The desire to do something for the deceased is common to all people. This concerns not only the conduct of certain funeral rites, but also ideas about what happens to a person after death, about his posthumous fate. Christian doctrine directs daily prayer practice not only for the benefit of the living, but also to alleviate the posthumous fate of deceased believers.
Prayer is the link between the living and the dead
The writer Yulia Voznesenskaya has no doubt about this. In her book with the sonorous title “My Posthumous Adventures”, she managed to show how close the connection is between people - both between the living and the dead, between relatives and just friends and acquaintances, those who live now and those who have died dozens of times, or even hundreds of years ago.
Communication between people living in different worlds is maintained through prayer.
Believers know that their relatives are not gone forever, because with God everyone is alive. They continue to need our love and care. But all this can be conveyed to them through prayer.
The Orthodox Church teaches that 40 days after death it is determined where a person will remain until the Second Coming of Christ. But this is not a final decision yet. Where a person will go - to the Kingdom of Heaven or to hell - will be known after the Last Judgment. Therefore, even if he did not go through the ordeal, but they pray for him, there is hope for salvation.
Prayer for the departed
Prayer is the connecting link between God and man. We turn to God with words of gratitude when joyful events happen in our lives. We ask for intercession and admonition if we find ourselves in difficult life situations. We pray for forgiveness of sins when our conscience tells us that our actions alienate us from God. When loved ones die, our prayer goes up to the Lord for the deceased.
Prayer for the departed
How can friends and family help the deceased?
First of all, you need to pray for this person and give alms. How to pray? This is a more intimate question if it relates specifically to individual prayer.
It is useful to read the Psalter and Gospel for the deceased for the first forty days after death, and the same amount before the anniversary - “Akathist for the one who died.” There are also many prayers - parents for their children, widowers for their spouses, for all Orthodox Christians. No one canceled individual petitions in their own words.
Prayer truly benefits both the dead and the living. The prayer of the Church also plays a huge role. Notes can only be submitted for those baptized in Orthodoxy. Why? Because how can we pray for those who have not yet sought Christ during their lifetime?
The Church has special services at which the deceased are remembered - memorial services. You can also order magpies (commemorations for 40 days), the indestructible Psalter (for 40 days, six months or a year).
Prayer for one who died up to 40 days
A one-dead person is a deceased person for whom a special prayer is read immediately after death, even before burial. It is read only once. In addition, in Orthodoxy it is customary to read the Psalter over the body - the book of the Tanakh and the Old Testament, written by King David.
During the three days during which the body is in the house, loved ones must read the Psalter in full. This practice is becoming a thing of the past; today, rarely does anyone keep a body in the house for three days. They try to bury the deceased as quickly as possible. But nothing prevents you from reading psalms of praise after burial, since this can also bring great benefit to another soul who has departed into the world.
There is a special canon about the one who died. If desired, immediately after death and before burial, you can read it over the body once.
"Saving Bread"
But the commemoration of both the living and the dead at the proskomedia is of particular importance. For each person commemorated, the priest takes out a piece of prosphora and immerses it in the communion cup with the words “Wash away, O Lord, the sins of those commemorated here (here) by Thy honest Blood, by the prayers of Thy saints.”
In the book “My Posthumous Adventures,” Yulia Voznesenskaya symbolically shows the “action” of such a prayer.
When the main character was wandering in the next world, falling into lack of will and unconsciousness, a bird began to fly to her, bringing white bread every day. After eating this food, the heroine began to remember who she was and where she was striving, she wanted to become better, to save herself. It turns out that it was her friend who submitted notes to the proskomedia.
Through the prayers of the saints... relatives
But not only the living can pray, but also the deceased who are with God. The fact that in another world our grandparents pray for us (perhaps repeatedly with the prefix pra-) is not at all an invention. It just corresponds to reality on the condition that these people were believers and deserved special grace from God (they became saints).
It turns out that if they strove for God during their lifetime, then after death they acquired a special gift - to continue to pray for all their relatives.
The main character of the book “My Posthumous Adventures”, after entering the afterlife, meets her priest grandfather, who suffered for his faith in Soviet times. He is a saint, so he prays especially hard for his granddaughter. It was he who begged God to return the heroine’s soul to her body (so that she would have time to repent).
