John of Kronstadt: the saint who conquered the passion of smoking. How I quit smoking

Holy Fathers on smoking

Man has perverted the very pleasures of the senses. For the sense of smell and taste, and partly for the breath itself, he invented and burns almost constantly a pungent and odorous smoke, bringing this, as it were, a constant censer to the demon living in the flesh, infects the air of his home and the outside air with this smoke, and first of all is saturated with this stench yourself - and here you are, the constant coarsening of your feelings and your heart, constantly absorbed by smoke, cannot but affect the subtlety of heartfelt feelings, it imparts to it fleshiness, coarseness, sensuality.

Saint righteous John Kronstadt

Tobacco weakens the soul, multiplies and intensifies passions, darkens the mind and destroys health with a slow death. Irritability and melancholy are a consequence of the pain of the soul from smoking.

Venerable Ambrose of Optina

Father Silouan thanked for the offer, refusing to take a cigarette. Then the merchant began to say: “Isn’t it because, father, you refuse because you consider it a sin? But smoking often helps in an active life; It’s good to take a break from the stress of work and rest for a few minutes. It’s convenient to have a business or friendly conversation while smoking and, in general, in the course of life...” And then, trying to convince Father Silouan to take a cigarette, he continued to speak in favor of smoking.

Then, after all, Father Silouan decided to say: “Sir, before you light a cigarette, pray, say one “Our Father.” To this the merchant replied: “Praying before smoking somehow doesn’t work.” Father Silouan remarked in response:

“So, any task that is not preceded by unconcerned prayer is better not to do.”

From the history of the spread of sin

When Columbus landed on the island of San Salvador on October 12, 1492, he and his companions were amazed by an unprecedented sight: the red-skinned inhabitants of the island were releasing clouds of smoke from their mouths and noses!.. The fact was that the Indians were celebrating a sacred holiday at which they smoked a special herb (a rolled up dried leaf of it - a kind of modern cigar - was called "tobacco" among them, hence the current name) - until complete stupor, it must be added, and in this state they entered into communication with demons and then told what he said to them "Great Spirit"

Upon arrival to the homeland of our sailors, those who whispered in the ears of the Indians also whispered to these, so that they would introduce the European public to a new “pleasure”.

And so, with the favorable participation and secret excitement from demons, a literally rampant smoking fever began throughout Europe and even Asia. Whatever the government and clergy did to stop this evil, nothing helped!

Bishop Varnava (Belyaev)

About the dangers of smoking for health

Much has been said and written about the dangers of smoking. As a doctor, I will just remind you that tobacco contains about thirty substances harmful to health. The most dangerous of them is considered to be nicotine alkaloid. Among smokers, there are especially many patients with bronchopulmonary diseases. And perhaps the most dangerous consequence of smoking is lung cancer. The fact is that tobacco smoke contains carcinogens (causing cancerous tumor substances). This is, for example, benzopyrene and its derivatives.

There are many smokers. Among them are all age categories: from children to the elderly. Boys and girls smoke, women smoke, even some pregnant women smoke...

In Moscow, according to the study, the age of initiation of smoking has dropped to 10 years for boys and 12 years for girls. An unfortunate reality.

I must say that on children's body smoking has particularly harmful effects. Among other things, the teenager develops a complex of neuropsychic abnormalities. Attention, memory, sleep suffer, and mood “jumps.”

Smokers develop nicotine syndrome. This is the same addiction as alcohol and drugs, only less destructive to health. But how can I say it? After all, lung cancer is not an argument in favor of the harmlessness (according to some) of this addiction.

By the way, mention also that new classification diseases, which came into force in 1999, tobacco dependence is officially recognized as a disease. And we will add - sinful. Since smoking is self-indulgence, it is a form of self-indulgence. It is rightly said that smoking is incense for demons.

Soulful reading

The biography contains a story about the healing of his wife from a serious illness and another miracle associated with this, namely, his deliverance from the long-term vice of smoking.

“...July 7, 1909. Tonight I had a severe attack of suffocating cough. Serves it right! - this is all from smoking, which I cannot quit, and I have been smoking since the third grade of the gymnasium and now I am so thoroughly saturated with nicotine that it has probably already become an integral part of my blood. It takes a miracle to snatch me from the clutches of this vice, but I don’t have enough willpower to do it. I tried to quit smoking, didn’t smoke for two days at a time, but the result was that I was overcome with such melancholy and embitterment that this new sin became more bitter than the old one. O. Barsanuphius forbade me to even make such attempts, limiting my daily portion of smoking to fifteen cigarettes. Before I smoked endlessly...”

This was said in part 1 of “On the Bank of God’s River,” page 230. Now comes the sent manuscript 32: “Your hour will come,” said Fr. Barsanuphius, “and the smoking will come to an end.” “Hope, don’t despair: in due time, God willing, you’ll quit,” Fr. told me about the same smoking, which I couldn’t get behind. Joseph. And this miracle, according to the word of both elders, happened to me. And it was like that.

We live with my friend, my God-given wife, which is called soul to soul, in the full sense of the Gospel word, so that we are not two, but one flesh. This great mercy of God, given to us from above, according to our deep and convinced faith in the sacrament of marriage, which we both at one time approached with fear and trembling. And so, in June 1910, my wife fell ill with some strange illness, which neither the Optina paramedic nor the invited doctor could identify: in the morning she was almost healthy, but in the evening her temperature reached 40°C. And so it goes for a week, and another, and a third! I see my joy melting before my eyes, melting like a wax candle and is about to flare up for the last time and go out. And then my orphaned heart was filled with great, immeasurably great melancholy and sorrow, and I fell prostrate before the icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria of Smolensk, which stood in the corner of my office, and I cried before Her, and was horrified and sad, and told Her as if alive: “ My Mother Queen, Blessed Virgin Mary! You, I believe, gave me the wife of my angel, and you preserve her for me, and for this I vow to You never to smoke again. I make a vow, but I know that I cannot fulfill it with my own strength, and not to fulfill it is a great sin, so help me Yourself!” So it was around ten o'clock in the evening. Having prayed and calmed down somewhat, he went to his wife’s bed. He sleeps, his breathing is quiet and even. I touched my forehead: my forehead was wet, but not hot - my tender darling was fast asleep. Glory to God, glory to the Most Pure One! In the morning the temperature was 36.5°C, in the evening 36.4°C and a day later I woke up as if I had not been sick. And I forgot that I smoked, as I had never smoked, and I smoked for exactly thirty years and three years, and my whole body was so saturated with damned tobacco that I could not live without it not only for a day, but even for a minute. Isn't this a miracle of Hodegetria? Amen".

Orthodox layman Alexey Kulaev shares with us his personal experience of getting rid of tobacco smoking. His brochure describes every step of this difficult struggle. Here are collected excerpts from the Fathers of the Church and devotees of piety about smoking.

How I quit smoking (an Orthodox layman’s experience of dealing with the sins of smoking)

Moscow 2004
Blessing of the Soul Care Center in the name of the holy righteous John of Kronstadt
The confessor and head of the Center is Hieromonk Anatoly (Berestov), Doctor of Medical Sciences,
professor

Text, compilation - Alexey Kulaev, all rights reserved, 2004

Preface

The reason for the appearance of this small book was that sometimes people who want to quit smoking have to tell the same thing. And this is a rather boring task. Besides, you can’t remember everything in a conversation and you might miss something important. Therefore, if this work will help someone get rid of this slavery (which oppresses more and more over the years) and the forgotten joy of being in the “non-smoking era” will return to the person, then it will become clear why I shared my experience. You still have to quit smoking, not in “this” world, but in “that”, and a person must choose what is better: either do it voluntarily here (breaking this stupid habit forever) or suffer forever from the inability to quench his passion “there”

So let's begin.

