“Greater love has no one than this, except that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13)
On February 23, our Russian people celebrate Defender of the Fatherland Day. Although it would seem that this is a secular holiday, we can say that this is the patronal holiday of our monastery. The iconography of our church depicts this holiday, this celebration, this veneration of a feat established by God, to which every Christian and every conscious citizen of a society, country, people is called. This feat, this duty is called holy, because it originates from the Gospel Word of Christ “Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). From time immemorial, hundreds, thousands, millions of warriors walked and performed their duty. As they say, there are no unbelievers in the trenches. Evidence of this is one wonderful letter from a simple soldier who was on the front line of the Second World War, miraculously preserved. It was addressed to his mother. He writes a repentant appeal to her: “Forgive me, mom, that I laughed at your faith. But tomorrow our battalion goes on the attack, we are surrounded, I don’t know if I will survive this battle, probably few of us will return home from this battle. But for me now there is a goal and there is happiness: I look at the starry sky, lying in a trench, and I believe that there is One who created me from non-existence into being and who will accept me again. And with this faith I am not afraid.” The Church equates this great feat with the feat of martyrdom. And despite the fact that in the army the morals are peasant, soldierly (as they say that in the army they don’t swear, but talk, and any tenderness and sensitivity is called familiarity, there you need to speak briefly and clearly, and do what is ordered without unnecessary words) . But there is always the Gospel sacrificial Love of Christ. I myself was born and raised in military garrisons and know real officers, served in the army as a monk, lived in remote military units that are deprived of all secular entertainment, pleasure and ordinary human benefits. During that period of the 90s, salaries were not paid for six months, but the military still marched, sometimes at night, and did their duty. And it was clear that they were driven by something more than what drives many people in modern society. I also saw the feat of their wives and mothers. At that time, planes were unreliable and often crashed. They flew over the house. And when my father was on duty at night, we, as children, fell asleep, but we saw that my mother was sitting in the kitchen and could wait until the morning. Now, dear ones, we will honor this feat. Because not only the living, but many who have already given their lives, fulfilling their duty, have departed to another world.
What I wanted to say, I wrote this holiday morning in verse:
This duty is called Holy
Because everything in this world is created only by Holy Love! Because the Lord Himself wrote this Commandment on our hearts: There is no love holier and greater, Who gave his life for others. Only those who fulfilled this duty to the end, those who gave their lives for the Motherland. Who at any moment, in the cold and in the heat, was ready to go into mortal combat for a just cause, to give his life, to shed blood, so that his descendants would continue to live through this. The country is behind us, there is only one goal ahead - To protect the one that is given to us by God - The defenseless life of millions of children, Tears of fragile but faithful mothers in love, Preserve your faith, your father's land and the honor of your daughters, Your great, powerful language and the shrine of churches. So let us honor with a minute of silence those about whom not even words are enough to speak worthily, and let us prayerfully remember their names before the Throne of Him to Whom their lives have been exalted.
On Sunday evening we served a prayer service for world peace, and every day at the Divine Liturgy the Church prays for this. But what is the world? True peace, which each of us and the whole world so lacks, is not just any way, as long as it is quiet and calm. There is no peace between Christ and Belial, and there can be no compromise with sin. But true peace is Christ Himself, Who said: “I am peace.” That is why the Church, when it addresses the coming people through a priest and sends “Peace to all,” it offers to accept Christ into its heart by the Holy Spirit, “proclaims the death of Christ and confesses His Resurrection” (1 Cor. 11:26).
Therefore, before reading the Holy Gospel, this exclamation sounds: “Peace to all!” For it is impossible to hear with your heart and understand with your mind the Gospel Revelation if you do not have peace with your conscience and peace with Christ and your neighbor. And therefore, at the very climax of the Divine Liturgy, in the Eucharistic canon, we give a holy kiss to each other. Now this is happening somewhat spiritually. But the cry remained the same ancient, early Christian one: “Let us love one another, so that with one mind we confess the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” In the Slavic language in Serbia and Montenegro, kissing means love: “kissing an icon” means loving the icon.
It is precisely at this moment of Golgotha, Gethsemane, that we again lack this world. And, perhaps, now the whole world is filled with the dynamics of mutual hatred, envy, distrust, brotherly hatred precisely because, perhaps, in the Church you and I so lack this peace with Christ, with our conscience. All this is a crack in the general edifice of humanity. Each of us must remember this.
Not all were called to be among the twelve and seventy apostles, but, as it is said, many disciples followed Christ and many wives served Him from their property and thus became participants in the apostolic preaching. In the same way, in this holy feat, everyone does not have to wear caps and shoulder straps, but we are all called to this holy feat - to lay down our souls for our friends and enemies. Therefore, you need to prepare now, every day, so that on that day, at the right moment, you are ready to take this step, to make the right decision.