Hieromartyr Eugene, that was the name of the hero, begged not only his granddaughter. Before this, at his request, his daughter also got rid of hellish torment, and he also helped many relatives who lived before him.
There is nothing strange in this: we turn to many saints every day, even though they died hundreds of years ago. And there is no doubt that they hear us. Is it possible to doubt when you receive healing from an illness, help in various everyday needs?
Pray for the dead
The pious custom of praying for the dead dates back to ancient times. Already in the liturgy of the Apostle James, the brother of the Lord, a prayer was introduced for the dead.
St. Dionysius the Areopagite in his book “On the Church Hierarchy” writes: “The priest with humility must pray for the grace of God, that the Lord may forgive the deceased the sins that arise from human weakness, and may he dwell in the land of the living, in the bosom of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
Tertullian in his book “On the Warrior’s Crown” says: “We make an offering for the dead every year on the day on which they died.”
St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, in the fifth sermon, in which he explains the liturgy, says: “We create the memory of those who have died before: first, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, so that through their prayers and supplications God may accept our prayers; then we pray for the dead St. fathers and bishops and, finally, about all those who have died among us, firmly believing that this brings great benefit to the souls for whom the prayer of the holy and terrible sacrifice is offered on the altar.”
Origen, in his interpretation of the book of Job, says: “We commemorate the saints and our parents or piously honor the memory of friends who died in the faith, both rejoicing in their coolness, and asking for a pious death for ourselves in the faith.”
St. Basil the Great, after the consecration of St. Darov, in a prayer placed in his liturgy, turns to the Lord with the words: “Remember, Lord, all those who have fallen before in the hope of the resurrection of eternal life.”
St. John Chrysostom in one of his teachings instructs that we can help the deceased not with tears, but with prayers, alms and offerings.
Blessed Augustine says: “Listen, brethren: we should not show mercy to the poor alone during our lives, but let us try to show it to the dead as well... pray for the dead, so that when they are in a blessed life, they too will pray for you.”
In addition to the aforementioned St. Fathers and teachers of the church, Athanasius the Great, Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem, Gregory Dvoeslov and many others testify to the saving benefits of prayers offered for the dead.
From St. The saints of God and the archpastors of our Orthodox Church are edified, asked and insisted on praying for the dead: St. Demetrius of Rostov, Tikhon of Zadonsk, Filaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, Innocent, Archbishop of Kherson, etc.
St. Demetrius of Rostov says: “Church prayer and the offering of a bloodless sacrifice intercede and entreat the Most Good God for the departed” (Part V, p. 110).
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What motivates us to pray for the dead? According to the word of Christ, we must love our neighbors as ourselves, and in the prayerful memory of the dead our love is manifested as completely unselfish and intimate, the greatest. And how dear this love is to the dead, bringing them, the helpless, help! And, on the contrary, how ruthless we are when we forget about the dead!
True, many, after the death of those close to them - either friends, relatives, or acquaintances, wanting to preserve their memory, keep some of their things, especially those they loved, preserve their images (portraits, photographic cards), arrange expensive monuments, lining their graves flowers or trees. But is this what they need? Is this memory dear to them? After all, it’s quite similar to how someone would offer a flower with a pleasant smell instead of bread to someone dying of hunger.
The only thing the dead need is our prayer, our charity for their souls. We, expressing various signs of our memory towards them, forget the most important thing - to pray for them.
Erecting expensive monuments and decorating them as best an inventive mind can suggest, spending hundreds and thousands of rubles on them, at the same time we regret giving a beggar a pound of bread or covering the nakedness of a naked person for the sake of the soul of the deceased.
Would our hearts really not be touched by compassion if we saw a child, stuck in the mud, drowning in it, and would not take him out? The child does not have the strength to crawl out of the mud on his own, and so we give him a helping hand.
In the same way, the dead, being in sinful darkness, in a place of torment, are deprived of the opportunity to cleanse themselves of sins, to free themselves from a bitter fate, since after death there is no repentance. Who can help them if not the living? Meanwhile, the living, often close, even relatives, forget about them, the children of their parents, the parents of children, the brothers of sisters, the sisters of brothers forget. For the most part, everyone has one concern about appearance and about the ostentatious side, about what others can see, but their soul, their difficult fate, is on the sidelines.