Behind you are several attempts to quit smoking “immediately”, there may be some other “coding”, different nicotine patches, etc. Therefore, it is time to stop and seriously think about the fact that the war ahead is difficult and long. But for this the reward is also great, i.e. the return of physical and spiritual health, a feeling of freshness, an increase in, as they say, “general tone,” efficiency, creative powers and much more. In my case, this also means the disappearance of headaches and heart pain. And my friends told me that I became more friendly. In my opinion, when someone quits smoking, their lost qualities simply return.
It's worth fighting for.
Waking up in the morning, without bad breath, with strength completely restored during the night, with gratitude in the heart the thought appears: “Glory to Thee, Lord!”

STEP No. 1 How to “firmly” decide to quit smoking.

Once, in 1991, a pious woman who published Orthodox literature surprised me during a conversation by telling me that she had once smoked, and for a long time, about twenty years. (I smoked “seriously” for the same amount of time, from 15 to 35 years old). And, in the end, she decided to quit. Coming to church services, she prayed something like this: “Lord, I don’t want and can’t quit smoking, but I will still come to You and ask you to make this happen. You, Lord, please deal with this situation yourself.” By sharing such a unique prayer, she planted a seed of faith in me that the same thing could happen to me. But it took me another four whole years to become a church member to such an extent that I could begin to fight seriously.

STEP No. 2 Where should a poor smoker go?

In 1995, in mid-April, my friend Anton and I got together and early in the morning we went to the glorious city of Serpukhov, to the Vysotsky Monastery, where the miraculous icon is located Holy Mother of God"Inexhaustible Chalice" By that time, Anton (smoker for 6 years) had already quit smoking. This was the fifth time he had gone to this monastery, and this was my first time. And, in general, for the first time I went to the miraculous icon. A bright morning with a bright sun, forgotten over the winter, the breath of antiquity and the reverence that you experience already on the approach to this monastery, at the sight of only its walls, everything was conducive to prayer. That indefinable feeling of holiness that overwhelms a person when he is near miraculous icon The Most Holy Theotokos, the wondrous monastic service, the inexplicable, genuine confidence that there, in the altar, the Lord Himself was truly present, then instilled in me the expectation of future changes. This expectation seemed to be secured by the promise of the Most Pure One herself, born in my heart, that I would definitely receive not only what I asked for, but also many more wonderful gifts of God, which a person cannot even suspect.

After the Liturgy, on Sundays, a prayer service for health is served in front of the icon and then holy water is distributed to everyone. Stocked up a large number containers, all Orthodox Christians are simultaneously eager to fill them, and therefore it is more prudent to wait a little on the sidelines. Since water is constantly supplied to the vats through a hose, there will still be enough water for everyone. There you can also order a commemoration of health at liturgy and prayer services, even for a whole year, for yourself and for relatives and friends who suffer from addictions to alcohol, drug addiction and smoking.

Even then, the monastery had collected two bags with letters from thousands of grateful pilgrims who received healing from these, alas, the most common ailments, after fervent prayers at the holy image. There are cases where long-term commemorations of health brought amazing results. People of little faith and atheists, detractors and scolders of Christianity, became believers and forever parted with destructive passions through the prayers of their loved ones and the monks of the monastery.

I tried to drink the holy water brought from Serpukhov every morning throughout the entire time I quit smoking. The instant miracle I expected did not happen and I couldn’t quit smoking right away. But soon a hostility towards strong drinks, with which I sometimes had problems, and since then I have not used anything stronger than Cahors.

On Sunday, at about 7 o'clock, by train from the Kursky railway station to the Serpukhov station (travel time 1 hour 50 minutes). Immediately behind the station building on the square there is a stop for bus No. 5 (10-15 min).

STEP No. 3 First norm. The speed of running towards death decreases.

After a trip to Serpukhov, I had another conversation with my confessor about smoking, and, quite unexpectedly for me, the priest gave me obedience - to smoke no more than 10 cigarettes a day. Having the habit of smoking at least a pack, and sometimes one and a half, 10 cigarettes a day seemed like an unrealistic number. But there was nothing to do, and to begin with I gave up the first cigarette. It was a ritual morning cigarette on the way to work from the entrance to the bus stop. After some time, I managed to eliminate the second morning cigarette on the way from the metro to my place of work. But then problems began: sometimes I managed not to exceed the norm, but more often it turned out the other way around. Only three months later it was possible to record success at this figure of 10 cigarettes per day.

STEP #4 It turns out there is such a prayer

At the very beginning of “giving up” I was very lucky. On Radio Radonezh, one well-respected priest read a prayer to St. Ambrose of Optina “for deliverance from the passion of smoking,” and I was just recording this program on a tape recorder. I present it in full at the end of my story.
Every day I began to read it several times a day, especially when I really wanted to smoke, and it was still early according to the schedule.
Now about the schedule. I am convinced that it is better and easier to quit smoking with it than without it. You make a certain interval between cigarettes and strictly adhere to it. I also advise you to include a prayer to St. Ambrose of Optina in the morning and evening rule, asking for a blessing from his confessor.

STEP No. 5 “Health Day”

Having read in one Orthodox book that on the day of Holy Communion you should not smoke at all for the reason that particles of Communion may remain on a discarded cigarette butt, I thought hard and decided to try to organize a “Health Day” on the Sunday after Communion. Naturally, he asked for his father’s blessing. After the service (if, of course, you don’t just stand, but try to pray), you actually don’t really want to smoke, but when you get home and have lunch, then it starts to “pull.” Here is the time to resort to prayer to St. Ambrose of Optina, to reading the Gospel and then engage in some all-consuming activities or active recreation, creativity, reading, etc. At the same time, you can nibble on all sorts of crackers or seeds (pumpkin seeds, in my opinion, are better) .
When the “Health Day” was a great success for the first time and I went to bed without smoking from sunrise to sunset, the first experience of a new (long-forgotten old) life, a long-forgotten feeling of purity, appeared. Although I was drawn to a cigarette, what I purchased was more expensive.

STEP #6 Schedule (on the wall or on a cabinet)

When I stopped going beyond " hot tens“, then the next obedience from my father was to switch to the norm of 5 cigarettes a day. But since I knew that I had no strength for such a feat, I asked for a blessing for at least 7 cigarettes. And after that he continued to fight. It took another 2 months to get used to this norm. Gradually increasing the intervals between cigarettes, I came to the conclusion that it is best to maintain the norm of 7, and then 5 cigarettes, if the first cigarette is smoked as late as possible.

Fathers of the Church and devotees of piety on smoking

Saint Theophan the Recluse

SMOKING
1. How to look at it
Smoking is a stupid thing; there is as much moral here as there is empty bias and perceived harm. The last two features are difficult for smokers to recognize and difficult to explain to non-smokers.
It is strongly indecent, but decency and indecency, the same as people, change.
Be patient bad habit, but don’t make her a sin.
Praying for your daughter to lose the habit is a good thing. But there is no need to clothe this in special shape. Whenever you pray, cry out to God. And He will arrange it as His holy will pleases. (Issue 8, letter 1230, p. 12)
2. Harm from it
It's good to quit smoking. It is not only empty, but little by little it undermines your health, spoiling your blood and clogging your lungs. This is a gradual poisoning of oneself.

But there is no advice for this and there is no advice, other than to make a stronger decision. There is no other way.
To smoke or not to smoke is a matter of indifference, at least our and common conscience considers it so.

