globe) in her palm. He asked Her: how does She, the Queen of Heaven, manage to come to the aid of everyone who turns to Her? After all, there are many who ask, but She is one... The Mother of God told him that She (unlike mere mortals) is outside of time, in eternity, and therefore can come to the aid of ALL who turn to Her, even if many people ask Her for intercession at the same time separated by large distances. And as a sign of confirmation of these words, she turned the Power in her hand, as if peering into the “globe” and looking for those who cry out to Her in prayer... The holy fathers clearly speak about the “shortening of time” in the last times before the end of the world (for example, St. Nile the Myrrh-Streaming: “The day will rotate like an hour, the week like a day, the month like a week and the year like a month...”). There is an (admittedly indirect) indication of this in the Holy Scriptures: “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the end of the world until now and will not be. And if those days were not shortened, no flesh would be saved, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened” (Matthew 24). Some interpreters (for example, Theophylact of Bulgaria) understand these words of Christ about the “shortening of time” as a reduction in the NUMBER of days of tribulation, while others understand this as precisely a reduction in the time ITSELF, an acceleration of the flow of time, for the sake of the elect. Both interpretations do not essentially contradict each other.
“Reduction of time” as a real problem that we all face, willy-nilly, by definition cannot be comprehended by the forces of “bare” science. For we are talking here about subjective experiences, spiritual categories, which cannot be the subject of scientific knowledge. This problem was conceptualized at the intersection of philosophy and theology by the great Russian thinker (died in 1988) Alexei Fedorovich Losev (Andronik in monasticism). Here is what he wrote on this issue: “Considering time according to its essence, as it is given to us in living experience, we... state a certain fundamental INSTABILITY, characteristic of the essence of time. Contrary to spatial patterns and definitions, time... is completely heterogeneous” (“Music as a Subject of Logic”, 1927). In his book “Dialectics of Myth” (1930), he develops this idea: real time “is always heterogeneous, compressible, expandable, completely relative and conditional... Since 1914 (the beginning of the First World War - A.Zh.
.) time somehow became denser and began to flow faster.
Apocalyptic expectations in the past (and, apparently, in the present - A.Zh.
) are explained precisely by the condensation of time, close to the end of time and then dissolving. Time, like space, has FOLDS and BREAKS. There are sometimes SHAKES in time... Religious ecstasy is characterized precisely by the cessation or folding of time, the compression of past and future times into one indivisible present point... Time is the pain of history, not understandable by the “scientific” calculation of time.” And here is the same thought, but only expressed in poetic language:
No one knows the secret scope of time, But I don’t believe that it was always the same. Time is insidious, only the pendulum is honest, An unconditional slave to conditionally placed signs.
Maybe the days are sometimes easier, sometimes harder. The rhythm of the earth is not given to us either to know or to measure. After all, together with her we are flying towards a dazzling goal. You have to believe the hands of the clock... (Boris Sadovskoy, 1935) Rationalistic modern European science has “dead” time, given it a mechanical character, but how far this is from the true comprehension of time - a quantity that is by no means rational, but very often emotionally colored, diverse, changing and more reminiscent of a musical structure than the measured clockwork of a modern European “alarm clock”... From the Apocalypse we know that there are Angels of the Sun, winds, etc. It can be assumed that there is also a special Angel of Time, who, by the will of God, “manages” its flow, sometimes speeding up, sometimes, on the contrary, slowing down its progress... Five years ago, in 1996, the famous elder schema-abbot Jerome (Verendyakin) told me about that time like this: “Now there is a calm before the storm...” But then years passed and... the calm began to gradually give way to a storm, the winds of rapid change began to blow. This change in the course of time was felt by the reader from Altai. Yes, time has now become more dense and compressed than ever before. Apparently, we find ourselves in a unique time, which has run away so much that it is difficult to say - is this just another FOLD in it or are the “end times” really coming? Neither I nor anyone else has an answer to this question - for time is in the hands of God, and “about that day and hour” no one knows except the Creator of time, its True Owner. But to reduce this obvious acceleration of time only to “psychology” (as is most often done now), explaining this experience by saying that apocalyptic expectations always intensify at the turn of the century is not only wrong, but also theologically incorrect. These expectations are heightened not because centuries and millennia replace one another, but because when centuries change, time REALLY behaves somehow strangely - not the same as in ordinary non-transitional years. Apparently, this happens because the change of centuries is not only an “earthly”, only a purely calendar concept, but it has its reflection in Heaven. Something is changing in the entire cosmos, in the universe. A new step begins on the path to ETERNITY... It is again incorrect to reduce the whole matter to the subjective experiences of exalted people. Indeed, in this case, the practically proven fact of HETEROGENEITY of time is ignored and, in fact, time is denied its objective properties (only its reflection in the consciousness of people is recognized). How should we feel about “time compression”? Like a reality that can still be resisted. A Christian lives not only in time, but also in eternity. Entering the life of the Church, the Body of Christ, which lives according to completely different laws from the world, in a completely different time (or rather, beyond its limits, in eternity), a person gains the experience of eternity, renounces (although not completely) earthly time . And not to the same extent as others, it is subject to temporary fluctuations. Joshua stopped the movement of the sun and moon by prayer when the people of Israel took revenge on their enemies. It is not in our power to “hold back” time, which is so rapidly rushing towards its end. But to some extent, all of us, Christians, with our prayer slow down the indomitable flight of time, push back times and deadlines...