We must believe that when we pray for the dead, we pray at the same time for ourselves, because for our mercy towards the dead the Lord sends us His mercy, for our prayerful memory of them the Lord remembers us, in His mercy. We must believe that no good is forgotten or wasted. Especially when we pray for the souls of the departed, remembering them in our home or church prayer, accompanying this memory with alms for them - this goodness of ours is especially pleasing to the All-Merciful God, and He, in His all-wise and almighty goodness, arranges it this way: whoever prays for the dead, they will certainly also pray for them after death.
Even if one of us, after death, does not have a single soul of relatives or friends left, then, by the goodness of God, there will still be prayer books who will create remembrance for him. And vice versa: if someone does not pray for the dead, forgets them, does not think about their fate after the grave, everyone will forget him after his death, they will not pray for him, and he will be alien to everyone, he will moan and cry, and no one from the world of the living will not help him, everyone will forget him, even his children will forget him; such an inexplicable, unchanging world order: everything is weighed, counted and measured - measure according to the least measure, it will be measured to you (Mark 4:24).
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Here are a few examples from which it is clear what irreplaceable benefits the dead receive when they are prayed for.
The High Priest's Eternal Torment
Once the great ascetic St. Macarius of Egypt, walking in the desert, saw a human skull on the road. “When I,” he says, “touched the skull with a palm stick, he said something to me. I asked him:
- Who are you?
The skull responded:
“I was the chief of the pagan priests.
—What is it like for you pagans in the next world? - asked St. Macarius.
“We are on fire,” answered the skull, “the flames cover us from head to toe, and we do not see each other; but when you pray for us, then we begin to see several of each other, and this gives us joy” (Chronicles Reading, part 2, 1821).
About a monk who escaped posthumous punishment
St. Gregory Dvoeslov tells such a case. One brother, who was in his monastery, for violating the vow of non-covetousness, to the fear of others, was deprived of church burial and prayer for 30 days upon death, and then, out of compassion for his soul, a bloodless sacrifice was made for him with prayer for 30 days. On the last of these days, the deceased appeared in a vision to his surviving brother and said: “Until now I suffered severely, but now I feel good, and I am in the light, for today I entered into fellowship.” Thus, through a saving bloodless sacrifice, the deceased brother escaped punishment (“Conversations of Gregory Dvoeslov”, book IV, chapter 55).
About a novice who lived in carelessness
One of the God-bearing fathers, says St. John of Damascus had a disciple who lived in carelessness. When this disciple was overtaken by death in such a moral state, the humane Lord, after prayers offered by the elder with tears, showed him his disciple, engulfed in flames up to the neck. When his elder labored a lot and prayed for the forgiveness of the sins of the deceased, God showed him a young man standing waist-deep in fire. Then, when the good man added new labors to his labors, God in a vision showed the disciple to the elder completely freed from torment (“The Word about those who have fallen asleep in the faith” - Chronicle reading, 1827, part 26).
The story of two chatty fast women
During the life of Venerable Benedict, says St. Gregory Dvoeslov, there were two fasting women who, famous for the holiness of their lives, had an unfortunate passion for saying a lot, and a lot of false and harmful things. The holy elder begged them to hold their tongues and even threatened them with excommunication for disobedience. But the passion for lies was so ingrained that even the threat did not stop them. After some time, they died. These fasting women were buried in the church. When the deacon during the liturgy exclaimed: “Depart from the catechumen,” they, as if excommunicated, left the church, which some pious Christians saw. When the Monk Benedict was informed about this, this holy man sent a prosphora to the church where they were buried, ordering that a portion be taken out of it for the repose of their souls and to remember them. After this, no one saw them leave the church, and the faithful realized that the prayers for them had propitiated God, and they received forgiveness from Him (“Conversations of Gregory the Dvoeslov”, book II, chapter 23).