But when non-smoking is bound by a promise, then it enters into the moral order and becomes a matter of conscience, the failure of which cannot but trouble it. So the enemy has spoiled you. That's right, you had a good talk. The enemy advised you to make a decision, and then led you to break your word. That's the whole story! Please learn and continue to keep your eyes open. Why commit yourself to a vow? You have to say: wait, let me try to quit. God willing, I will do it. Have you ever heard advice from the holy elders: not to bind yourself to a vow? This is exactly the kind of thing it concerns. (Issue 2, letter 369, p. 240)

Venerable Ambrose of Optina

“You write that you cannot stop smoking tobacco. What is impossible with man is possible with the help of God: you just have to firmly decide to leave, recognizing the harm it causes to soul and body; since tobacco weakens the soul, multiplies and intensifies passions, darkens the mind and destroys bodily health with a slow death. Irritability and melancholy are a consequence of the pain of the soul from smoking. I advise you to use spiritual healing against this passion: confess in detail all your sins from the age of seven and throughout your entire life, and partake of the Holy Mysteries, and read the Gospel daily, standing, chapter by chapter, or more, and when melancholy sets in, then read again until the melancholy will not pass; will attack again - and read the Gospel again. “Or instead, make 33 large bows in private, in memory of the earthly life of the Savior and in honor of the Holy Trinity.”

Elder Paisiy Svyatogorets

One day, a father whose daughter was very sick visited the Elder and asked for his prayers. Father Paisiy said: “Okay, I’ll pray, but you also do something for the child’s health, if you can’t pray as you should. At least stop smoking, at least force yourself to do this.” And he readily left his cigarettes and lighter right on the stasidia in the Elder’s church.

Saint Nicodemus the Holy Mountain

“If some consider smoking tobacco not to violate the norms of decency and good manners, then let them at least listen to modern ethical philosophers, who very strongly condemn such opinions, rightly asking, in what way is politeness and good manners manifested here? Has anyone seen anything reasonable? living creature, which would smoke a pipe filled with smoking and foul-smelling grass, and would emit clouds of foul-smelling tobacco smoke, as if it were a burning stove? In this form, a person is likened to a dragon, and this mythical beast allegorically depicts the devil” (...).

Smoking is a spiritual passion: by nature, smoking is unusual for a person in the same way as, say, eating, drinking, or having a family. We can probably say that smoking is a kind of antipode to prayer. The Holy Fathers call prayer the breath of the soul. Concentrating a person’s mind in himself and in God, it gives him true peace, purification of the mind and heart, a feeling of spiritual strength and vigor. Smoking, associated with the body's breathing, causes surrogates of these feelings. And the very symbol of prayer—smoking fragrant incense—very clearly expresses the opposite of the fragrance of incense—the use of a foul-smelling devil’s potion.”
“During God’s services they burn incense, how come the slaves of sin could not invent some kind of incense? The first is pleasing to God, but the second should be pleasing to God’s enemy—the devil.”

Holy Righteous John of Kronstadt

“Instead of the fragrance of incense in churches, the world has invented its own fragrance of tobacco, and diligently fumigates itself with it with greed, almost eats and swallows it, and breathes it, and smokes its entrails and its dwellings with it, produces an aversion to goods

Oh, how carefully the devil and the world sow with their tares the field of Christ, which is the Church of God. Instead of the Word of God, the word of the world is diligently sown, instead of incense - tobacco. Poor Christians! They completely fell away from Christ.

Venerable Leo of Optina

…Once among those present there was a man who admitted that he had not fulfilled his elder’s orders. He did not quit smoking, as the Elder ordered him. Father Lev threateningly ordered to take this man out of his cell.

Venerable Silouan of Athos

In 1905, the Athonite elder Silouan spent several months in Russia, often visiting monasteries. On one of these train journeys, he took a seat opposite a merchant, who, with a friendly gesture, opened his silver cigarette case in front of him and offered him a cigarette.
Father Silouan thanked for the offer, refusing to take a cigarette. Then the merchant began to say: “Isn’t it because, father, you refuse because you consider it a sin? But smoking often helps in an active life; It’s good to take a break from the stress of work and rest for a few minutes. It’s convenient to have a business or friendly conversation while smoking and, in general, in the course of life...” And then, trying to convince Father Silouan to take a cigarette, he continued to speak in favor of smoking.

Saint Philaret of Moscow (Drozdov)

“Quit your smoky habit! It won’t be easy for you, but don’t rely on yourself: call on God for help and for God at once - certainly right away - cut off the evil!”

“Did A. give up his smoky habit? And if he follows it even secretly, it will not be good. I wish him to win victory over the worthless grass and smoke."

“Is it permissible for the minister of the Christian altar to bring stench to it at the unnatural whim of the consumed poisonous herb, and should not the one preparing for this service first beware so as not to leave in himself a habit incompatible with the dignity of the service?”

Priest Alexander Elchaninov

From letters to youth
The baseness and vulgarity of the motives of those who start smoking are to be like everyone else, the fear of ridicule, the desire to give themselves weight. At the same time - the psychology of a coward and a swindler. Hence the alienation from family and friends. Aesthetically, this is vulgarity, especially unbearable for girls. Psychologically, smoking opens the door to everything prohibited and vicious.

Smoking and any kind of anesthesia overshadow our sense of purity and chastity. The first cigarette is the first fall, the loss of purity. It is not false puritanism, but a direct feeling and deep conviction of this that prompts me to tell you this. Ask anyone who smokes - undoubtedly, the beginning of smoking was in some sense a downfall for him.”

Metropolitan of Moscow Macarius (Nevsky)

“An addiction to one will entail an addiction to another: from smoking tobacco a young man turns to wine; from one glass of wine - to drunkenness; from wine to cards and other passionate games; from here - to idleness, to theft, to robbery; and from here the road to the prison.

Are we, approaching the new century, already standing on an inclined plane, about to roll down it irrevocably? Have we, the children of the nineteenth century, really gone so far in disdain for the good old and holy customs that the twentieth century will not give us or our descendants a return to these good customs? Is it possible that the zealots of piety have lost hope of ever seeing the leading people of our Christian society living the same life with the simple, but kind and, for the most part, pious people, with their churches, with their posts, with their holy antiquity?

***
The Patristic tradition tells of an ascetic of piety who labored during the time of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. This schema-monk somehow had a vision of an unclean spirit, who said that soon people would burn incense with their mouths to him (the unclean one). The ascetic wrote: “Will people put coals in their mouths?” The demons testify to the same thing now: “Smokers have not only my smoke, but also fire” - From the notes of Hieromonk Panteleimon.

Archbishop John (Shakhovskoy)

Apocalypse of petty sin

But I have this against you, that you left your first love. (.)

A petty sin, like tobacco, has become such a habit of human society that society provides it with all sorts of conveniences. Where can you find cigarettes! Everywhere you can find an ashtray, everywhere there are special rooms, carriages, compartments - “for smokers”. It would not even be an exaggeration to say that the whole world is one huge room, or rather one huge carriage in the interstellar spheres: “for smokers.” “They smoke” - everyone sins petty and calmly: old and young, sick and healthy, scientists and simple... Before execution, the criminal is allowed to smoke a cigarette. As if there is not enough air in the earth’s atmosphere, or it is too fresh, you need to create some kind of smoky, poisonous air for yourself and breathe, breathe this poison, revel in this smoke. And so everyone gets drunk. So much so that a “non-smoker” is almost as rare as “never lies”, or “doesn’t rise above anyone”... The tobacco market is one of the most significant in world trade, and every year millions of people work to provide opportunity for other millions and millions - to inhale acrid smoke, to anaesthetize their heads and entire bodies.

