Today's liturgical hymn was burning out above the ground. “Let all human flesh be silent, and let it stand with fear and trembling.”

The evening earth fell silent. At home, glass doors of icons were opened. I asked my father:

What is this for?

This is a sign that the doors of heaven open on Easter!

Before matins began, my father and I wanted to get some sleep, but we couldn’t. They lay on the bed next to each other, and he told how he had to celebrate Easter in Moscow as a boy.

Moscow Easter, son, mighty! Anyone who has seen her once will remember her to the grave. The first strike of the bell from Ivan the Great will ring out at midnight, as if the sky with the stars will fall to the ground! But the bell, son, contains six thousand pounds, and it took twelve people to swing the tongue! The first strike was timed to coincide with the striking of the clock on the Spasskaya Tower...

The father gets out of bed and speaks about Moscow with a trembling voice:

Yes... the clock on the Spasskaya Tower... The clock will strike, and immediately a rocket soars into the sky... followed by firing from the old guns on the Tainitskaya Tower - one hundred and one shots!..

Ivan the Great spreads across Moscow by sea, and the rest of the forty-forty echo him like rivers in flood! I’ll tell you, such a power floats above the Mother Throne that it’s as if you don’t walk, but sway on the waves like a small sliver! Mighty night, like the thunder of the Lord! Hey, son, don’t describe Easter Moscow in words!

The father falls silent and closes his eyes.

Are you falling asleep?

No. I look at Moscow.

Where do you have it?

Before my eyes. How alive...

Tell us something else about Easter!

I also had the opportunity to celebrate Easter in one monastery. In its simplicity and splendor it was even better than the Moscow one! One monastery is worth something! All around there is an untrodden forest, animal trails, and near the monastery walls there is a river splashing. The taiga trees look into it, and the church is built from strong resinous logs. For Bright Matins, a great many pilgrims gathered here from the surrounding villages. There was a rare custom here. After matins, girls with candles went out to the river, sang “Christ is Risen,” bowed at the waist to the river water, and then stuck the candles to a wooden round and floated them down the river one by one. There was a sign: if the Easter candle does not go out, the girl will get married, but if it goes out, she will remain a bitter century-old!

Just imagine what a miracle it was there! In the middle of the night, a hundred lights float on the water, and then the bells are ringing and the forest is noisy!

“Enough of your chatter,” my mother interrupted us, “you better get some sleep, otherwise you’ll be standing at matins like little sons!”

I had no time to sleep. My soul was filled with a premonition of something inexplicably huge, resembling either Moscow or a hundred candles floating along a forest river. He got out of bed, walked from corner to corner, interfered with his mother’s cooking and kept asking her:

Are you going to church soon?
- Don’t spin around like a slanted spindle! - she flared up quietly. - If you can’t wait, then go, don’t mess around there!

There are two whole hours until Matins, and the church fence is already full of children.

A night without a single star, without wind, and seemingly terrible in its unusualness and enormity. Easter cakes in white scarves floated along the dark street - only they were visible, but there were no people.

In the dimly lit church, near the Shroud, there is a line of hunters to read the Acts of the Apostles. I also joined. I was asked:

Well, then start first!

I went up to the lectern and began to write out: “I wrote the first word about Theophilus,” and I could not pronounce “Theophilus.” He became confused, lowered his head in embarrassment and stopped reading. They came up to me and made a remark:

I wanted to try it!..

You better try the Easter cakes,” and they pushed me aside.

There was no standing in the church. He went out into the fence and sat down on the steps of the temple.

Is it Easter somewhere? - I thought. - Does it hover in the sky, or does it walk outside the city, in the forest, along swamp hummocks, pine leaves, snowdrops, heather and juniper paths, and what image does it have? I remembered someone’s story that on the night of the Holy Resurrection of Christ a ladder descends from heaven to earth, and along it the Lord descends to us with the holy apostles, saints, passion-bearers and martyrs. The Lord goes around the earth; blesses fields, forests, lakes, rivers, birds, man, beast and everything created by His holy will, and the saints sing “Christ is risen from the dead...” The song of the saints scatters like grains on the earth, and from these grains thin fragrant lilies of the valley arise in the forests...