About a young monk who secretly visited his parents
In the life of Rev. Venedikt, another case is given that demonstrates how much commemoration means to the dead. So, in the monastery where the Rev. lived. Benedict, there was one rather young monk who, out of excessive love for his parents, secretly left the monastery almost every day, leaving without the blessing of his superior. And finally, God’s punishment befell him. Arriving, as usual, at his parents’ house, he died suddenly. They let the monastery know about this, and the brethren buried the deceased. But what? The next day in the morning they saw the body of the deceased thrown out of the coffin. They buried him again, and again the next day the body was outside the coffin. Then they said to St. Benedict, and he ordered a bloodless sacrifice to be made for him and, putting part of the St. Gifts on the face of the deceased, interred. Indeed, after this, the body of the deceased no longer erupted from the coffin, which clearly testified to the granting of God’s mercy to him through the prayers of the monastery brethren (Life of St. Venerable Benedict, March 14).
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If the prayerful remembrance of the departed brings joy and salvation to the departed souls, then the prayer that is accompanied by deeds of mercy, such as alms, offerings to St. temple of candles, oil, incense, etc.
Here are a few examples demonstrating the beneficial nature of almsgiving in memory of the dead.
About a monk who broke his vow of non-covetousness
The prologue tells that the blessed Cyrus Luke had a brother, who, even after entering the monastic rank, cared little about his soul. In a state of such carelessness, his death befell him. Blessed Luke, grieving that his brother did not prepare as he should for death, prayed to God to reveal his fate. One day the elder saw his brother’s soul in the power of evil spirits, and immediately after this vision he sent to inspect his cell. Those sent found money and things there, from which the elder concluded that his brother’s soul was suffering, among other things, for violating the vow of non-covetousness. The elder gave everything he found to the poor for the repose of his soul. After this, during prayer, the elder saw in a vision a judgment seat, at which the Angels of light were arguing with the spirits of evil about the soul of a deceased brother. The elder hears the cry of evil spirits: “Our soul, it did our deeds!” But the Angels tell them that she has been delivered from their power by the alms given for her. To this the spirits of evil objected: “Did the deceased give alms? Isn’t this the old man?” pointing to blessed Luke. The ascetic answered: “Yes, I did alms, but not for myself, but for this soul.” The desecrated spirits, having heard the elder’s answer, went bankrupt, and the elder, calmed by the vision, stopped grieving over the fate of his brother (Prologue, August 12).
About negligent sisters
In the life of the Venerable Abbess Athanasia we find the following narrative. Before her death, Abbess Afanasia bequeathed to the sisters of her monastery to feed the poor in her memory for up to 40 days. Meanwhile, the sisters invited beggars only for 10 days, and then, due to negligence, did not fulfill the will of their former boss. And what? Abbess Athanasia appeared from the afterlife and reproached that the sisters had violated her request, saying: “Let it be known to everyone that alms and food for the hungry, done up to forty days for the soul of the deceased, appease God. If the souls of the departed are sinful, then through this they receive remission of sins from the Lord; and if they are righteous, then charity for them serves to save the benefactors” (Ch. Menaion, April 12).
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There are many examples from which it is clear that the deceased themselves expect living prayers for themselves, appear to them in a dream or in a waking state, assuring them that they need prayerful remembrance of them, asking for it, showing this in various signs or images.
Mysterious bathhouse attendant
St. Gregory the Dvoeslov says that a certain presbyter used to wash in greenhouses. One day, having come to the bathhouse, he found some husband unknown to him there, who began to help him undress. The stranger took off the presbyter's boots and took his clothes for safekeeping. When the presbyter left the bathhouse, he gave him a linen to wipe off the sweat, helped him get dressed, and did all this with great respect.
This was repeated several times, that is, this presbyter, coming to the bathhouse, met a stranger who silently did him a favor. Wanting to express his gratitude to him for his diligence, the presbyter one day, going to the bathhouse, took two prosphoras with him to give them to a stranger; and so, as usual, he met him here. Then, when he left the bathhouse, he asked to accept the prosphora as a sign of love for him. The stranger said to him weeping:
- Father! Why are you giving this to me? I can't eat. I was once the owner of this place, but I am condemned here for my sins. If you want to do something for me, then bring this bread to Almighty God for me, and pray for my sins, and know that when you come here to wash and don’t find me here anymore, this will mean that your prayer has been heard by God.