Is it in human nature to commit the petty, narcotic sin of “smoking”? The question itself seems strange. Is it human nature to go against nature? Is it natural to drug yourself? Governments prohibit the enjoyment of cocaine, but encourage it with tobacco. Minor sins are permitted by human law; they do not lead to prison. Everyone is guilty of them, and no one wants to throw stones at them. Tobacco, like “little cocaine,” is permitted, like little lies, like unnoticeable untruths, like killing a person in the heart or in the womb. But that is not what the Revelation of God says—the will of the Living God. The Lord does not put up with a little lie, not a single murderous word, not a single adulterous look. The small grass of iniquity is as accursed before the Lord as the great tree of crime. Many small falls into sin are undoubtedly heavier for a person’s soul than several great ones, which are always remembered and can always be removed in repentance. And a saint, of course, is not one who does great deeds, but who refrains from even the smallest crimes.

It is easier to start a fight against great sin, it is easier to hate its approach. There is a well-known case with the righteous Anthony of Murom. Two women came to him: one lamented her one great sin, the other smugly testified to her innocence in any great sins[1]. Having met the women on the road, the elder ordered the first to go and bring him a large stone, and the other to pick up some smaller stones. A few minutes later the women returned. Then the elder said to them: “Now take and put these stones exactly in the places where you took them from.” The woman with the large stone easily found the place; where she took the stone, the other circled in vain, looking for nests of her small stones, and returned to the old man with all the stones. The perspicacious Anthony explained to them that these stones express... For the second woman, they expressed numerous sins to which she was accustomed, considered them for nothing and never repented of them. She did not remember her petty sins and outbursts of passion, and they expressed the joyless state of her soul, incapable of even repentance. And the first woman who remembered her sin was sick of these sins and removed it from her soul.

Many small, unworthy habits are mud for a person’s soul if he affirms them in himself or recognizes them as an “inevitable” evil, against which it is “not worth” and “impossible” to fight. This is where the soul falls into the trap of the enemy of God. “I am not a saint,” “I live in the world,” “I must live like other people” ... - the aching conscience of a believer calms itself. Man, man, of course, you are not a saint, of course, you “live in the world” and “must live like all people”, and therefore - be born like all people; die like them, look, listen, speak like them, but why would you break the Law of God - “like them”? Why would you morally not smell so fragrant “like them”? Think about it, man.
How difficult it is for the soul to move from a false but habitual thought. The psychology of this atheistic world has become so deeply ingrained in the mental world of modern man that with regard to sin and crimes against God’s Laws, almost all people act in the same way - “according to the cliché.” The saddest thing is that evil has inspired people to call the demands of sin “the demands of nature.”

The requirement of nature is to breathe, eat in moderation, keep warm, devote part of the day to sleep, but do not narcotize your body in any way, it is pointless to become attached to a mirage, to smoke.
After all, one has only to think honestly about this question, and evil itself floats to the surface of conscience. But the fact of the matter is that to modern man there is no time to think about the only important question concerning not this small 60-70 year life, but the eternity of its immortal existence in new, great conditions. Absorbed in a completely misunderstood “practice,” modern man, immersed in his practical, earthly life, thinks that he is really “practical.” A sad delusion! At the moment of his inevitable (always very close to him) so-called death, he will see with his own eyes how little practical he was, reducing the matter of practice to the needs of his stomach and completely forgetting his spirit.

In the meantime, a person really “has no time” to think about the basic moral laws of your life. And, poor man, he himself suffers unspeakably from this. Like a child who constantly touches the fire and cries, humanity incessantly touches the fire of sin and lust, and cries and suffers, but again and again touches... not understanding its state of spiritual childhood, which in the Gospel is called “blindness”, and there is real blindness of the heart in the presence of physical eyes.

Humanity kills itself through sin, and every person does the same. Overwhelmed, agitated by evil, unbridled by lower instincts, humanity is preparing a terrible fate for itself, like every person who follows this path. Those who sow the wind will reap the storm. And over this, over the only important thing - “there is no time” to think... “Live for the moment”, “what will be, will be” - the soul brushes aside the truth itself, inside it telling it that it needs to enter into itself, concentrate, examine the attachments of its heart and think about your eternal fate. The Creator of the world ordered man to take care only of the day; the world tells us to care only “about the moment,” plunging a person into a sea of worries about his whole life!

The topic of the morally small is not small at all. Here is a reflection of God’s apocalyptic reproach to the Christian world that it has “forgotten its first love.” How much purer and morally superior to man is now even the shaken nature from which his body was created. How pure is the stone, ready to cry out against people who do not give glory to God, how pure are the flowers and trees in their wonderful circle of life, how magnificently submissive are the animals to the Law of the Creator in their purity. God's nature does not smoke, does not take drugs, does not debauch, does not poison the God-given fruit. Wordless nature teaches a person how to bear the Cross of obedience to God amid all the storms and sufferings of this life. A person needs to think about this.
Some people think that everything that happens here on earth will have no consequences. For a person with a guilty conscience, of course, it’s more pleasant to think this way. But why deceive yourself? Sooner or later you will have to see the dazzling mystery of the purity of the universe.

We experience ourselves as “life”. Do we really regard ourselves so petty and understand so shallowly the One who created the worlds in order to think of this earthly bustle of life as the existence of man? We are much more and higher than what we are accustomed to consider here, on the naked earth, not only as our lives, but even as our ideals. But we are: a grain placed in the ground. And therefore, we are now unable to see the surface of the universe, that true picture of nature that will open to Our eyes at the moment of so-called death, i.e. very soon for everyone.

What is death? Death is not a coffin at all, not a canopy, not a black bandage on an arm, not a clay grave. Death is when the sprout of our life crawls out to the surface of the earth and stands under the direct rays of God's sun. The grain of life must die and germinate here, in the earth. This is the so-called “birth in the spirit” in the Gospel, the “second birth” of a person. The death of the body is the leaving of a sprout of the earth, an exit from the earth. Any person who has received at least the smallest spiritual leaven, even the most insignificant gospel pearl “inside himself,” will not face death at all, and even far from death. For the dead in spirit, of course, coffins, graves, black bands are all realities. And their spirit will not be able to come to the surface of true life, for they did not die on earth for themselves, for their sins.

Like an egg, we are closed from the other world by a thin shell of the body. And our shells break one after another... Blessed is the man who turns out to be alive, formed for future life body. The condition of someone who turns out to be a formless liquid is worthy of crying... and may even be disgusting in its moral smell!

Here on earth, we are truly in the darkness of the spirit, in its “womb”. And is it really not criminal, being in such a state, not to prepare for your real birth, but to consider your darkness as either an ideal, extremely joyful place of life (as optimistic atheism believes), or an incomprehensible place of meaningless suffering (as pessimistic atheism believes)?
The meaning, of course, is not visible to physical eyes, but it is very easy, more than easy to believe in it, after thinking about yourself and the Gospel. All nature screams about this meaning; Every awakened human soul begins to scream about him.

How carefully all of us, “non-sprouted” people, must treat each other... How we must protect this germination in each other, this exit into the free air, under God’s sun!
Man is terribly responsible for everything, and it is difficult to theoretically imagine the misfortune of that person who, having lived atheistically on earth “as if nothing existed,” suddenly finds himself face to face with a reality not only brighter than this earth of ours, but even superior all our concepts of reality... Didn’t the Lord suffer for these souls in the Garden of Gethsemane? In any case, he accepted the suffering of the Cross for them too.

If the visible heaven did not separate us from the invisible heaven, we would shudder at those inconsistencies of spirit that exist between the angelic triumphant church and our earthly church, almost non-militant, flabby human souls. We would be horrified and would clearly understand the truth that is incomprehensible to us now: what the Lord Jesus Christ did for us and what He does for each of us. We imagine his salvation almost theoretically, abstractly. But when would we see, on the one hand, the snow-white hosts of lightning-ray pure spirits, fiery, fiery, burning with unimaginable love for God and striving for the salvation of all creation, and, on the other hand, would we see the earth with its hundreds of millions of half-people, half- insects, with hearts directed only to the earth, people devouring each other, proud, voluptuous, money-loving, intractable, possessed by dark forces clinging to them, we would be horrified and trembled. And we would be presented with a clear picture of the absolute impossibility of salvation by “natural” means.