End
Anton Zhogolev 02/23/2001
Miracles of Elder Nicholas
Every day people who were possessed were brought to the priest. He was very good at driving out evil spirits. He took on even the most difficult cases, scolding people who were abandoned at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. I prepared for such moments in advance, fasted, ate only prosphora and drank holy water.
He could read people's thoughts as if in an open book. I saw fates, and even where the immortal soul will go after death.
At a young age, doctors discovered Nikolai had heart problems. They delivered a disappointing verdict - no more than five years to live. Nikolai Guryanovich lived to be more than eighty. What is this if not a miracle given by the Lord himself? This means that a person was needed who would bring goodness and love to those in need throughout his entire life.
On fine evenings the priest loved to sit on a bench, where the Most Holy Theotokos often visited him. She once told him that this place would one day be holy. And indeed, soon a women’s monastic monastery was erected there - the Kazan St. Tryphon Hermitage. And that bench still stands today. And it is in this monastery that the relics of the perspicacious elder Nicholas are now buried.
Even during his lifetime, Elder Nikolai told where and what would be built, and who would replace him. Hegumen Savvaty was then amazed at the elder’s foresight:
“I was still at school, and he already saw me in spirit.”
The future abbot of the monastery, Savvaty, came to these regions at the age of 21. He had to serve the first service, but timidity suddenly overwhelmed the inexperienced priest. And then he felt the invisible support of Elder Nicholas. It was as if he was standing nearby, helping and suggesting.
Chiliasm
The idea that the final Judgment and the foundation of a new creation will be preceded by the thousand-year Kingdom of Christ on earth originates from non-canonical Jewish apocalypses. It is repeated in John’s Apocalypse: And I saw thrones and those sitting on them, to whom it was given to judge, and the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God <...> They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years <...> When will the thousand end? years, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations located at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog <...> and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from heaven from God and consumed them (Rev. 20:4-9).
This reign of Christ on earth among the revived righteous was understood by a certain Christian environment of the first three centuries, namely, by the Judeo-Christians of Asia Minor, in the literal, literal sense. Chiliasm was adhered to by Papias, Hieromartyr Irenaeus of Lyons, and Hieromartyr Methodius of Olympus.
However, starting from the 4th century, this teaching was unanimously rejected by church tradition, which established that the twentieth chapter of the Apocalypse should be understood symbolically. Among the exegetes of the Apocalypse, two interpretations prevailed: either a thousand years means the life of the Church from the end of persecution by Roman paganism (which in the eighteenth chapter of the Apocalypse is designated as the fall of “Babylon”) until the great tribulation that will precede the Second Coming, or they symbolize the entire period from the resurrection of Christ until the Second Coming[9].
Prophecies of the holy righteous
The simple rural priest was remembered not only for his strong prayer words and ability to heal. The Lord gave him insight; Father Nikolai could see the future. He often said that the end times were just around the corner:
“God forbid we see the Antichrist. He will seem very handsome, so handsome that even a believer will think for a moment: What a handsome man. And that's all. When they show him on TV, he will feel everyone, and the one who thought about him like that will say: You are mine, because you liked me.”
Soon, very soon, people will receive documents with the seal of the Antichrist. He told how the son of Satan would seduce people, tempt them. And many will follow him:
“By the reign of the Antichrist everything will be electronic. They will give everyone numbers and plastic cards, and there will be no money. Before putting a real seal, people will be bombarded with papers, they will get used to it, and then they will put a real seal. People won’t accept the seal right away, and papers take away their minds, then people will accept the seal.”
He said that after his death the great country would fall to pieces. A man with a mark will come to power, and there will be only Masons in the government. They will completely ruin the country, handing it over to the power of the Antichrist.
“When the Masonic movement begins, they will rule, know that the end is near. When freedom begins and people go to Jerusalem, then they will completely lose God.”
This is God's punishment for all Russian people who allowed the regicide.
“The people bear the grave sin of regicide, for which the Lord will not give us not only a good ruler, but also a good shop manager.”
And only when Russians repent as a whole and understand that the iniquities of the current government can only be stopped by a real Russian Tsar, will we all be granted forgiveness.