We know that many of our Valaam monks, more than three hundred people, went into the First World War willingly to lay down their souls for their friends. There were many holy warriors in Rus', including monastics. As we know, St. Sergius, blessing Grand Duke Dmitry Donskoy for the holy war of liberation, gave him as a blessing not only his elder word, not only God’s blessing, but also as material proof of his sacrifice, like the Heavenly Father, who sacrificed His Beloved Son, his two close monks Alexander Peresvet and Andrei Oslyabyu, having previously tonsured them into the great schema and sent them to the last battle.
As we know, Peresvet took upon itself a great historical responsibility when, on the Kulikovo Field, a truly turning point came for the history of our entire people, who for many years, centuries, had been under the heavy Tatar-Mongol yoke, which did not allow us to raise our heads and unite into a single people Russian. These were scattered principalities, forced to survive miserably, paying tribute to their occupier. But Saint Sergius, having given his blessing through his two schemamonks, prayed for this people. And so, on this field, when a whole sea of armies gathered (who saw the famous picture of the Kulikovo field - the enemy army was visible to the horizon, approaching the Russian land, and from this view it only became scary and clear that it was impossible to stop it with human efforts) , according to ancient custom, the invincible, enormously tall Chelubey, who was skilled in many wars and battles and had vast experience in warfare, goes out ahead of everyone to battle one on one. He proudly, like Goliath once laughing at the people of Israel, stood and laughed, saying: “Who dares to come against me?” Everyone knew the responsibility of this first battle, because if our chosen one loses this battle, then the spirit of the entire army will fall, and it will be doomed to defeat. For a long time he stood there, mocking him like Goliath, and no one dared to take on this responsibility. And then Schemamonk Alexander Peresvet came forward and said: “I’ll go.” They brought out weapons, armor, and chain mail to him, like royal David. But he refused everything, saying that his Schema would be enough for him. And mounting his horse, he ran out with a spear to meet Chelubey. As one chronicler describing this event says, they pierced each other at full gallop. But the huge Chelubey immediately fell from his horse and remained lying on the field, and Peresvet, being strengthened by God’s grace, victoriously returned to the Russian army in the saddle, showing that God is with us and our cause is just, we will win. This was God's blessing, the blessing of St. Sergius. Let us, dear brothers, try to be worthy of our fathers and grandfathers, and prepare ourselves every day for this holy feat.
Hieromonk David (Legeida),
Valaam, Smolensk Skete, February 23, 2021
THEY WERE SHOOT AT DAWN. The events that will be discussed took place in the winter of 1943–44, when the Nazis made a brutal decision: to use the pupils of Polotsk orphanage No. 1 as donors. German wounded soldiers needed blood. Where can I get it? In children. The first to defend the boys and girls was the director of the orphanage, Mikhail Stepanovich Forinko. Of course, for the occupiers, pity, compassion and, in general, the very fact of such atrocities had no meaning, so it was immediately clear: these are not arguments. But the reasoning became significant: how can sick and hungry children give good blood? No way. They do not have enough vitamins or at least iron in their blood. In addition, there is no firewood in the orphanage, the windows are broken, and it is very cold. Children catch colds all the time, and sick people - what kind of donors are they? Children should be treated and fed first, and only then used. The German command agreed with this “logical” decision. Mikhail Stepanovich proposed to transfer the children and staff of the orphanage to the village of Belchitsy, where there was a strong German garrison. And again, the iron, heartless logic worked. The first, disguised step towards saving the children was taken... And then large, thorough preparations began. The children had to be transferred to the partisan zone and then transported by plane. And so, on the night of February 18-19, 1944, 154 pupils of the orphanage, 38 of their teachers, as well as members of the underground group “Fearless” with their families and partisans of the Shchors detachment of the Chapaev brigade left the village. The children ranged from three to fourteen years old. And that’s it – that’s it! – they were silent, afraid to even breathe. The older ones carried the younger ones. Those who did not have warm clothes were wrapped in scarves and blankets. Even three-year-old children understood the mortal danger - and remained silent... In case the Nazis understood everything and went in pursuit, partisans were on duty near the village, ready to join the battle. And in the forest, a sleigh train - thirty carts - was waiting for the children. The pilots helped a lot. On the fateful night, knowing about the operation, they circled over Belchitsy, diverting the attention of the enemies. The kids were warned: if flares suddenly appear in the sky, they must immediately sit down and not move. During the journey, the column landed several times. Everyone reached the deep partisan rear. Now the children had to be evacuated behind the front line. This had to be done as quickly as possible, because the Germans immediately discovered the “loss”. Being with the partisans became more and more dangerous every day. But the 3rd Air Army came to the rescue, the pilots began to take out children and the wounded, while simultaneously delivering ammunition to the partisans. Two planes were allocated, and special cradled capsules were attached under their wings, which could accommodate several additional people. Plus, the pilots took off without navigators - this place was also saved for passengers. In general, more than five hundred people were taken out during