Having said this, the stranger instantly became invisible. Then the presbyter realized that the stranger, who had hitherto appeared in the bathhouse to serve him, was a spirit. The presbyter spent a whole week for him in tears and prayer for the forgiveness of his sins, making a bloodless sacrifice every day. A week later he came back to the bathhouse and no longer found the stranger here and after that he never met him (“Conversations of Gregory the Dvoeslov”, book IV , chapter 55).
The story of Deacon Paskhazia
There was in the Roman Church, says Gregory Dvoeslov, a deacon named Paschasius, a man of exemplary life, merciful to the poor and strict with himself. When in his time, in place of the deceased Pope of Rome, two persons were presented to the electoral council - Lawrence and Symmachus, and when the latter was unanimously elected and elevated to the episcopal throne, then Paschasius, committed to Lawrence, was indignant at the election of the council, considering it incorrect, and in this Due to the sin of indignation at the shepherds who dedicated Symmachus, he died.
Some time after his death, Paschasius appears to Bishop Germanus and tells him: “I am at the place of punishment for the fact that, holding on to Lawrence, I thought against Symmachus; but you pray to the Lord, and if in a few days I do not appear to you again, then know that your prayer has been heard.”
The pious bishop fulfilled the request; and since no new appearance followed, he was convinced that his humble prayer had won eternal peace for the soul of Paschasius (“The Word about those who have fallen asleep in faith” - Chronical reading, 1827, part 26).
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A few more examples from a very close time to us.
Vision of eternal torment
One of the Athonite ascetics revealed the following to the holy mountain dweller, the famous Father Seraphim: “The reason for my entry into monasticism was a vision in a dream of the afterlife fate of sinners. After a two-month illness, I became very exhausted. In this state, I saw two young men come in to me. They took my hands and said:
- Follow us!
I, not feeling sick, got up, looked back at my bed and saw that my body was lying calmly on the bed. Then I realized that I had left earthly life and must appear in the afterlife. In the faces of the young men I recognized the Angels with whom I went. I was shown fiery places of torment; I heard the cries of the sufferers there. The angels, showing me for which sin which place of fire was assigned, added:
“If you don’t give up your habits of sinful life, then this is your place of punishment!”
Following this, one of the Angels snatched one man from the flame, who was black as coal, completely burned and shackled from head to toe. Then both Angels approached the sufferer, removed his shackles - and with them all his blackness disappeared: he became pure and bright, like an Angel. Then the Angels clothed him in a shining robe like light.
“What does this change in this man mean?” I decided to ask the Angels.
“This is a sinful soul,” answered the Angels, “having been excommunicated from God for its sins, it should burn forever in this flame; Meanwhile, the parents of this soul gave a lot of alms, made frequent commemorations at liturgies, held funeral services, and for the sake of the parental prayers and the prayers of St. Church, God was appeased, and perfect forgiveness was granted to the sinful soul. She is delivered from eternal torment and will now appear before the face of her Lord and will rejoice with all His saints.
When the vision ended, I came to my senses and what did I see? They stood around me and cried, preparing my body for burial” (“The Wanderer,” 1862, May).
About the bishop's choirboy
In 1871, a singer in my choir died of epidemic cholera, no more than 24 years old, as Archbishop Neil reported. Nine days after his death, precisely on the morning of July 16, he appeared to me in a dream. After some questions were made by the saint who had appeared, the archbishop was asked:
- How do you feel?
“I’m sad,” answered the singer.
- How can we help this? - asked the bishop.
- Pray for me: to this day, funeral liturgies for me have not been performed.
At these words, my soul was indignant, says His Eminence, and I began to apologize to the deceased for not ordering the magpie, but that I would certainly do so. The last words apparently calmed the interlocutor who had appeared from another world” (“Soulful Reflections” (1878 - 1879), pp. 131 and 132).
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Receiving joy and relief from the prayers of the living, the dead sometimes appear and thank their prayer books or try to do something in turn to help them.