About
The aspirations of the departed
On this issue, the opinion of the Church Fathers does not coincide with the attitude that has become generally accepted in Western Christianity since the Middle Ages. It was then that the emphasis shifted when explaining the final fate of the individual; the eternal destiny of every person came to be seen as finally determined at the moment of death: saints go straight to heaven, unrepentant sinners go to hell, and those who have yet to atone go to purgatory for a more or less long period, but eventually their salvation is assured. The general resurrection will make only an insignificant addition to the already complete bliss of the elect and to the punishment of the damned. The terrible, final trial will only make clear the verdict that was already finally pronounced by the “private court” at the time of death. Since then, in the West, the importance attached to the Second Coming as the end of history has been greatly diminished, and eschatological aspiration has been diminished both in the life of a Christian and in the life of the Church.
According to the teachings of the Fathers of the Church, people will only enter the place where their final fate is destined for them only at the Second Coming, and for many the final lot will be determined only during the Last Judgment. Until the general resurrection, even the saints themselves, although they are close to Christ, are waiting. About how exactly the ancient Church imagined the state of different categories of the deceased awaiting the Second Coming, the following can be said: first of all, Christian thought is absolutely unanimous in recognizing that our earthly existence is the only one. The Christian faith is incompatible with any assumption of subsequent forms of life and reincarnation. Such concepts are often found in non-Christian philosophical and religious movements, especially those in the Far East, but they are completely alien to Christianity. The basis of the Christian faith is the recognition that man lives on earth once and his eternal fate is decided during this single existence on earth.
Structure of the Apocalypse
Many Christians find the final chapters of the Bible to be the most difficult to understand. When reading, one must take into account the symbolic language of the visions. The images that the author uses are taken from the prophets of the Old Testament, so he maintains the connection between the holy books. Revelation tells believers about the invisible spiritual battles between Good and Evil:
- After a short introduction and greeting, the author describes Jesus Christ in divine glory. Then follow the messages to the seven churches (these are actually existing Christian communities).
- According to John, he was caught up (transferred, raised) to heaven - the place where God dwells. Chapters 4 through 5 describe the worship of the Lamb.
- The story of the opening of the seven seals (6:1 - 8:1).
- Seven trumpets preceding the Judgment (8:2 - 11:9).
- The description of symbolic visions takes up almost 3 chapters (12:1 - 15:8).
- The Last Judgment (17:1 to 22:5) and the Conclusion (22:6 to 21).
The book is small in length, only 22 chapters. Today, various options are available on the Internet - both in the original language (Greek) and translations (Church Slavonic, Synodal, modern Russian). There are a lot of parallel passages in the Apocalypse - references to other books of Holy Scripture (Psalms, Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, New Testament Epistles).
Revelation describes important events predicted in other canonical books. They themselves became objects of study for theologians:
- Second coming of Jesus Christ.
- Birth, activity and destruction of the Antichrist.
- Rapture of the righteous to heaven.
- The Thousand Year Rule of the Believers.
- Last Judgment, New Jerusalem.
Many events are predicted in the Old Testament. For example, the prophets Isaiah, Habakkuk, and Zephanius wrote about the future life in Heaven. Jeremiah spoke of the destruction of the Antichrist.
Apokatastasis
Apokatastasis is a Greek term denoting the restoration of a previously former state, a return to the original position. In Christian eschatology, it denotes the theory that at the end of time the entire created world will be restored to its original harmony and everyone will be saved, including the damned and demons.
This concept is associated with the “mythical” vision of the cosmos that was developed by Origen (c. 185 – c. 254). Origen believed that in the beginning God created a universe consisting of purely spiritual beings; all of them, with the exception of the soul of Christ, used their freedom for evil and suffered more or less severe falls, after which they were dressed in bodies more or less “solid” and in this way became angels, men and demons. At the end of time, as a result of successive purifications, everyone will return to their original state and again form the primordial genad (unit - Transl.), that is, the primitive unity of spiritual beings.
This concept of universal salvation, while denying the eternity of hell, ignores both the incomprehensible mystery of God's love, which is above all our rational or sentimental concepts, and the mystery of the human person and his freedom. God's love presupposes complete respect for His creatures, even to the point of “free impotence” to deny them freedom. The texts of Scripture force us to accept two antinomian statements about the complete victory of God over evil at the end of time and about the possibility of eternal damnation, the second being only the reverse side of the first. Here only the silence of the mind in front of the mystery is appropriate.
That is why the doctrine of apocatastasis, adopted by St. Gregory of Nyssa, and later by the great Syrian mystics Isaac of Nineveh (Syrin - Ed.) and Joseph Hadzaia, was condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council, along with some elements of the doctrine of Origen, which his followers brought into the system. While rejecting the assertion of universal salvation, the Orthodox tradition does not prohibit, of course, fervently praying for the salvation of all people and hoping for their final conversion.