the operation. But now we will talk about only one flight, the very last one. It took place on the night of April 10-11, 1944. Guard Lieutenant Alexander Mamkin was taking the children. He was 28 years old. A native of the village of Krestyanskoye, Voronezh region, a graduate of the Oryol Financial and Economic College and the Balashov School. By the time of the events in question, Mamkin was already an experienced pilot. He has at least seventy night flights behind German lines. That flight was not his first in this operation (it was called “Zvezdochka”), but his ninth. Lake Večelje was used as an airfield. We also had to hurry because the ice became more and more unreliable every day. The R-5 plane carried ten children, their teacher Valentina Latko and two wounded partisans. At first everything went well, but when approaching the front line, Mamkin’s plane was shot down. The front line was left behind, and the P-5 was burning... If Mamkin had been alone on board, he would have gained altitude and jumped out with a parachute. But he was not flying alone. And he was not going to let the boys and girls die. It was not for this reason that they, who had just begun to live, escaped the Nazis on foot at night in order to break up. And Mamkin was flying the plane... The flames reached the cockpit. The temperature melted the flight goggles, sticking to the skin. Clothes and a headset were burning; it was hard to see in the smoke and fire. Little by little, only bones remained of the legs. And there, behind the pilot, there was crying. The children were afraid of fire, they did not want to die. And Alexander Petrovich flew the plane almost blindly. Overcoming hellish pain, already, one might say, legless, he still stood firmly between the children and death. Mamkin found a site on the shore of a lake, not far from Soviet units. The partition that separated him from the passengers had already burned through, and the clothes on some of them had begun to smolder. But death, swinging its scythe over the children, could not bring it down. Mamkin didn’t give it. All passengers survived. Alexander Petrovich, in a completely incomprehensible way, was able to get out of the cabin himself. He managed to ask: “Are the children alive?” And I heard the voice of the boy Volodya Shishkov: “Comrade pilot, don’t worry! I opened the door, everyone is alive, let’s go out...” And Mamkin lost consciousness. The doctors could not explain how a man could drive a car and even land it safely, whose glasses were melted into his face, and only bones remained from his legs? How was he able to overcome the pain and shock, with what efforts did he maintain his consciousness? The hero was buried in the village of Maklok in the Smolensk region. From that day on, all the fighting friends of Alexander Petrovich, meeting under a peaceful sky, drank the first toast “To Sasha!”... To Sasha, who grew up without a father from the age of two and remembered his childhood grief very well. For Sasha, who loved boys and girls with all his heart. For Sasha, who bore the last name Mamkin and himself, like a mother, gave life to the children.
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Today my mother called and said in a trembling voice, “The bear is dead!” My friend, never discouraged, an optimist at heart, he believed that everything would work out! Everything turned out differently; he did not live to see thirty. “Forever young and forever drunk” - that’s what the guys from the neighboring yard said about him. He is already the fifth of my close friends this year! I remember with a smile how we all sat together in the yard over a bottle of homemade wine and dreamed of his marriage to Svetlana, the girl from the next door. A busty blonde, by the way, I don’t know where she is now, the last time she was seen was at the bus station, dirty and unkempt, she reeked of fumes a few meters away. She walked around with her hand outstretched and asked passers-by for change for bread, supposedly to feed the children. Yes, I remember once almost every high school student at our school dreamed of dating her. The first time she tried the drug was with Mishka, at a time when he and I were already heavily on the needle. Then we didn’t think about what would happen to each of us next. At that time, I was worried about only one question: where to find money for the next dose. Later we were separated in prison; Mikhail was sentenced to three years for theft. During this time, I tried many times to quit drugs in different hospitals and drug treatment clinics, but it was all in vain. Having been freed, he wanted to start a new life, get a job, get married. All these hopes were dispelled two weeks later, when he and I plunged headlong into drugs and booze even more than ever. Six years have passed since then, five of which I am in the Spaso-Preobrazhensky rehabilitation center. He died of cirrhosis of the liver, as eyewitnesses say, in terrible agony. The disease ate him up in just a month, in front of his poor mother. And so with almost every one of my comrades! I often ask myself the question, why did God let me live? How was I better than my friends who are no longer alive? Perhaps I can somehow serve Him and the people living nearby. I understand that in return for this gift, I must bear fruit worthy of repentance. My entire earthly existence now has no right to be meaningless, every minute of my life must benefit people, no matter what the cost. The goal of my life is to help people who die from alcohol and drugs, to prove by example that it is possible to free themselves from this harmful addiction. Saint John Chrysostom says, “When I want to do something evil, I don’t see any obstacles, but as soon as I plan something good, they immediately appear.” The same thing happens in my life when I try to serve people and the church with the gift that God gave me. On this path there are many temptations and temptations; often parting with your former life and beliefs is a very painful process. Every morning I get up and ask God for strength to live this day with dignity!