The reasoning of occultists about the evolutionary movement of reincarnating humanity would seem upward to us, in best case scenario, crazy. We would see that the darkness over humanity is not thinning, but is thickening... And we would understand what the Creator incarnate on their earth did for people. We would see how ears of corn, even with one grain, are taken to heaven by the heavenly reapers, that the slightest spark of Christ already saves this person. They would cover up everything dark with an unimaginable love for God and strive for the salvation of all creation, and, on the other hand, they would see the earth with its hundreds of millions of half-people, half-insects, with hearts directed only to the earth, people devouring each other, selfish, voluptuous, money-loving, intractable, possessed by dark forces clinging to them, we would be horrified and trembled. And we would be presented with a clear picture of the absolute impossibility of salvation by “natural” means.

The reasoning of occultists about the evolutionary movement of reincarnating humanity in man is like a single grain in a spikelet nods, is cut off, only one spark is taken, and it becomes the eternal life of a person. Glory to the salvation of Christ! Truly, we have nothing in ourselves except our human dignity lying in the dust. And from this dust we arise by the grace of Christ and are carried into heaven as a spark. But we are carried away if this spark of love for God has been lit in us, if we are able to push our soul away from everything mortal in the world, are able to notice this mortal in the slightest, and also push it away from ourselves. Sensitivity to the smallest things in ourselves will be an indicator of the health of our soul. If atoms actually contain precise solar systems, then this is the ty of all sin: small and large.
The conversation about the need to reject even the smallest sin leads us to the very important issue human life: the question of life after death.

The revelation of the Church asserts that a soul that has not been freed from one passion or another will transfer this passion to the other world, where, due to the absence of a body (before the resurrection), it will be impossible to satisfy this passion, which is why the soul will remain in the constant languor of self-combustion, the constant thirst for sin and lust without opportunities to satisfy her.
The gastronome, who in his earthly life only thought about food, will undoubtedly suffer after his death, deprived of carnal food, but not deprived of his spiritual thirst to strive for it. The drunkard will be incredibly tormented, not having a body that can be satisfied by pouring alcohol, and thus a little calm the tormented soul for a while. The fornicator will experience the same feeling. A money lover too... A smoker too.

Easy to do experience. Let the smoker not smoke for two or three days. What will he experience? A certain torment, softened by all the relationships and entertainments of life. But take away life and its entertainment... Suffering will worsen. It is not the body that suffers, but the soul living in the body, accustomed to satisfying its lust, its passion through the body. Deprived of satisfaction, the soul suffers. This is how, of course, the soul of a rich sinner suffers, suddenly deprived of wealth, a lover of peace, deprived of peace, the soul of a proud person, who received a blow to his pride... How many suicides have occurred on this basis! All this is experience, the bare experience of our earthly life. Already here on earth, we can perform experiments on our soul. Every person should be far-sighted. You need to protect your home from undermining ().

Feeling this, is it really possible to calmly indulge in passions or even divide them into serious and “innocent”? After all, fire is still fire - both a blast furnace and a burning match. Both are painful for the person touching them and can be fatal. We need to understand this undoubted truth that every passion, every malice, every lust is fire.

God's Law has placed the instincts of the human body within a framework, and gives true direction to the strong-willed and irritable energies of the soul, so that a person can comfortably and easily move toward spiritualization. What to call that person who, understanding all this, treats his passions calmly and frivolously, excuses them, lulling all signs of saving sensitivity in his soul.
We must, first of all, stop justifying our lust - even the slightest, we must condemn it before God and ourselves. We must pray for deliverance, for salvation. Savior The Lord is called a savior not in the abstract, but in reality. The Savior saves from all weaknesses and passions. He delivers. He heals. Absolutely visible, tangible. Heals, forgives. Forgiveness is the healing of what needs to be forgiven. It is given only to those who hunger and thirst for this truth. Those who simply want, smoldering in their desire, are not given healing. It is given to those who have a burning, flaming, begging, striving heart. For only such people are able to appreciate the gift of God’s healing, not trample it and give thanks for it, and sensitively protect in the Name of the Savior from new temptations of evil.

Of course, smoking is a very small lust, just as a match is a small fire. But this lust is also repugnant to the spirit, and it is impossible to even imagine any of the Lord’s closest disciples smoking cigarettes.

“Destroy small lusts,” say the saints. There is no acorn that does not contain an oak tree. So it is with sins. The small plant is easily weeded out. The big one requires special tools to eradicate it.

The spiritual meaning of smoking and all the small “justifiable” illegalities of the spirit is licentiousness. Not only the body, but also the soul. This is a false reassurance of oneself (one’s “nerves,” as they sometimes say, not fully realizing that nerves are a carnal mirror of the soul). "Calming" leads to everything greater distance from true peace, from true consolation of the Spirit. This reassurance is a mirage. Now - while there is a body - it must be constantly renewed. Afterwards, this narcotic calm will be a source of painful captivity of the soul.

You need to understand that someone who “takes out” his anger, for example, also “calms down.” But, of course, only until a new attack of anger. You cannot calm yourself down by satisfying your passion. You can calm yourself down only by resisting passion, by refraining from it. You can calm yourself down only by carrying the Cross of struggle against every passion, even the smallest, the Cross of its rejection into your heart. This is the path of true, solid, faithful and - most importantly - eternal happiness. Rising above the fog, he sees the sun and an eternal blue sky. He who has risen above the passions enters the sphere of the world of Christ, an indescribable bliss that begins here on earth and is available to every person.

Mirage happiness is a cigarette. The same as getting angry at someone, being proud of someone, painting your cheeks or your lips for people, stealing a small piece of sweets - a small penny from the church dish of God's nature. There is no need to look for such happiness. Their direct, logical continuation: cocaine, hitting a person in the face or shooting him, counterfeiting value. Blessed is the man who, having found such happiness, pushes it away with righteous and holy anger. This demonic happiness reigning in the world is a harlot who has invaded the marriage of the human soul with Christ, the God of Truth and pure blissful joy.
Any consolation outside the Spirit of the Holy Comforter is that insane temptation on which the organizers of human paradise build their dreams. The Comforter is the Creative Spirit of the Truth of Christ alone.

It is impossible to pray in spirit while smoking a cigarette. It is impossible to preach while smoking a cigarette. Before entering the temple of God, a cigarette is thrown away... but the temple of God is us.
Whoever wants to be a temple of God every minute will throw away the cigarette, like any false thought, any unclean feeling. The attitude towards a small spiritual movement in oneself is a thermometer of the fervor of a person’s faith and his love for God.

One can imagine such a life example: tobacco, as a plant, has no evil in it (like gold dust, like cotton from which banknotes are made). Apricot is God's plant. Alcohol can be very useful for the human body at certain moments and in certain doses, without at all contradicting the spirit, like moderate tea or coffee. Wood, the material from which furniture is made, everything is God's... But now let's take these terms in the following combination: a man is lounging in an easy chair and smoking a Havana cigar, every minute sipping from a glass of apricotine standing next to him... Can this person in such a state carry on a conversation? about the Living God - say a prayer to the Living God? Physically - yes, spiritually - no. Why? Yes, because this man is now dissolute, his soul has drowned in an armchair, and in a Havana cigar, and in a glass of apricotine. At this moment he has almost no soul. He's like prodigal son Gospel, wanders “in distant lands.” This is how a person can lose his soul. People lose it all the time. And it’s good if he finds it again all the time, fights so as not to lose it, trembles over his soul, as over his beloved baby. The soul is the infant of immortality, defenseless and pitiful in the conditions of the world around us. How you need to press your soul to your chest, to your heart, how you need to love it, destined for eternal life. Oh, how you need to clean even the slightest stain from it!