The time was approaching midnight. The fence is buzzing more and more with conversation. Someone came out of the church gatehouse with a lantern.

It's coming, it's coming! - the guys shouted furiously, clapping their hands.

Who's coming?

Beller Lexandra! Now it's going to crash!

And he banged...

From the first strike of the bell, it was as if a large silver wheel rolled on the ground, and when its buzz passed, another rolled, and after it a third, and the Easter night darkness swirled in the silver hum of all the city churches.

The beggar Yakov noticed me in the dark.

Bright ringing! - he said and crossed himself several times.

The church began to serve the “Great Midnight Office.” They sang “The Wave of the Sea.” Priests in white robes lifted the Shroud and took it to the altar, where it will lie on the throne until the Feast of the Ascension. The heavy golden tomb was pushed aside with a roar, to its usual place, and in this roar there was also a significant, Paschal sound, as if a huge stone was being rolled away from the Holy Sepulcher.

I saw my father and mother. He approached them and said:

I will never offend you! - he pressed himself close to them and exclaimed loudly: - How fun!

And the Easter joy kept expanding, like the Volga in the flood, about which my father spoke more than once. Tall banners swayed like spring trees in the sunny wind. They began to prepare for the procession around the church. From the altar they brought out a silver altar cross, a golden Gospel, a huge round bread - artos, the raised icons smiled, and everyone's red Easter candles were lit.

There was silence. It was transparent and so light that if you blew on it, it would vibrate like a cobweb. And in the midst of this silence they sang: “Thy Resurrection, O Christ the Savior, the angels sing in heaven.” And to the accompaniment of this inspiring song, the procession began to flow with lights. They stepped on my foot, dropped wax on my head, but I felt almost nothing and thought: “that’s how it’s supposed to be” - Easter! Easter of the Lord! - sunbeams ran through my soul. Huddled close to each other, in the darkness of the night, along the streams of the Sunday song, showered with ringing bells and warmed by the lights of candles, we walked around the church, white with hundreds of lights, and stopped waiting at the tightly closed doors. The bells fell silent. My heart sank. His face flushed with heat. The earth has disappeared somewhere - you are standing not on it, but as if in the blue heavens. What about people? Where are they? Everything turned into jubilant Easter candles!

And now, something huge, something I couldn’t grasp at first, has happened! They sang “Christ is Risen from the Dead.”

They sang “Christ is Risen” three times, and the doors of the high door swung open before us. We entered the resurrected church - and before our eyes, in the glow of chandeliers, large and small lamps, in the sparkles of silver, gold and precious stones on the icons, in the bright paper flowers on Easter cakes - the Lord's Easter flashed! The priest, enveloped in incense smoke, with a clear face, exclaimed brightly and loudly: “Christ is Risen,” and the people answered him with the roar of heavy, icy snow falling from a height - “Truly He is Risen.”

Grishka found himself nearby. I took his hands and said:

Tomorrow I will give you a red egg! The best! Christ is Risen!

Fedka was standing nearby. He was also promised a red egg. I saw the janitor Davyd, went up to him and said:

I will never call you a “martyr sweeper.” Christ is Risen!

And the words of the Easter canon flew through the church like lightning. Every word is a spark of cheerful rapid fire:

“Let the heavens rejoice with dignity, let the earth rejoice, let the world, visible and invisible, celebrate, for Christ has risen, eternal joy.”

My heart swelled with joy - near the pulpit I saw a girl with blond braids, whom I had noticed while carrying the Shroud! Not myself, I approached her, and blushing, lowering my eyes, I whispered:

Christ is Risen!

She became embarrassed, dropped the candle from her hands, reached out to me with a quiet flame, and we said Christ... and then we were so ashamed that we stood for a long time with our heads bowed.