Father's gratitude
In one village, an old sexton died suddenly. He had a son - an official. The unexpected death of his father struck his son. The afterlife fate of the deceased haunted the good son for almost a whole year. Knowing that in the liturgy the most important time for commemorating the dead is the time of singing: “We sing to You, we bless You...”, the sad son, being in the church at that very time (it was on Spiritual Day), with special zeal began to pray to God for repose my father. And what? On Tuesday night, he sees in a dream his father, who bowed to the ground three times and, with the last bow, said: “I thank you, my son” (“The Wanderer,” 1864, December).
Request from a deceased relative
Returning from Matins on the first day of Easter, I, reports A.E.B., went to bed, and had barely forgotten myself when I heard at my very bedside that someone was crying bitterly. My heart sank with pity: afraid to open my eyes, I timidly asked: “Nadya, is that you, my dear?” - and I was afraid to hear the answer, because it occurred to me that perhaps my sister Nadya, who had died long ago, having not received bliss in eternal life, appeared to me to ask for prayer, but she answered my question in a gentle, sad girlish voice, trembling with sobs , came the answer: “No, I’m not Nadya.”
-Who are you? - I asked. - Tell me, what do you need? I'll do everything.
Then the sobs intensified and the crying woman answered:
- I am Varvara P., for God’s sake, pray for me, remember me during the liturgy.
I promised, and the sobs subsided. I opened my eyes, the room was already light and there was no one.
When P.’s relatives came to us, I asked my husband’s brother-in-law what the name of his sister was, who died recently in Moscow. He answered: “Varvara Nikolaevna.” Then I conveyed my vision. He was amazed by the story and immediately became concerned about commemorating his sister (“Soulful Reflections” 1882, issue 5).
The story of the drowned dragoman
In November 1851, our singers left us for Jerusalem, says Father Seraphim of the Holy Mountain. Monk N., who a little earlier wanted to leave the monastery, was given to them as a dragoman (translator from Eastern languages). God knows what his life was like, especially in Jerusalem; Only later was his abuse of the name of the monastery discovered: he made a false signature of the abbot on a sheet with the official monastery seal and made collections in Palestine with this sheet. The period of their wanderings has happily ended; Easter has passed; our singers left Jaffa for Sinai, and N., among the Russian fans, boarded a ship departing from Jaffa to us on Athos.
On the first night, when everyone had settled down in their places on the ship, in the darkness of the night, during the rocking, N., dressed in a Russian fur coat, for some reason made his way to the front of the ship and, God knows how, he broke off and flew into the sea... It was heard three times to the ship a voice begging him: “Save! Save!”, but after a few minutes these words died away in the distance, and the very sound of the voice merged with the howl of the wind and storm. N. drowned.
A week after this misfortune, precisely at the end of November, one of the monastic brethren S. was suddenly struck by a vision. The drowned man N. enters his cell and, having just crossed the threshold, said:
- Don’t be scared of me, I’m not a ghost, but really N.
Brother S. peered into the face of the deceased and asked with incredulity:
- Aren't you a devil?
“No,” answered the one who appeared, “I am truly N.”
“Read: “May God rise again,” S. told him, “and cross yourself, then I will believe that you are not a demon.”
“You cross me,” the person who appeared remarked, “and read May God rise again, then you will be convinced that I am definitely N.”
S. crossed himself and began to read a prayer. When it came to the words: “So let the demons perish on behalf of those who love God,” N. interrupted him and read: “So let the sinners perish from the face of God, and let the righteous rejoice,” and, taking a deep breath, thought. Then he humbly began to ask that they pray for him.
- Do you need our prayers? - asked S.
- Oh, and how I still need it! - he answered with a sigh and, taking S.’s hand and squeezing it tightly, he continued:
- Please pray for me.
“Yes, I don’t know how to pray for myself either,” objected S., “you have to ask your confessor about this.”
“And ask,” said the one who appeared, “ask all the brethren to pray for me.”
“Sit down,” S. told him.
- Oh no, I was given a little time, and I flew here from afar and was in a hurry...
Then it suddenly occurred to S. to ask N. to make peace with the brethren.
N. thought for a moment, then sighed and said sadly:
- It’s not the time now.
Meanwhile, S. noticed that the deceased had a hole in his skull.
- What do you have? from what? - he asked the one who appeared, pointing to the broken place.
“And when the waves brought me to the shore, my head smashed on a stone.”