Now an example was presented of the impossibility of preserving one’s soul by voluptuously distributing it among surrounding objects: armchairs, cigars, liquor. The example taken is especially colorful, although there are even more colorful ones in life. But if you take not a colorful one, but a gray one, but of the same licentious spirit, everything will remain the same atmosphere, in which it would be a lesser sin to remain silent about Christ than to speak about Him. This is the answer to why the world is silent about Christ, why neither on the streets, nor in salons, nor in friendly conversations do people talk about the Savior of the Universe, about the One Father of the world, despite the many people who believe in Him.

It is not always a shame to talk about God in front of people; Sometimes before God it is a shame to talk about Him to people. The world instinctively understands that in the environment in which it finds itself all the time, it is less of a sin to remain silent about Christ than to speak about him. And so people are silent about God. A terrible symptom. The world is flooded with legions of words, the human language is obsessed with these empty legions, and - not a word, almost not a word about God, about the Beginning, the End and the Center of everything.

For to speak about God is to immediately expose oneself and the whole world. And if the word about God is nevertheless spoken, it is difficult to finish it - both in front of oneself and in front of the world.

If a person does not have disgust for his small sins, he is spiritually unhealthy. If there is disgust, but “there is no strength” to overcome the weakness, it means that it is left until the person shows his faith in the fight against something more dangerous for him than this weakness, and it is left to him for humility. For there are many people who are seemingly blameless, who do not drink or smoke, but are like, in the words of Climacus, “a rotten apple,” that is, filled with obvious or secret pride. And there is no way to humble their pride except by some kind of fall. But those who, for one reason or another, “allow” themselves minor sins will remain outside the Kingdom of God and its laws. Such a person, “putting his conscience to sleep,” becomes unable to cross the line of the true life of the spirit. He always remains like a young man approaching Christ and immediately leaving him with sadness, or even sometimes without sadness, but just to... “smoke”!

Rigorism and puritanism are alien to the evangelical spirit. Pharisee righteousness without love is darker in the eyes of God than any sin. But the lukewarmness of Christians in fulfilling the commandments is just as dark. Both those who practice Pharisees and those who trade and smoke in the temple of God are equally expelled from the temple.
For the will of God is “our sanctification” (1. Thess. 4, 3). A sensitive conscience itself will sharpen its vision to detect that alien dust that lies on the wounds of the soul.
The Son of God and the Son of Man gave us one commandment for thirst: “Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” In it, the Lord seems to say: People, I do not give you a measure - determine it yourself. Determine for yourself the measure of your love for My purity and your obedience to this love.

Prayer Venerable Ambrose of Optina

About getting rid of the passion of smoking

Reverend Father Ambrose, you, having boldness before the Lord, beg the Greatly Gifted Master to give me quick help in the fight against unclean passion.
God! Through the prayers of Your saint, Venerable Ambrose, cleanse my lips, discipline my heart and fill it with the fragrance of Your Holy Spirit, so that the evil tobacco passion will run far away from me, back to where it came from, into the belly of hell.

Troparion, tone 5

Like a healing source, we flow to you, Ambrose, our father, for you faithfully instruct us on the path of salvation, protect us from troubles and misfortunes with prayers, comfort us in bodily and mental sorrows, and, moreover, teach us humility, patience and love, pray to Christ the Lover of Mankind and Intercessor Eager to save our souls.

Kontakion, tone 2

Having fulfilled the covenant of the Chief Shepherd, you inherited the grace of the elders, your heart aching for all those who flow to you with faith. Likewise, we, your children, cry out to you with love: Holy Father Ambrose, pray to Christ God to save our souls.

Your own(from diaries 1873):

(Fr. John smoked approximately 2 cigars a month.)

Clergy:
+ “Do not be indignant at the disturbances caused by your subordinates or parishioners or foolish children in the church, but calmly, undisturbed, perform the Divine service, even if someone began to create disturbances maliciously. You must be responsible for yourself, and not for others: because the elderly have reason and free will. Today, during Matins, I was outraged in spirit because of the sexton’s exit to smoke during the service and was completely upset, I could hardly serve: so the enemy, the devil, outraged, upset, embarrassed me, taking advantage of the occasion - the sexton’s exit from the church, and seducing me. look at him coming back. Oh, it would be better not to see him! My heart wouldn’t hurt. - And yesterday I was indignant because of the screaming of the children at the great entrance. It’s absurd again!” (June 1868)

“There are networks of hostility everywhere: yesterday I went to see the priest of the Hospital, Fr. Vladimir Fedorovich Krasnopolsky, and his apartment was heavily smoky tobacco smoke. I stayed in it for half an hour, drank tea, but from the stinking, smoldering air of tobacco, saturated with foul, lifeless, dead acid, I weakened my nerves extremely, clogged my chest, lungs, and with difficulty served the all-night vigil in the Assumption Church (in the Duma). It seemed that the evil one and the unclean one entered my insides with this smoke. Yes, he really nests in such an air: after all, incense is brought to him, living in the flesh of lust: before he smelled incense, living in inanimate idols, and now he takes incense for himself, living in the flesh of lustful people" (May 15, 1877)+

via kalakazo
Alexey Pluzhnikov - about the diaries of St. John of Kronstadt: “So, the first general impression of what I read. It feels like the author has a severe form of Alzheimer’s. And not only does a person wake up every day and begin to live and think anew, but several times a day. Only this can explain 19 volumes of text, which can easily be put into one small volume, without loss of content, because the author constantly writes the same thing several times a day, and maybe once a day, but in different paragraphs.

There is also a persistent idea that Father John thinks only about himself. Everything he writes revolves only around his personality. An impression of extreme egocentrism. John himself says that he only needs God, but even God is needed insofar as he needs him. All the world around us, all people, all life are only means for John to be with God. This makes a depressing impression.

Probably 90-95% of diary entries are devoted to “spiritual” matters - relationships with God, repentance, reflections on salvation - one’s own and the whole world, spiritual fruits from communion, demonic attacks and the fight against them. This is what Orthodox publishing houses love to replicate, making countless “spiritual” collections with quotes from John, forming the image of a great spiritual ascetic and writer.

But upon closer examination, it becomes clear that everything spiritual that he writes revolves around an extremely limited number of topics, he only endlessly repeats the same thing, however, he does it so passionately, ardently - or rather, as sober people notice, hysterical - that it creates the impression of something new, surprisingly original.

But he has no original thoughts. Moreover, for those who have read the works of the holy ascetic fathers on correct spiritual life, it becomes obvious that the direction of Father John’s spiritual life directly contradicts the advice of experienced ascetics. Yes, here the zealots will shout that Father John has a “special path” - and you won’t object to anything. Special, of course. But is he an example for other Christians? - Doubtful.

About repentance

The main thing in John's diaries is his attitude towards repentance. And so it seems extremely different from the approach that is usually offered to all other Christians. He believes that in order to fight sin and passion, you need to painstakingly look at every microscopic movement of the soul, thought, feeling. From the outside, the degree of this painstakingness looks like a sign mental illness. All the pages of the diaries are full of this: how he thought about something, the “enemy” “embarrassed” him for this, he prayed, overcame the enemy, a second later a new thought - attack - prayer - repentance - overcoming... And then John came home and scribbled dozens of pages, describing it all, savoring it, looking at it from all sides, looking for causes and consequences... And... and it all started in a circle.

Any priest will immediately say: oh, people like that often come to confession! With notebooks or long scrolls of “sins”, with dark circles under the eyes, with the expression of a beaten dog on an exhausted face... Usually these are women - in shapeless black skirts, wrapped in scarves, in men's shoes and with a backpack on their back. You recognize the type, right?.. A nervous neophyte who hit her head on “spirituality.”