And at this time, the Easter word of John Chrysostom thundered from the pulpit:

“If anyone is pious and God-loving, let him enjoy this good and bright celebration: Christ is Risen, and life abides!”

Dogmatic theology (Kastalsky-Borozdin) Archimandrite Alypiy

VII. Time and eternity

VII. Time and eternity

The account of the creation of the world in the Bible begins with the words: in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth(Genesis 1:1). The “beginning” we are talking about here is the first moment in which the spiritual and material world arises. This moment marks the beginning of the time of the Universe, but the moment itself is elusive to thought. Time presupposes a certain duration, or process, in which past, present and future can be distinguished. But there is no temporal duration in a moment, it is indivisible, therefore a moment is timeless. According to the thoughts of St. Basil the Great, “just as the beginning of a path is not yet a path and the beginning of a house is not yet a home, so the beginning of time is not yet time and not even the smallest part of time.” This is the line between eternity and time. A moment is a “breakthrough into eternity,” because the present is without change, without duration, and represents the presence of eternity.

Thus, the action of the Divine will in the creation of the world was instantaneous and timeless.

The initial moment, which the 1st verse of the book of Genesis speaks of, is the point at which the eternal Divine will comes into contact with the created world. From now on, the world arises and changes, its change gives rise to time. “Time is reckoned from the creation of heaven and earth,” says St. Maximus the Confessor. And without the world there is no time, since in eternity there is duration and consistency. “For what is time,” asks St. Augustine, “if not various successive and consistent changes to which all of us and the whole world are subjected with unconditional necessity?” If there were no these changes, that is, if there were no creatures in which they occur, there would not be time itself. There was no time at all before the origin of creatures, but it appeared only with creatures, therefore it is more correct to say that God created the world not in time, but along with time. When asked what God did before the creation of the world, St. Augustine answered: “I will not answer as... one cunning man answered, that God prepared eternal torment for those who dare to experience the depths of incomprehensible mysteries,” and then continued: “Since God - Creator and time, it is a mistake to assume that there was some time before creation. There was no time before the creation of heaven and earth, and in this case it is unreasonable to pose the question: what did God do then (before creation)? Without time, “then” is unthinkable. Time is preceded not by time, but by the “non-lasting height of ever-present eternity.”

The time we live in has a beginning and an end. There will come a moment in the life of the world when there will be no more time (Rev. 10:6). Saint John of Damascus writes that “time after the resurrection will no longer be counted in days and nights, or, better said, then there will be one non-evening day.” After the Second Coming, creation will join eternity, but the very createdness of the world presupposes an endless, albeit timeless process of perfection of creation in its ascent to God. Therefore, the eternity of the created world after its transfiguration, according to St. Maximus the Confessor, is a created eternity that had a beginning. It is, as it were, motionless time or an ever-lasting moment. Saint Dionysius the Areopagite says that God alone can be called eternal, but the eternity of creation is eternity, which is something between time and eternity.

Eternity enters into the conditions of our time. It is no coincidence that the holy fathers avoid sharply contrasting time and eternity. Both had a beginning, so time and eternity are in a certain sense proportional. Time can be viewed as a sequence of moments, each of which participates in eternity. Eternity is stopped time, and time is moving eternity. According to St. Gregory the Theologian, when we bring the beginning and end of time into unity, we come to eternity.

We can experience communion with eternity in prayer. When, having forgotten everything material, a person comes before God in prayer, then time seems to not exist for him.

Also, by partaking of the Divine Eucharist, we unite with the Risen Christ, each in our own measure, join the Kingdom of His glory and enter eternity.

If the Bible says that for God a thousand years are like yesterday (Ps. 89:5), then it does not at all follow that two thousand years are two days for the Lord. God, as already mentioned, is above the conditions of space and time. He is eternal and His eternity exceeds both created eternity and the moving time of the Universe. Saint Dionysius the Areopagite writes that God “rules eternally, for he precedes eternity and surpasses it, and His Kingdom is the Kingdom of all ages.”