Then, again asking that they pray for him, N. hastily said that it was time for him to return, and disappeared (Works of Svyatogorets. - Letter to Friends, Vol. III).
A wonderful icon of a fallen officer
On July 2, 1893, the rector of the Peter and Paul Church, Father Dimitry Koiko, and one of the members of the local intelligentsia, a man with a higher education, appeared to His Grace Martinian, Bishop of Tauride and Simferopol, and reported to the Bishop about the following.
On the night of June 30th, the said person had a dream that some officer with a bloody bandage on his head approached him and asked him to convey the question to the priest of the Peter and Paul Church: “Why doesn’t he pray for him, and also doesn’t pray to those saints of God, whose relics are in the icon he donated, and he added that on Elijah this image will be 200 years old.”
The one who saw this dream immediately in the morning went to the rector of the Peter and Paul Church and told him his dream. To this o. Dimitri noticed that there is no 200-year-old icon in the church, since the church itself has existed only since 1805, and there are also no icons with particles of relics, but that he is surprised by the appearance of the officer in a dream, since there is an icon in the church, which, as he said His predecessor, Archpriest Rudnev, now deceased, was brought to him by some officer during the Crimean campaign and left in the church under the condition that if he returned from Sevastopol, he would take the icon back, but if he did not return, he would donate it to the temple. The unknown officer did not return, and the icon remained in the church.
This coincidence of the dream about the officer with the above-mentioned icon prompted Fr. Dimitri Koiko to inspect this shrine, and Fr. Demetrius testified both to the person who conveyed the dream and subsequently to the bishop that, being a member of the church for 14 years, he never once opened that image. The deacon was immediately sent for, and all three persons went to the church to examine the icon. The icon represented a cypress board on which the Holy Trinity was depicted in ancient painting, as well as the faces of several saints. A silver cross was placed in a special recess. When they took it out with great difficulty, it turned out that it moved apart, and in the middle of it they found the relics of St. Lazarus, St. great martyr Theodore Stratelates, St. ap. and ev. Luke and St. firstmuch. and archid. Stefan. The inscriptions indicated that there were also other particles, including the first particle. Thekla. But those viewing it were in for an even greater surprise: at the bottom of the cross, in barely noticeable Slavic script, there was a carved inscription reading 7201 from the creation of the world, and therefore, that year the icon turned 200 years old.
When this was reported to His Eminence Martinian, the Bishop ordered that funeral litanies for the soldiers who died on the battlefield for the Faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland be performed daily in this church (“Light”, 1893, No. 189).
Chained Priest
In one parish, on the occasion of the death of a priest, his place was taken by another. But, to the regret of the parishioners, the newly appointed priest, a few days after the first service he performed in the church, passed away into eternity. A new priest was appointed. Upon arrival at the parish, he took office and on the first Sunday went to church for worship. Entering the altar, the priest involuntarily fixed his gaze on one object that terribly struck him: near the throne stood an unfamiliar priest in full vestments, bound hand and foot with iron chains. Not understanding what this meant, the new clergyman, however, did not lose his spirit and began to celebrate the Divine Liturgy.
As soon as the service was over, when the new mass was being celebrated in surprise, the ghost suddenly disappeared. The officiating priest realized that the priest he saw was an inhabitant of the afterlife; but I couldn’t figure out what his extraordinary appearance in such a terrifying form meant. He only noticed that the prisoner and brother, unknown to him, did not utter a word during the entire Service and only from time to time, raising his shackled hands, pointed to one place on the platform in the altar, on which, apparently, there was nothing special. The same thing was repeated in the next service, with the only difference being that the new priest, upon entering the altar, first of all paid attention to the place to which the ghost was pointing. In the corner on the floor, near the altar, he noticed an old small bag. When he untied it, he found in it a considerable number of notes with the names of dead and living persons, which are usually given for commemoration at the proskomedia.