This is the most important thing - his notorious struggle with sin and the “enemy” for 17 years shows absolutely no fruit. He is spinning in a whirlwind of hysterical passions, yes, of course, he is aware of them, but again and again he throws himself into this whirlwind in order to fight again and write about it again - how he defeated the enemy. Excuse me, but maybe it was worth standing on the sidelines at least sometimes? Exhale, catch your breath, look at yourself from the outside? The diaries provide food for the conclusion that the cause of all spiritual struggle is not passions or demons, but John’s own hysterical, frenzied nature. And the reasons for this hysteria are extremely banal. Let's take a look into his life.

The general mood of John’s personality, in my opinion, is this: “I don’t need anyone but God. Everyone must be loved, of course, but only because they are members of the Body of Christ.” Everything else in his life flows from this idea.

With such an internal dispensation, John Sergiev simply had to become a monk. Or ask for celibate ordination. Yes, Father Alexander Gorsky became the first celibate priest in 1860, five years after the ordination of Father John; we can say that this was an unusual thing. And it seemed that he even wanted to become a monk and missionary, but then that famous dream happened in which he saw himself serving in Kronstadt Cathedral... And, as the writer said, “wrap everything up...”. (By the way, John later was very fond of quoting his dreams and drawing all sorts of spiritual conclusions from what he dreamed. Instead of, on the advice of his fathers, imputing his dreams as nothing.)

So, John decides to become a priest by marrying Elizaveta Konstantinovna, the daughter of the Kronstadt archpriest, whose place in the cathedral John received. And along with the place and his wife, he received an additional father-in-law and other relatives of his wife, an apartment and a long-term psychosis called: “I must love and respect my relatives!” He repeated this mantra year after year, convincing himself.

“The most unfortunate creature”, “the wife is most pitied” - this is how our readers characterize the “virgin marriage” of John and Elizabeth. And indeed - a poor wife.

So unhappy that for the first time I came across her name in John’s diaries (I could be wrong, experts will correct me) in the 12th volume... And even then it was mentioned in passing. The second time in the same volume the wife's name was mentioned only to distinguish her from her sister Anna. (But he repeats the name of Anna’s sister-in-law, “Anna Konstantinovna”, “Annushka” many times in his diaries, and John is much more concerned about the relationship with her than the relationship with his wife, even to the point of sexual arousal from looking at her portrait... Although, however, later Anna was given away in marriage, and the relationship began to resemble a battlefield.)

For John, a wife is simply “wife.” He regularly admits that his wife loves him, takes care of him, “caresses” him (in the sense of respecting him and treating him kindly), and that he “should love her.” Must. But I have never met simple words: "I love". Never. Only “should.” Why should I? Because “she too is a member of the body of Christ.” Because we must love everyone like a Christian...

And when he had sexual desires towards his wife, he reproached himself for them, saying, “You have God’s love, don’t waste your time.” Moreover, he considered even the dream in which he entered into a sin a sin. sexual relations with... my wife.

He made the following cause-and-effect relationship: my wife loves me. God put this love in her. Therefore, we must thank God for this and... love God. Great logic. The wife's opinion and desire were completely ignored. In her place there could be a dog, a horse - it doesn’t matter.

We can say frankly: she is not his wife, but his cohabitant. In the most natural sense: she simply lives with him in the same apartment and serves him. No different from her sisters or maids.

It seems that Elizaveta Konstantinovna is worthy of canonization no less than her husband - as a passion-bearer. Because, as the saying goes, a righteous man appeared at home, and everyone else turned into martyrs.

Mommy

But John’s attitude towards his mother is strikingly different from his attitude towards his wife. Maminka is a “shrine”, Maminka is “second after God” for him. Respect and all love are due to her. Of course, over the years it is clear that he is embarrassed by her simplicity and rudeness, she sometimes irritates him, like any simple-minded old woman, but all the same: my mother is a deity, and my wife is, well, a wife...

Wife's relatives

John treats his relatives (father-in-law-archpriest, brothers and sisters of his wife) in the same way as he treats her: “I must, I must, thanks to my father-in-law I received an apartment, a wife, a place, a position, an income... I must, I must, I must, should...” From year to year this refrain sounds, how grateful he should be. And behind the scenes you feel: “how it infuriates me to be grateful!”

But the attitude towards relatives cannot be understood without the main passion of Ioann Sergiev - food.

I have never seen such hypertrophied interest in my diet before. This is the most natural cult of food, fetishism, idolatry. In this, John reminded me of a spider that spins a complex web of gastronomic causes and effects. Bad or prodigal dream- because of what he ate harmful product. A sinful thought - I ate too late. He became embittered, enraged - tea or coffee is to blame. I could not say something clearly or loudly at the liturgy - the combination of products was incorrect.

This perverted picking at your plate and your stomach simply puts you in a stupor: you don’t know whether to laugh or feel sick. Because Father John also engages in crazy food experiments, such as mixing beer with milk, or drinking three glasses of tea at a time along with three cups of coffee, and then thoughtfully notes that this is “not good.”

Not only does he derive all sins and passions from food (“milk is fornication, meat is fornication, sweet tea is fornication,” and almost everything is fornication), but he can contradict himself on one page. Either his sweet tea is fornication, or it is healthy. Either milk is harmful and fornication, then milk is necessary and beneficial for him - and so on ad infinitum.

But the craziest passion, which Father John, of course, recognizes and calls it himself, is “sugar passion.”

A lot becomes clear in his life and in particular in his relationships with his family when you know about this passion. The main complaint against relatives is that they eat it up, and eat it up in sweets, and specifically in sugar. He looks into the plate, mug and mouth of his father-in-law, after the death of his father-in-law - his wife's brothers, Alexei and Konstantin, he is infuriated that someone will eat an extra piece of sugar, drink an extra glass of sweet tea, and so on. When he praises someone, for example, Anna Konstantinovna, it’s because she’s kind - she gave me a glass of milk, but didn’t eat the jam to her brother...

He treats guests and servants the same way - he worries that they will eat everything... He immediately reproaches himself, understands everything, realizes it, and still: the absurd greed for sweets literally drives him crazy.

And now another question arises for John’s spiritual life: where are you, spiritual wisdom? After all, the elementary law of asceticism: if something madly tempts you, remove it from your life, if possible. Yes, you cannot remove relatives or lustful thoughts, but can you remove sugar? If sugar is fornication, why do you fornicate every day? If milk and cream are fornication, why do you revel in it every day? If tea “drives away the Holy Spirit” (!!) - why do you pour several glasses into yourself?.. Why do you preach daily abstinence, fasting, avoidance of fornication (and John preached all this passionately, ardently, denouncing wicked gluttons and drunkards -fornicators so, wow!), if in this sense you yourself are like a fighter against onanists, who hung his room from floor to ceiling with porn pictures, looks at them around the clock and...

And, well, yes, then he repents, realizes and sobs into the paper with pathetic phrases with countless exclamation marks. Yes. Instead of just stopping buying sugar.

Is this a spiritual struggle? Is this holiness? In my opinion, this is perversion and psychopathy.

Remember the pious story that is replicated in the lives: young John fell ill, the doctor told him to eat meat to improve his health during Lent, and John asked his mother by telegram for a blessing if it was possible. And the strict mother replied: “It’s better to die, but don’t eat meat during Lent!”

Remember, right? I also remember and used to admire the faster John. Until I read the diaries, in which he directly says that for the sake of his health, he allows himself, his beloved, to regularly eat milk, cream, meat, butter, etc. during Lent. And although, of course, he repents of this, he does not do it too hard, because his own health is extremely important to him.

And the fact that John’s wife and relatives do not fast does not bother him too much either. On the contrary, he even manages to draw a conclusion from this in his favor: they say that if they are frugal, they will get full faster and eat less.

Judging by the diaries, Father John was an alcoholic. No, he didn’t go on weekly binges, he didn’t fall into delirium tremens, did not lie under the fence, and was even offended when the abbot suspected him of drunkenness, but for him it was in the order of things to drink “vodka, sherry and champagne” at the same time during the day, and then immediately go to baptize, serve a prayer service or an all-night vigil... A glass at night - another vodka, wine or beer is not a problem at all, he perceived drinking as medicine. And he was even indignant at his sister-in-law Anna Konstantinovna, who, such a toadstool, did not give wine to her husband, also a priest. Because of this, they say, he has all his illnesses, but before he and I “drank sherry for the glory of God and for our consolation!”

But he is a fierce fighter against drunkenness.

And even when I was young on the 40th, I was indignant when our dads drank in the popovka, and then went to baptize or to the all-night vigil with an akathist with red eyes and a slurred tongue - so they are real ascetics, it turns out, true followers of the righteous saint...

Father John quit smoking when he was a young priest. And he turned into an ardent denouncer of smokers, even going so far as to wish smokers to breathe tobacco smoke instead of air. Because of smoking, he had a permanent war with his father-in-law, the archpriest, and after the latter’s death, with his wife’s brother Konstantin, both of them smoked in the apartment. He was furious, indignant, reproaching...

And then bam: he writes about how he smoked a cigar. And then bam: “I indulged in a cigarette and offered it to such and such a lady.” And then again, and then again.

And then - denounce. But what?

What do the lives tell us? Father John was unmercenary, gave thousands of money to the poor, nothing lingered in his hands, helped various parishes, monasteries, built houses of industriousness... Yes, everything is so, let’s not deny it. True, the diaries also say that, even as the third priest in the parish, Father John earned more than good money.

He received money for services - from the fraternal circle, proskomedia money, for confession, for the sacraments (there were several weddings, baptisms, funeral services a day). He received decent money for services at home, including some kind of prayer to a woman in labor, which was read for five minutes, but he received a ruble for it.

He received a salary from the gymnasium where he taught. He received some money from the court where he sat. He regularly quarreled with the rector and other members of the clergy over money, and was terribly worried that the sexton would steal money from the plate while John himself was serving. And he is still a young priest, not widely glorified as a great philanthropist.

The financial stratification between the cathedral clergy of Kronstadt and the village clergy is clear from his diaries: he denounces his brother, the second cathedral priest Matthew, for being greedy, money-loving and collecting for himself “more than tens of thousands of rubles”! But he is indignant not because Matthew collects them, but because he does not want to do good to the poor, following the example of John himself.

At the same time, John, talking with someone on the topic spiritual development villages, proposes to send educated young priests to the villages, and for their maintenance “tax the peasants.”

The righteous saint considers all this to be quite normal - his income of thousands and the poverty of rural priests, and to correct the situation he proposes to enslave the peasants even more - instead of redistributing income by supporting the poor with rich parishes. Apparently, modern city cathedral priests-oligarchs are the true disciples of John: this, they say, is ours, blood, and their poverty is their problem.

Yes, he struggles with his love of money (and with others too - envying and condemning his fellow members of the cathedral), yes, he gives money to the poor, yes, he does good deeds. But friends, let’s canonize the criminal brothers and oligarchs who build churches, give money to charity and “for the kids”? Why are they worse?..

Priesthood and kingdom

Everyone knows that John was a monarchist. But his monarchism, judging by his diaries, was one step away from John being able to be called the founder of Tsardomism, for his regular comparisons of the king and royal family with God, the Trinity and calling kings “earthly gods” is alarming.

Particularly impressive the most important moment in his spiritual liturgical life: it is extremely important for him to “pronounce the royal family” at the great entrance or at another commemoration. A lot revolves around this: if he didn’t speak clearly and loudly, or missed someone, or stumbled, then this is an indication of demonic attacks that happened as a result of his sins, and sins - as a result of poor nutrition and... in a circle.

But John sometimes allowed himself to slightly criticize representatives of the royal family and even scolded the Tsar-Father himself (in his diary), this cannot be taken away.

Regarding his attitude towards the rich, noble, military - it is clear that John came from the very bottom, he is afraid of the nobles, but this angers him, so he dares himself to loudly and boldly denounce them - by boldly saying prayers for the royal family in their presence...

In general, John has a clear division of all people into the clergy and the world. He considers the clergy - or rather, himself - superior to any other layman, be it noble, or rich, or anyone else. He constantly hypes himself up: I am a priest! I am a shepherd! And they are all sheep! And I herd them! I am a “cherub”, protecting the holy secrets from the wicked!

It was precisely this approach of his that subsequently gave birth to all these “old men” who began (and continue) to “Kronstadt” using his style: loud denunciation of sinners, threats of God’s punishment, screaming, hysterical prayer, indomitable external behavior to the public - “like a prophet”, fixation on a detailed confession to the point of straining out a mosquito and a microbe, indicating that the laity are nothing before the priest.

Education

The diaries clearly indicate that Father John was the most banal, most natural obscurantist. In front of his mother from a distant Arkhangelsk village, he, of course, considers himself a scientist, educated (after all, he graduated from the Academy), but he understands that his “learning” is insignificant compared to secular ones. And he takes up arms against secular education, and takes up arms completely. For him, all educated scientists are atheists, liberals, fanatics, debauchees, rebels against the king, destroyers of the empire and full of all other shortcomings. If it were his will, he would completely abolish all education except spiritual education, which includes only the Law of God, liturgics, obedience to the king and priests, and flogging of students according to priests.

I repeat: John is an obscurantist to the extreme. He doesn’t read anything new, doesn’t want to know anything, doesn’t want to learn. He is very poorly educated in the spiritual sphere; it is clear from his diaries that his level is still that of a rural sexton who has risen high by memorizing Greek and the catechism. He sincerely believes that if he is given an archpriest, then this will be a legitimate reason for him to leave teaching at the gymnasium and start compiling “scientific works” describing “all” holidays, services, Old Testament history, etc. As if the archpriest would give him reason or knowledge.

But, judging by the quotes in his diaries, sometimes John enthusiastically listened to stories or read the yellow press about some hot stuff, like how an officer hacked to death his mistress who was kissing a coachman, or how someone got drunk on vodka on a dare and “died in field". This worried him and led to profound spiritual conclusions.

His attitude towards other Christian denominations was also extremely obscurantist: even Catholics, even Lutherans, even Anglicans are equal to pagans for him. Moreover, the Mohammedans are much closer to him, because, unlike the Lutherans, they fast... So here too we see him as the founder of the modern sentiments of some of the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church, who are ready to fraternize with Muslims rather than with fellow Christians.

John realizes the extreme degree of temper of his character. But he sees the reason for this in “scrofulousness” and poor nutrition.

Because of his hysteria, he was capable of quarreling with his wife over the smallest trifles, leaving the house in anger, and wandering around to calm down.

He could start yelling at someone, stomping his feet.

He could throw at the annoying beggars “the epitrachelion in which the missal was wrapped.”

But the most disgusting thing: he could - and regularly did this - pull a beggar, a maid, by the hair, but most often - children, beggar children. Every now and then (with contrition, of course) he writes how he not only tore her hair (in a woman’s way), but pulled it so hard that the child fell to the ground, or that he hit a girl in the face...

Yes, one can, in justification, recall the cruel Bursak upbringing, through which John himself, without a doubt, went through; one can recall the very attitude towards raising children at that time, when rods were considered in the order of things. But girls being hit in the face by a righteous saint is too much for me personally. Sorry..."