As if by inspiration from above, the priest realized that these notes, during the life of his shackled brother standing here, who was the rector of the same church, probably remained unread by him at one time. Therefore, having begun the service, he first of all remembered at the proskomedia the names of the living and the dead, how many there were in the notes, and immediately saw what an important service he had rendered to the afterlife inhabitant by fulfilling what the latter had to do during his earthly life, for he barely As soon as he finished reading the aforementioned notes, the iron shackles fell off the prisoner’s hands and feet in an instant, and he himself approached the serving priest and, without saying a word, bowed at his feet to the face of the earth. Then suddenly neither he nor the iron shackles were visible. After this, the creature from beyond the grave no longer appeared during the divine service (“The Wanderer,” 1867, vol. I).
The afterlife messenger
In 1831, on February 28, Infantry General Stepan Stepanovich Apraksin died in Moscow. In his young years, he briefly met Prince Vasily Vladimirovich Dolgorukov. Both of them served in the same regiment: the first with the rank of colonel, the second - major. Dolgorukov died in 1789 in complete poverty, so there was no means to bury him. His friend Stepan Stepanovich Apraksin arranged the burial and commemoration of the prince at his own expense; it seemed as if he had paid his last debt to his own brother.
On the third day after the funeral, the deceased Dolgorukov appeared to his benefactor in order to bring him his gratitude. The mysterious guest predicted a long and prosperous life on earth for his constant and compassionate friend and promised to appear shortly before his death.
After that, the good Apraksin was especially attentive to the needs of the poor and rejoiced whenever an opportunity for charity presented itself to him.
42 years passed, and, true to his promise, Prince Dolgorukov visited the elder general a second time at ten o’clock in the evening. First of all, the prince considered it necessary to remind him of himself and the benefit that had been shown to him many years ago, then he exhorted his friend to prepare for death, which would follow in 20 days, promised to visit him again three days before his death, and suddenly left from the room.
Apraksin believed the words of the afterlife messenger: he confessed, took communion and was blessed with oil. Three days before his death, he invited one of his friends to stay with him for the night. At 11 o'clock at night Dolgorukov appeared and entered into a conversation with Elder Apraksin. His friend who was present later told many that during Apraksin’s conversation with Dolgorukov, he felt involuntary fear, although he did not see the prince who appeared, but he heard his voice.
Three days later Apraksin died. After his death, rumors circulated in Moscow for a long time about his meetings with the late Dolgorukov (“Soulful reading”, 1867, part I).
Dream of Saint Philaret of Moscow
One priest with particular zeal commemorated the dead during the liturgy, so that if someone once gave him a note of commemoration, he wrote down the names of the deceased in his synodik and, without telling the person who submitted it, he commemorated them all his life. Following this rule, he compiled a synodik with such a multi-thousand-strong list of names that he had to divide it into sections and commemorate them in turn.
It happened that he fell into some kind of error, so that he was threatened with removal from the parish. The case was transferred to Moscow Metropolitan Philaret, and when the Right Reverend was about to put down a resolution to eliminate him, he suddenly felt some kind of heaviness in his hand. The Metropolitan postponed signing the journal until the next day. At night he sees a dream: a crowd of people of different ranks and ages has gathered in front of the windows. The crowd is loudly talking about something and making some kind of request to the Metropolitan.
“What do you need from me,” asks the archpastor, “and what kind of petitioners are you?”
“We are departed souls and came to you with a request: leave us a priest and do not remove him from the parish.”
The impression of this dream was so great that Filaret could not get rid of it upon awakening and ordered the condemned priest to be called to him. When he appeared, the Metropolitan asked him:
- What good deeds do you have behind you? open it for me.
“No, Vladyka,” answered the priest, “I am worthy of punishment.”
- Do you remember the dead? - the Metropolitan asked him.
“Well, Vladyka, I have a rule: whoever submits a note, I always take out pieces about them at the proskomedia, so the parishioners grumble that my proskomedia is longer than the liturgy, but I really can’t do otherwise.”
The Eminence limited himself to transferring the priest to another parish, explaining to him who was the intercessor for him (“The Wanderer,” 1862, May).
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“But who can count,” exclaims St. John of Damascus - all the evidence found in the lives of holy men, in the descriptions of martyrdoms and in divine revelations, clearly showing that after death, prayers performed for them and alms given for them bring the greatest benefit to the deceased" ("The Word of Those Who Reposed in Faith" - Chr. reading, 1827, part 26.).
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